Being Mama Stanley is no easy feat for St. Albert’s Mary Loewen.
Two Oilers blazers, check. Chrome makeup, check. Tinsel wig, got it. Finally, the crowning glory: a homemade Stanley Cup hat she wears on her head, adorned with 3,500 sequins, each individually pinned on with little nails.
“It took my daughter and my grandson’s girlfriend a long time to make that,” she said.
“Every time I go to Rogers, it’s always my head that sets the security off.”
Always a sports fan, she came to adore the Oilers only after a moved from Saskatchewan to Edmonton back in 1983. Up to then, she’d been a New York Islanders fan.
But then.
“They were playing in 1984 for the Cup, the Islanders and the Oilers. Being in the city was so awesome and electrifying, I got Oiler fever,” she said with a happy lilt in her voice at the memory.
“I went down to the coliseum, and you could feel the pandemonium. Rexall was vibing, it truly was,” she said.
Oilermania brought some light into a challenging life for Loewen, mother of a daughter, Katrina, and a son.
Ryan Iron Eagle, had contracted pneumococcal meningitis at six months of age. As a result, he’d grow but never walk, nor gain the least bit of independence.
Perpetually in need of care, Ryan was a lot of work, but never a burden, with everyone in the family chipping in devotedly, including his new stepdad.
“Me and my grandson were watching Avatar, where a guy in a wheelchair couldn’t walk, but in his mind he went to a place where he could walk and run.
“My grandson said, ‘Don’t you wish we could do that with Uncle Ryan?’” she recalled.
Her sweet son always seemed to love the buzz generated by Oilers game day, she recalled.
“He’d laugh and get silly —he could feel the excitement,” she said.
One very rare day, the family got to be close to the players. Along came an idol—and Mark Messier bent to attend the smiling young man in the full-size stroller.
“Mark talked to him as a person, even though Ryan couldn’t understand,” she said. “He said, ‘Hey, little buddy!’ … My heart just melted.”
“Just the way he talked to him, he bent over and talked to him, laughing and getting silly with him. It was a beautiful moment, I have to say. I will never, never forget it.”
In Loewen’s household, the whole family’s life revolved around Ryan.
Ryan Iron Eagle succumbed to pneumonia on Sept. 21, 2013. He was 28.
After a 28-year career as a 24-7 caregiver for her ill son, supplemented with cab driving when her husband was off shiftwork, Mary Loewen was lost without the familiar routines of tending to Ryan’s most basic needs, making sure he was okay.
“We were all lost, for a year, even two years—we were so scheduled,” she recalled.
“When he passed away, there was nothing to do any more.”
Ryan’s innocent presence was engraved on their hearts forever. Every year, they celebrate his “angelversary” with cake and balloons.
One steady, unifying routine keeps Mary’s family smiling; game day, and her abiding—and contagious—affection for the Oilers.
“I just get pumped, first of all. Then I put my makeup on—face paint, wig, outfit, I’m good to go,” she said.
She dresses as “Mama Stanley” for every game.
At the San Jose game, the last season game of the year, she brought a sign she made that read “Stanley Cup, Here We Come.”
It got a rousing cheer when it turned up on the big screen TV.
If there’s a secret to being a “super fan,” it may be holding fast to conviction.
And Loewen is a patient woman.
“If there’s two minutes left in the game, I’m still cheering ‘em on. I don’t give up,” she said.
Sunday when the Oilers were down 3-0, some of the young people got a bit quiet at the watch party.
“I told them, ‘I know they’re going to win. You just got to believe,'” she said,.
And sure enough.
“I think they do have the magic,” she said. “Absolutely, it’s magic.”
She has had the good fortune to meet some of the old Oil—Messier. Steve Smith. Craig McTavish.
“I haven’t met any of the new Oilers, though … I love ‘em, they’re such an amazing team. I think they’re going to do it this year,” she said.
Like every Mama, Loewen has her favourite. She loves Mattias Ekholm maybe just a bit more than the other players.
“I think he plays awesome, I just think he’s here to win the Cup with us,” she said.
“But I love ‘em all.”
