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It was, in every sense, the kind of October night that lives on in the lore of this great game. A crisp, clear evening in Edmonton, the kind of night where the air itself seems to hum with anticipation. And when the night was finally done, it was the home team—those proud Edmonton Oilers—who sent the faithful streaming into the cool Alberta night with something to cheer about. A 10–9 walk-off victory over the Hartford Whalers, and with it, a 2–1 series lead.
The game itself was less a tidy, well-orchestrated contest than it was a nine-inning symphony of chaos. A barrage of hits, a flurry of lead changes, and in the end, one defining swing.
Octavio Alcala—steady, reliable, the kind of player who never seeks the spotlight—stood in with the game tied and a season’s worth of momentum hanging in the balance. A single up the middle. Not majestic, not thunderous. But pure. Clean. Timely. It’s the kind of moment that doesn’t need embellishment, because in the postseason, it is everything.
Hartford, to its credit, came ready to trade punches. Kevin Dineen, a force of nature, hit two home runs, drove in four, and was on base all night. Gianfrancesco Arriola added his own blast in the seventh, and the Whalers pushed nine runs across. In most games, that’s enough. But not this night. Not against an Edmonton lineup that just kept coming, with Wayne Gretzky—magnificent once again—racking up four hits, and Marty Funkhouser and Mitsuya Yamada each hammering extra-base hits in the late innings.
What began as a Hartford slugfest became, by the bottom of the ninth, an Edmonton rally. A double. A triple. A roar. And then Alcala, the walk-off hero.
If October baseball—and in this strange, wonderful world, October hockey too—teaches us anything, it’s that momentum is less a steady current and more a wave. And tonight, in front of nearly 39,000 fans at Rogers Place, that wave belonged to the Oilers.
Tomorrow night, Game 4. The series still young, but the tone unmistakable. Hartford has star power and fight. Edmonton has resilience and, now, the upper hand.
This is what October is made for. Nights like these. Moments like that swing.
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