Team had help breaking Anaheim curse
Coaches take page from Major League to finally win a game at Honda Center
Calgary Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan wouldn’t reveal the exact number.
But like most men of a certain age from a certain era, the 46-yearold native of Hudson Bay, Sask., admits he has watched the movie Major League “a couple times.”
Matt Stajan says it was a staple, like most sports cult movies are, on a hockey bus.
And while it wasn’t teammate Kris Versteeg’s favourite movie growing up, it was his brother Mitch’s favourite, so he’s seen it enough to recite a few scenes.
Plus, you know, if he’s flipping through channels on a Saturday afternoon, and it happens to be on … hey, why not?
As for fellow Calgary Flames forward Michael Frolik?
“To be honest, no,” said the 29-year-old, sheepishly. “I didn’t see that one.” So then, the Jobu figurine and the reference to Pedro Cerrano’s difficulty with a curve ball (“I can no hit curve ball”) and the movie clips were lost on the native of Kladno, Czech Republic?
“I was a little bit (confused) and didn’t know exactly what was going on,” Frolik said with a grin. “But I kind of get the point.” The point was, of course, to attempt to make light of the team’s horrible record at Anaheim’s Honda Center and address the issue of the Flames’ 29 straight losses (including playoffs) in that building, rather than simply brush it off.
Of course, the media never forgets the facts and the line of questioning — “Why can’t you win there?” — usually begins before the Flames arrive in Orange County.
But this time, Gulutzan and his staff were armed.
“We’re always looking for stuff,” Gulutzan said.
“We were talking during the regular season (last year) about the curse and all the stuff you guys make up — the media. So it didn’t mean that much to us. But then we just thought, ‘Let’s deal with it.’ We’re always looking for (video) clips. Major League is always one that we use for different things, so we thought, let’s bring in Jobu.”
A replica of the one used in the movie by Dennis Haysbert’s voodoo-practising character who defected from Cuba was ordered online in the spring.
On Monday morning at the Honda Center, before Calgary’s third game of the 2017-18 campaign, Gulutzan mentioned they brought in “someone” who “wasn’t very big” to help them with the losing skid. He wouldn’t say anything more.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the media, the team had created a nameplate for Jobu and found a stall for him. “Between Chips (video coach Jamie Pringle) and Siggy (goaltending coach Jordan Sigalet) and I, we stumbled on Jobu and decided to put him in our locker-room,” Gulutzan said. And what did the players think? “I knew right away,” Versteeg said.
“I had a good laugh. They showed the clips, and it was pretty funny. It kind of took our mind off the questions and the reality for a bit.”
The reality was the Flames had not won in that building during the regular season since Jan. 19, 2004, making it 25 regular-season losses in a row.
The last time they won in the playoffs at the Honda Center was April 25, 2006.
“Every time we played in Anaheim at the Honda Center, everyone knew about the streak, so we were just trying to avoid it,” Stajan said. “And they brought in Jobu.
“If you’ve watched that movie, you’d know he helps break curses, and we talked about it. We watched a clip.”
So, naturally, when Sean Monahan scored in the second period, Mikael Backlund sealed the deal in the third period and Mike Smith stopped 43 shots en route to a 2-0 win over the Ducks to end the curse, the answer was clear.
“Hey, Jobu got the job done at the end of the day,” Gulutzan said with a grin.
“You can say what you want and make fun of it, but hey, I think Jobu had something to do with it.”