'It's very special to me': Oilers superfan shows off collection of a lifetime

Edmonton Oilers superfan Tina Duncan is an avid collector of the team's memorabilia who has transformed her basement into a fan's paradise.

Duncan's love of the game started young; since she was three years old she's been cheering for the Oilers.

"My family were hockey fans, my parents grew up in Montreal, but when they moved out west and had my brothers and I, we all just adopted the Oilers," Duncan said.

She started playing street hockey with her brothers as a kid, having to take on the role of goalie. Since then, she's come to love that position and played on teams.

"My brother told my dad that he should put me in a league and at the time there wasn't any girls teams, so I played community league," Duncan said. "When I was older, they didn't allow girls to play, so I went into ski racing…when I was 21, I got back into hockey and I played on a women's team in Jasper and just loved it.

"I play the occasional beer league game now."

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She's been collecting memorabilia since high school, her first piece being a crested Roman Hamrlík jersey.

"I just liked the style of play and I met him and he was such a super nice guy and I said, 'You know what? Nobody has a Hamrlík jersey,'" Duncan said.

Her basement fan cave now contains many special pieces, including seats from Northlands Coliseum and a rather unique carpet.

"When I moved in here the carpet was really ratty and pulling up and stained and I just thought well, 'I want Oiler carpet,' but where am I going to go to get it," Duncan said. "So I contacted a few carpet stores and End of the Roll carpet superstore said, 'Oh, well we're the official outfitters of Rogers place, we can get you the same carpet that's in the Oilers locker room,' and I thought, 'Sign me up.'

"The general manager came over, we spent about an hour and a half just brainstorming, this is my own idea, it's copyrighted, nobody can steal it and we made it happen."

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Some of her favourite pieces are from Gretzky, McDavid and Khabibulin. Khabibulin, who was a Winnipeg Jet when she became a fan, was the player she pretended to be while playing street hockey with her brothers.

"I won a craziest fan contest in 2012, and I got to meet an Oiler of my choice… I wanted to meet Khabibulin," Duncan said. "The Oilers organizer said, 'Well, he's very superstitious, he doesn't like to do meet and greets, so pick a backup player just in case he says no.'

"She told him how big of a fan I was, so he agreed to do it, he came out and he signed my jersey."

She also got a stick from Khabibulin at that meet and greet and a glove from him at the next game.

"Move aside McDavid, I'm here for the goalies," Duncan laughed.

Duncan is also a billet mom for two players: one is an Oilers fan who loves the setup and the other is a Flames fan.

"When I first saw the basement, I really thought that it was incredible to see how much (Oilers stuff) you can actually buy," said Hudson Enns, a Canadian Sport School Hockey League player.

The Oilers play Game 5 in their playoff series against the Los Angeles Kings Wednesday at 7 p.m. Edmonton leads the series 3-1.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Matt Woodman