From Ales to Tjarnqvist

Who’s the most popular Oiler? Well, Ethan Moreau rode the squees of dozens to win the Hot Off (leaving MacTavish supporters fuming). Fernando galvanized a whole city with his pants. And when he’s not dodging creepy offers from Steve Staios, Joffrey Lupul shows up at places like Save On handing out autographs to the masses. If you care for that sort of thing, there’s at least three pages of ‘answers’ to the question up at HF.

But squees are hardly satisfying as a measure of popularity. I’d rather follow the money.

As part of the nearly ubiquitous Power of Pink campaign, the Oilers recently donated autographed helmets, ballcaps, pink ties and sticks to an online auction. Eleven players provided game-used sticks from last Saturday’s match against Detroit. Both Jean-Francois Jacques and Jan Hejda donated sticks as well, but theirs are rather forlornly listed as “game-ready,” which is more that you can say for the players.

As an exercise in perfect competition, this could hardly be better: the product is homogeneous save for the distinguishing signature, the bidders all have perfect information, and entry and access are levelled. So without further preamble, here are eleven Oilers ranked from most to least popular, as measured by the pocketbook a half hour before bids closed (unfortunately, the final numbers aren't archived online):

Oiler		# Bidders	Price
	Hemsky	32	$610
	Smyth	24	$560
	Sykora	22	$500
	Moreau	19	$455
	Roloson	24	$405
	Smith	18	$415
	Pisani	25	$380
	Thoresen	26	$325
	Staios	16	$250
	Bergeron	12	$205
	Winchester	11	$165
	Tjarnqvist	11	$150