EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — While the Oilers are in the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2006, their home city and arena have hosted the NHL's championship series much more recently.
Edmonton's Rogers Place and surrounding ICE District made up one of the two playoff bubbles put together to complete the 2019-20 season during the pandemic, serving as the site for the first two rounds in the West, the conference finals and then the Cup final.
Four years since that surreal experience, several players who made runs of varying degrees in an empty arena are back in this final between the Oilers and Florida Panthers, which is quite the opposite with orange-and-blue clad fans packing the building.
“Obviously, it was a different experience than it is now,” said Florida's Carter Verhaeghe, who hoisted the Stanley Cup in 2020 as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning. “With the fans and everything, it makes a big difference (with) traveling (and) home-ice advantage and stuff like that.”
Edmonton's Corey Perry spent 80 days in that bubble on the Dallas Stars run to the final that ended with a six-game series loss to Tampa Bay. Back playing for the Cup for a fourth time in five years, the veteran winger remembers the whole process being a challenge, particularly off the ice.
"It’s not easy: 79 or 80 days, whatever it was, in the hotel room: sitting in a hotel room, the same path to the rink, the same restaurants that were open," Perry said. “Mentally, it was exhausting and tough, but we found a way.”
Teammate Derek Ryan, who had a shorter stint with the Calgary Flames winning their qualifying round series and losing the next one, called it a mental grind.
“You’re away from everybody,” Ryan said. “You’re kind of isolated from everyone besides your team, basically. ... It’s crazy to imagine living through that. It was pretty wild."
On the ice was wild in a very different way, with tarps covering the stands and no crowd noise. Florida's Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who was in the bubble with Arizona for two rounds, said players did not have to be too loud calling out to teammates.
There was still plenty of yelling to rachet up the intensity.
“You had to create your own energy,” Perry said. “You had to create emotion. You didn’t feed off that from the fans. You didn’t hear that from the fans. It was tough. But you heard everything. And everything that was said on the ice, everybody could hear it in the arena."
In retrospect, Ekman-Larsson called it a great experience because he and so many players, coaches and staff can say they lived through it — and hope to never do anything like that again.
“We got the chance to play hockey during a pandemic, so I think we were fortunate to do that,” Ekman-Larsson said. “It was crazy times, but we’re happy to be here now with two sold-out buildings and a lot of fun.”
Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov was cleared to play in Game 3 Thursday night after leaving midway through the third period of his team's Game 2 victory following a high hit from Edmonton star Leon Draisaitl. Barkov practiced each of the past five days and did not have to go into concussion protocol.
“It’s never easy when someone like that goes down, especially in a huge part of the game with nine, 10 minutes left,” forward Sam Reinhart said. “It shows to the character of him and how bad he wants it, as well, to get back and not really miss much else. ”
Having Barkov, the Selke Trophy winner as the league's best defensive forward during the regular season and a candidate for the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, in the lineup is a big deal for the Panthers because of the impact he can make all over the ice.
Coach Paul Maurice said on the road, where he does not have the last line change to control matchups, Barkov can shine offensively.
AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL
Edmonton Oilers fans Jayson Wood, left, and his son Peyton, 13, pose outside the arena to cheer on before Game 3 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Finals against the Florida Panthers in Edmonton, Alberta, Thursday, June 13, 2024. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP)
FILE -0 The Dallas Stars and the Tampa Bay Lightning warm up before the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Finals in Edmonton, Alberta, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2020. The Edmonton Oilers are in the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2006. But the NHL's championship series has been in the northern Alberta city much more recently. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
LONDON (AP) — King Charles III on Wednesday will deliver the British government’s legislative program for the coming year to lawmakers with all the pomp and historic trappings that accompany the ceremonial opening of Parliament.
The question is whether Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be around to implement it and, even if he remains in post, whether he will have the authority to push his proposals through.
The embattled prime minister has been urged to set a timetable for his departure by more than a fifth of the Labour Party's lawmakers in the House of Commons. Some junior ministers have quit the government in protest, but no one has yet challenged Starmer directly.
Early on Wednesday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who is one of those widely tipped to be interested in succeeding Starmer, had a meeting with the prime minister that lasted less than 20 minutes. Streeting did not speak to reporters on his way in or out of 10 Downing Street.
Streeting is widely expected to break his silence after the King's Speech, which represents Starmer's latest effort to save his premiership after Labour suffered huge losses in local and regional elections last week. If those results were repeated in a national election that has to be held by 2029, the party would be overwhelmingly ejected from power.
Labour secured a landslide election victory in 2024, driving the Conservatives from power after 14 years, but since then the party’s popularity has plunged and Starmer is getting much of the blame. The reasons include a series of policy missteps, a struggling British economy, a perceived lack of vision on the prime minister’s part and questions over his judgment. Starmer’s choice of Peter Mandelson as U.K. ambassador to Washington despite ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has continued to haunt him.
The King’s Speech, which is written by the government, will be a moment when the historic power and grandeur of Britain will collide with the reality of the modern United Kingdom, a mid-sized country with an underfunded military, rising debt and waning international influence. It's a country struggling to control immigration and pay for public services such as health care and education.
The speech is just one element of the state opening of Parliament, a traditional set piece of the political calendar that uses carefully choreographed pageantry to showcase Britain’s evolution from an absolute monarchy to a parliamentary democracy where real power is vested in the elected House of Commons.
The speech is expected to include proposals to address the cost of living crisis, create a national wealth fund to stimulate private investment in public infrastructure and tighten rules for asylum seekers. It may also include the government’s controversial proposal to abolish jury trials for some cases in England and Wales, lower the voting age to 16 and introduce a “duty of candor” for public officials, requiring them to tell the truth and cooperate with investigations.
The problem for Starmer is that many of the proposals expected to appear in the speech have been announced previously. That raises the question of whether he will be able to win over his doubters.
Even so, the speech is the focal point of a day of ceremony and tradition that has been followed since 1852, with elements of the program dating to the 16th century.
The monarch traditionally travels from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament, a distance of less than a mile, in a horse-drawn carriage. He then dons the Imperial State Crown and robe of state before leading a procession into the chamber of the unelected House of Lords.
A Lords official called Black Rod, named for the ebony rod he or she carries, then goes to the House of Commons to summon the chamber’s members to a joint sitting of Parliament. The doors to the Commons chamber are slammed in Black Rod’s face to symbolize the chamber’s independence from the monarchy, and they aren’t opened until Black Rod strikes the doors three times.
Once members of the Commons have crowded into the Lords’ chamber, the king delivers a speech written by the government and laying out its legislative program for the coming session of Parliament.
After the speech is read and the king leaves, the two houses of Parliament begin several days of debate on its contents.
Yeoman warders take part in the ceremonial search ahead of the state opening of Parliament at the Houses of Parliament in London, Wednesday May 13, 2026. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and wife Victoria leave 10 Downing Street to attend the State Opening of Parliament at the Houses of Parliament in London, Wednesday, May 13, 2026.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Yeoman warders take part in the ceremonial search ahead of the state opening of Parliament at the Houses of Parliament in London, Wednesday May 13, 2026. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP)
Peers look on as Yeoman warders take part in the ceremonial search ahead of the state opening of Parliament at the Houses of Parliament in London, Wednesday May 13, 2026. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP)
Members of the Guards march ahead of Britain's King Charles III and Queen Camilla leaving Buckingham Palace to attend the State Opening of Parliament at the Palace of Westminster in London, Wednesday, May 13, 2026.(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
FILE - King Charles III looks up as he reads the King's Speech, during the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords in London on July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, Pool, File)
