On to the next bubble ...

When you've spent a significant amount of time around the Olympics, World Cup soccer, Super Bowls, Grey Cups and so many other events, you can't help but be familiar with the condition.

It's called event depression.

For weeks and months, and even years in the case of an Olympics, organizers work with ferocity, totally focused on the finish line.

Then it's over.

Mentally, and sometimes even physically, when the adrenalin stops pumping, people crash.

In many cases, there's an added factor. When the Olympic flame goes out, your contract runs out.

That's about to happen, other than the unemployment part in most cases, with the NHL's 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs having come to a conclusion.

Stu Ballantyne and Tim Shipton — the point people from start to finish appointed by Tom Anselmi and Bob Nicholson of the Oilers Entertainment Group (OEG) to head the project — would be the two most likely to suffer from event depression … if they only had the time.

Ballantyne and Shipton have to turn right around and put a team together to do it all over again, to build another bubble and set up another hockey hub city for the Dec. 26-Jan. 5 IIHF world juniors in Edmonton.

For Shipton, OEG's senior communications vice-president, event depression is a new experience. For Ballantyne, OEG's senior operations VP, it's something he's familiar with. Ballantyne previously worked on the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, a B.C. world juniors tournament and several Vancouver Molson Indy events.

Before they forged ahead, the two were intent on surveying the final scene as the Tampa Bay Lightning carried the Cup around Rogers Place on Monday, enjoying a level of satisfaction they didn't expect when they started.

“It's been an amazing project,” said Ballantyne.

“We didn't know what we were getting into when we started. Our people and our facility have been amazing. As much as we had to think on our feet, especially in the early days, it's really worked out well.”

Ballantyne remembers the beginning.

“I got a call from Tom and Bob telling me the league was considering it and that we might want to compete for this. That was somewhere around the third week of April. We started building a concept from there,” he said. “In the beginning, there was no bid process. As we went along, there were so many big markets involved that we knew we were going to have to outhustle everybody.

“It was really wild in the early days and you never felt comfortable because of the competition. When it looked like there were going to be four hub cities, we felt fairly comfortable. When it went down to two, we had our moments of heartburn. We just kept pushing and pushing. Ultimately, we were successful.”

Ballantyne added: “We just kept telling them, `We can do this,' every time something came up.

“We were in bid mode and it pivoted on the dime to execution mode because the NHL, and rightly so, waited and waited on the COVID-19 situation. It was fairly late in the process they selected the two hub cities.”

Monday was Day 78 since the NHL people arrived and Shipton knew there was going to be emotion when that group departed.

“It's definitely bittersweet. We've made friendships that will last a lifetime,” he said.

The two knew being selected to be hub city for Western Conference games and both conference finals and the Stanley Cup final would be great exposure for Edmonton, but didn't really expect the extent of it.

It'll take years to realize the impact of the beauty shots of Edmonton in the summer and early fall. But it will be almost immediate in another area.

“One of the great things has been to showcase Rogers Place as a world-class facility,” said Shipton.

“I can tell you that our phones have been ringing off the hook from so many different leagues and different sports organizations looking at Edmonton for their training and to set up shop for their competitions moving forward.

“It wasn't a goal or an objective as such, but there's already evidence unfolding that Edmonton is going to be the place for a lot of events to happen that we hadn't considered. They're looking at us now because of this, saying, `Hey, they know how to do it. It's safe. They have the expertise.' I think there's going to be more to come on that front in very short order.”

There may be those who suffer from event depression but there's nothing to be depressed about in Edmonton. This was a total triumph.