Oilers New Year Starts In Grande Fashion: About $18 Grande To Be Exact

So the Oilers lose a stinker of a hockey game against the Flames on New Years Eve. A roster player or friend (were not 100% sure who yet) recommends a Calgary restaurant for the Oilers to ring in 2010, and the Oilers walk away looking like snobbish, elite, too good for the rules, ego driven bad guys.

Deservedly or not, Happy New Year Oilers and fans.

Sure, this situation in the grande scheme of things won't affect anyone too greatly. The players spent about $300-$400 each on New Year's Eve, the restaurant got less than it charged, but a ton of national free publicity and the fans aren't directly impacted.

Let me say though, it doesn't give a lot for already frustrated Oiler fans much to cheer about.

The Oilers made their way to a trendy Calgary restaurant. Between a total of about 45 players, the team rang up what the restaurant determined to be an $18,000 bill. The Oilers felt they were overcharged, including argueing they should have been charged per bottle not per shot (amongst which about $8,000 of the bill consisted of). There was a disagreement between the team (mainly Ethan Moreau and the restaurant manager), in which the outcome was the restaurant deducted the bill, the Oilers paid the reduced amount including adding an almost $2000 tip and leaving.

No police were involved, no violence and both sides left peacefully. Yet the restaurant called the media to share their story. Even going as far to say he's so dissappointed, he'll be donating the total revenue of the Oilers party to charity.

Hmmm... Hopefully that's true, but to me it sounds like the last thing someone might do when looking to steer this situation into good publicity.

There are elements of both angles of this story to which a person might logically choose a side. The restaurant is right in that when being served shots, you pay for the shots and not the total bottles those shots added up to.

The players may be right in that with 45 people and a restaurant that agreed to lower the price of the bill, the team isn't responsible for paying the original price.

The fans meanwhile are right in being frustrated that this is not the kind of publicity the team needs and in off all places Calgary after a bad loss, which seems like a frequent occurence for the team.

A few questions come to my mind:

* Is this a big deal partly because it took place in Calgary?
* Is this a bigger issue to us because the Oilers aren't winning?
* Was there an opportunity for all sides to avoid this issue?
* Do the Oilers players really care that this situation is in the media and only we feel the need to talk about it?

My guess, is to some degree all points except the last one are a yes in some way, shape or form.