Oilers fans are gearing up for what’s hopefully a fourth-straight appearance past the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The team has developed a cult-like following unlike many others in pro sports.
Oilers fans cheer as they prepare to watch the Edmonton Oilers play the Florida Panthers during a watch party for game 7 of the NHL Stanley Cup final on Monday, June 24, 2024, in Edmonton. Photo by Greg Southam /Postmedia
The Edmonton Oilers haven’t won a Stanley Cup for 34 years despite being gifted the generational talents of Connor McDavid in the 2015 National Hockey League draft lottery; they charge outrageous gobs of money for seats, drinks and food; they’re owned by a billionaire and everyone knows the one-per-centers are as popular as turds in a punchbowl these days.
Yet the team regularly plays in front of 18,000 adoring, jersey-clad fans packed into a $480-million puck palace that opened its doors in 2016, thanks in large part to taxpayer investment.
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The construction of Rogers Place has, as promised, sparked economic investment and activity in its immediate environs on the northern edge of Downtown, and there will be more if a $250-million event park is built next door, again with a healthy heaping of public money from the province and city.
Those orders of government apparently share the opinion that investment in the Oilers is a good one, especially in a city core that was hollowed out by the COVID-19 pandemic and has yet to recover widespread commercial and social vibrancy. Several Downtown buildings, including the Edmonton Journal office, remain closed five years later.
There is no COVID hangover for the Oilers, though. They are on the precipice of another playoff run this spring and have enjoyed a grossly elevated social status in the city, even when the franchise failed spectacularly during the so-called Decade of Darkness, that period from 2006 to 2016 devoid of playoffs and hope.
So what is it that compels fans to consistently open their wallets to a billionaire and their hearts to millionaires on skates? The Edmonton Elks of the Canadian Football League do not get that kind of love in their own city, despite the fact that they are currently owned by a blue-collar millionaire and won the franchise’s 14th Grey Cup title just 10 years ago.
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“Oilers are integral to who we are as a community, to our identity, to our culture and Oilers do put us on the international stage,” said Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi. “The kind of attention they bring to our city, no other organization or institution has been able to do that.
“And that’s huge. That’s a huge tourism benefit, that’s huge economic attraction benefit, as well as a talent attraction benefit. And locally, they have a big impact on our economy, particularly the economy of the Downtown.”
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Oilers fans who sardined themselves into the (Joey) Moss pit just a wrist shot south of Rogers Place on game nights last spring were there to watch playoff hockey, yes, but specifically to be with other like-minded people watching playoff hockey. They could just as easily have been in their own homes, but the lure of the shared experience is strong, win or lose.
“It’s a tie that just brings us all together,” said Leah Pezer, athletic director at the University of Alberta. “I’m seeing a re-emergence of why sport matters so much to building these unbelievable human beings, to giving us important moments where we’re all brought together to celebrate, to win and fail together, as a big group of individuals who have no other tie to each other, except that moment.
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“I am seeing a change in how people are looking at sport again. And especially in the hockey world in Edmonton, it has been so obvious that we’re bringing it back and going, ‘This actually matters. Hockey is who we are.’ It’s so Canadian and it’s never been more important to be Canadian. It’s never been more important to show how Canada is different, unique, and to lean into that.”
Hockey at the mall
There are three sheets of ice and one Tim Horton’s storefront in West Edmonton Mall, making it a quintessentially Canadian place to be during hockey season, which manages to spread itself across the entire calendar these days.
The full-sized rink located on the lower level mid-mall — which can be viewed from a seat at Timmy’s on the second floor — has for more than three decades hosted the Brick Invitational youth tournament, an annual summer gathering of nine- and 10-year-olds that has foreshadowed the National Hockey League talents of alumni like Connor Bedard, Cole Caufield, Quinn Hughes and Macklin Celebrini.
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The two backyard-sized sheets in Phase One are much newer and not particularly well known. They’re operated by a company called ZerOne Hockeyology, which, if its clientele ran to entrepreneurial types would rightly be called a small-business incubator. In this case, in goes a good Canadian kid, out comes a fully formed player. At least, that’s the hope.
It’s a 26,000-square-foot facility that pairs comprehensive hockey instruction and physical training programs with health services catering to athletes and active individuals.
The co-existence of a business like Hockeyology and a tournament like the Brick Invitational at WEM ought to underline the seriousness with which hockey’s stakeholders take themselves in Edmonton and the extent to which the game has permeated the city’s society.
Want a hockey career for your child? Just go to the mall and buy one.
Wayne Gretzky signs a fan’s scrapbook after an Oilers practice at West Edmonton Mall in February 1986.
Hockey and WEM in fact go way back. The Edmonton Oilers regularly held practices at the mall in the 1980s and ‘90s. Those public skates gave them even more visibility in a city that was thoroughly besotted with the five-time Stanley Cup-winning franchise and its bevy of Hall-of-Fame-bound heroes like Wayne Gretzky, Kevin Lowe, Mark Messier and Grant Fuhr.
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“It was nice to have a little closer connection with the fan base,” said Lowe, a stay-at-home defenceman who went on to serve as coach and general manager of the franchise. “You would see a lot of elderly people on a day like that, a lot of kids, parents with little kids.
“It was really ahead of its time, I think. There’s obviously not a lot of hockey rinks inside malls, right? So to me, it was a cutting-edge thing. And I really enjoyed it, actually.
“The practices typically weren’t as hard, unless we (crapped) the bed the night before and (head coach and GM Glen Sather) had us on the goal line, doing down and back. And that part I didn’t mind either, because the fans got to see how hard we work. I do remember a bunch of bag skates there when you almost didn’t know the fans were there because you’re so exhausted by the end.”
‘Edmonton’s sense of self’
Those practices brought together Edmonton’s two biggest brands at the time. In the three decades since, the city’s focus has shifted 12 kilometres east to Downtown, with the construction of the Art Gallery of Alberta, Royal Alberta Museum, main branch of the Edmonton Public Library, Rogers Place, Stantec Tower and JW Marriott tower, all within easy walking distance of one another.
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Much of the action happens in the so-called Ice District, with Rogers Place acting as the hub and the engine. On Oilers game days or concert nights, that area is buzzing with community spirit and commercial activity.
“I live down here now,” Lowe said of Ice District. “If the Oilers aren’t playing or there’s not an event going on at Rogers Place, it’s dead. When an event is on, it’s impactful, and it’s always better when the Oilers are doing well.”
The Oilers did particularly well through the mid- to late-1980s, claiming Stanley Cups in 1984, ’85, ’87, ’88 and ‘90. They haven’t won it all since, but their exciting four-round marches into the 2006 and 2024 Finals, which they lost to the Carolina Hurricanes and Florida Panthers, respectively, triggered reminiscences of the good old days when the Oilers boosted civic pride simply by coming into existence.
They spent seven seasons in the World Hockey Association and were admitted into the NHL in 1979, along with three other survivors of the so-called rebel league — Hartford, Winnipeg and Quebec.
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“I remember when we got a franchise here, what a big deal it was,” said Senator Paula Simons, a former Edmonton Journal city columnist. “I think it had to do with Edmonton’s sense of self when we got a WHA franchise. It put the city on the map, and it gave the city a sense that it had arrived. But it also still made us the outsiders because we weren’t in the NHL. We were in this other league.
“And then we got Wayne Gretzky. And then, you know, the whole sense of Edmonton’s coming of age, Edmonton’s economic blossoming, Edmonton’s population explosion, it all coincided with those early Gretzky years. The price of oil was up. The whole city was hockey-mad. And, you know, it was very much a sense that hockey was making us a legitimate city.
“And the ebb and flow of the team went with the ebb and flow of the city. And when things collapsed, when the National Energy Program happened and the world price of oil collapsed and the city was really down on its heels, we kind of coasted on the energy of those hockey glory years.”
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Edmontonians ice skate at the Ice Plaza in downtown Edmonton, Tuesday Nov. 15, 2022. Photo by David Bloom /Postmedia
Economic impact
Edmonton’s population was about 500,000 in 1979 and has more than doubled since. The franchise has blossomed, too.
Owned first by Peter Pocklington, it now belongs to Daryl Katz, who in 2008 purchased it from the 35-member Edmonton Investors Group, a consortium that bought it out of receivership 10 years earlier from the Alberta Treasury Branches, where it landed after Pocklington defaulted on loan payments.
EIG paid US$70 million, Katz paid C$200 million, and the franchise is now worth US$2.45 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
With superstars Leon Draisaitl and McDavid leading the way, each spring, the team offers fresh hope for a championship and with it, a boost in self-esteem for anyone who wants a seat on the bandwagon and a shot in the arm. That they continue to fall short is a fact that simply gets lost in the crowds of people watching the game inside and outside Rogers Place, drinking their beers, eating their burgers at nearby restaurants and sleeping in Downtown hotels.
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Sohi said the 2024 playoff run was worth C$200 million in economic spinoff for the city. An Explore Edmonton report suggests the number was $280 million.
“That means jobs, that means revenue for businesses,” said Sohi. “They drive our economy, so it’s integral to our city.”
Mayor Amarjeet Sohi leads a cheer during an Edmonton Oilers fan rally held at Sir Winston Churchill Square to cheer the Oilers’ playoff journey in Edmonton on Tuesday, May 24, 2022. Photo by Ian Kucerak /Postmedia file
Puneeta McBryan, executive director of the Edmonton Downtown Business Association, said the spend volume in restaurants and bars near the arena has spiked as much as 125 per cent on a game day over a non-game day during a playoff run. And there is a much wider contribution from the team.
“I think the macroeconomic impact of Oilers hockey on Downtown is massive,” she said. “That has increased residential development directly tied to the arena being here. Major festivals, major conferences, people just wanting to be close to the team and the arena and the energy.”
As far as consumer behaviour, she said, the effect goes beyond busy Downtown bars and restaurants. Since those places hit capacity quickly during playoff games, establishments across the city are known to be packed as well.
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Explore Edmonton makes it their thing to attract events to the city, and major hockey happenings are among the prized plums.
The World Junior Championship, diverted from its usual December-January dates by the COVID-19 pandemic, crash-landed in Edmonton in the summer of 2022. Two years earlier, the NHL set up a playoff bubble in Edmonton and the Tampa Bay Lightning won the strangest September Stanley Cup in an otherwise empty Rogers Place.
The city has also played host to the U-18 boys Hlinka Gretzky Cup tournament and, most recently, Explore Edmonton played a role in attracting one of the Professional Women’s Hockey League neutral site games.
“Edmonton in general is obviously a sports city first and a hockey city as part of that, right?” said Cindy Medynski, director of sport and culture events for Explore Edmonton.
“So I mean, the opportunity from an economic standpoint and a social and reputational benefit as well — like, hockey really hits sort of those three pieces, right? And women’s hockey has a strong history in our city as well, and women’s sport in general. So certainly, the Oilers are front and centre.
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“But you think about all the grassroots pieces, the Edmonton Oilers Community Foundation, you think about the Edmonton Female Hockey Alliance, and these groups that are trying to provide kids the opportunity to play and to be a part of hockey in so many different ways. It’s bigger than just the Oilers, but I think we’re really happy to have that institution in the city.”
The franchise obviously plays a key role in bringing people Downtown 50 or more times per season. Concerts, shows, exhibits, and conferences are among the other draws throughout the year.
“I think the sports, arts and culture are integrated in a way that one helps the other,” said Sohi. “You look around our Downtown here, the more people coming Downtown, whether they come for a concert at Winspear (Centre), or theatre at the Citadel, or they want to come see the art gallery or the museum, or they want to come watch Oilers play, they all add to the vibrancy, and they all complement each other.
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“So it is integrated in that way. It also brings the scale that you need in the Downtown, the amount of people that you need Downtown, and the activity that you need in our Downtown.”
A game across the generations
Rogers Place and the adjacent Downtown Community Arena are the only indoor sheets of ice in the core. But there are 22 publicly-owned arenas, six private facilities and 31 total indoor ice sheets in Edmonton, as well as many more outdoors. Even so, with hockey, ringette and figure skating demanding more ice time every year, the inventory isn’t nearly large enough.
“Our community ice arenas are filled all the time,” Sohi said. “We built many of them over the last decade, added new ice, but we’re still finding that we’re still short on ice in our city because of the growth in the sport of hockey. And it’s every community.
“Newcomers embrace hockey. Absolutely, it’s about sports, but it’s also about community and the ability for young people to invest in themselves, young people to stay active and really look up to doing something in their spare time. And it does build a sense of belonging, a sense of togetherness and support for each other.
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“And, you know, I would say, not going into the politics of things, but a young man who played hockey in Edmonton’s arenas has become prime minister,” added Sohi, who is running for the Liberals in the 2025 federal election.
Mark Carney did indeed play the game indoors and out in Edmonton, where he grew up, and spent a couple of seasons as a backup goalie who warmed the bench at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. At age 60, Carney is an oldtimer now, and in his old hometown, the game is alive at that level.
Bob Tessier is the long-time president of Vintage 55 Hockey, which claims to be the largest daytime oldtimers organization in Canada by virtue of its 482 active members. They recruit about 40 new players by referral every year, run three sessions per day at the Kinsmen Twin Arenas, and stress post-game socialization — something Tessier believes is key for the long-term vibrancy of the organization.
“We have our social gardens every single day. We have control of the kitchen at the rink, so we have hot dog days, pizza days, catered luncheons, and there is a coffee station every day,” he said. “Our social gardens are always packed with people. It’s male bonding, socialization. Women tend to do that more than men, but we crave it. (Players tell me) this is the best thing in my life. They mean it and they say it all the time. I hear it every day.
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“They love it more than the hockey. Although the hockey is what brings them, the socialization is what hooks them. It’s my 18th year running it and I should probably retire, but I love what it feels like, what it does for people. It’s the longest I’ve ever had a job and the least I’ve ever been paid, because I don’t get paid a penny. But it is rewarding.”
At $300 for 26 sessions, the program is affordable and brings in a wide variety of players, segregated into groups based on ability. There are former pros and University of Alberta Golden Bears, retired CEOs and VPs, millionaires and guys on Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped.
“They’re all just hockey guys in the room,” said Tessier. “If I dropped dead tomorrow and my wife had to invite my 25 closest friends (to the funeral), 24 would be hockey people.”
Andrew Zvonkovic wrote A History of Minor Hockey in Edmonton in conjunction with the Edmonton Minor Hockey Association, which is now known as Hockey Edmonton. He thinks the organization’s main benefit is the community it fosters, especially during its marquee event, Quikcard Edmonton Minor Hockey Week, which boasts the participation of 10,000 players on 600 teams.
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Zvonkovic played minor hockey, coached and ran a hockey academy for half a dozen years, and has seen the positive impact it can have on kids.
“You learn what your role is on the team, learn to accept your role, find out how you can change. There’s conflict management, understanding how to deal with it. Seeing kids mature and grow,” he said. “On the ice, it’s great to see them buy into a system, but the biggest thing is leadership skills, understanding things may not go the way you want, but there are people there for you — good coaches, good friends, good teammates. You’re learning how to fail gracefully sometimes. You can’t win all the time. That aspect is huge for kids.
“And the relationships you have in hockey are lifelong. Of the guys I played with, the most successful in life are the ones who were the best teammates.”
Rob Suggitt of Edmonton is seen at the Saddledome in Calgary in this 2015 file photo, as part of his quest to take in 30 games in 30 nights. Lyle Aspinall/Calgary Sun/QMI Agency Photo by Lyle Aspinall /Lyle Aspinall/Calgary Sun/QMI Ag
‘Edmonton is just different’
Rob Suggitt publishes hockey magazines in Edmonton and Calgary, and has been a fan of the game for as long as he can remember, though he didn’t see his first NHL fixture in person until he was 19. He cheered on the Montreal Canadiens from a great distance through the 1970s and eventually became an Oilers season ticket holder.
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A decade ago, he took his love affair with hockey to a different plane. Well, several of them actually, as he planned the trip of a lifetime: 30 games in 30 days in 30 NHL rinks.
“I still remember the feeling of going to a game in person, and the sounds, the lack of a broadcaster, the clacking of the puck, and just how crisp and clean and clear the game was. And it was actually part of the inspiration to see games in all these arenas, because I just thought, wouldn’t it be cool to see a hockey game in other arenas?”
After taking 29 flights, two train trips and a rental car for one leg of the journey, he came away even more impressed with Edmonton’s support for the Oilers and the game itself.
“You could feel the difference in all the American markets, where it’s close to meaningless,” he said. “I remember I would do these little surveys. I’d walk downtown on a game day and say, ‘Who’s playing tonight?’ Well, if you’re in Edmonton or Toronto, you’re in a Canadian market, they would know it’s an NHL game. Everybody did.
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“But if you went to Columbus or even St. Louis, Anaheim, they’d say, ‘What kind of game?’ I mean, you’d be hard-pressed to find somebody that really even cared about hockey. Even though they filled the rinks mostly. But it’s just different. It’s way different here.”
The uniqueness of his trip, which was self-funded, piqued the interest of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Through the generosity of several donors, including NHL teams like the New Jersey Devils, Suggitt raised $45,000 for the charity.
“I remember the game in New Jersey. It was one of those where they rolled the red carpet out for me. I got a tour of the arena, drove the Zamboni, and at the end of my night, which was fantastic, they introduced me to the owner of the team.”
Scott O’Neill said he was so impressed with Suggitt’s initiative that the Devils would donate proceeds of that night’s 50/50 draw.
“I got super excited. I said that’s going to really bring up my toll, which was probably suffering at that time. And while the amount is appreciated, it was $4,500. And that was a kind of usual amount. St. Louis was $3,000. I remember it was $1,500 in New York for the Islanders game. Canada’s different, and the Oilers are different.”
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No kidding. The 50/50 payouts at Oilers games this season have regularly fluctuated between $400,000 and $800,000.
“I’m an Edmontonian, so I’m proud of our city and our charity,” said Suggitt. “I think where Edmonton leads is in charity. I think we’re a really community-oriented city.”
He takes that to heart as he continues to publish hockey magazines that no longer make money.
“We actually very quietly just do it to support minor hockey in Edmonton. I don’t even mind telling you that we just finished doing an issue, which is a celebration of the gold medal-winning teams (from Minor Hockey Week). I’m happy and proud to do it. But the total advertising revenue was $8,000 and my print bill alone was $9,000.”
Still, he’s comfortable enough financially to share a pair of Oilers season tickets with a friend. They’re so-called drink rail seats, and cost $550 per pair in the regular season. He just received his renewal notice for the playoffs — $1,100 a pair in the first round, and if the Oilers make it to the Final, they’ll go for $3,400 a pair. It was similarly outrageous last spring as the Oilers skated four rounds deep.
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“But that’s an example of just what the value of hockey is in Edmonton,” Suggitt said. “And we support the heck out of it. And we’re just not Edmonton, we’re all northern Alberta, parts of Saskatchewan. I heard it said one time that a quarter of the season ticket-holders live an hour or further away from Edmonton, so the support we have for hockey is incredible.”
Oilers fans cheer as they watch the Edmonton Oilers score a goal against the Florida Panthers during a watch party for game 7 of the NHL Stanley Cup final on Monday, June 24, 2024 in Edmonton. Photo by Greg Southam /Postmedia
Where hockey matters most
The game’s roots run far deeper than the Oilers’ beginnings, of course. The city’s hockey history was built first by the Flyers and Mercurys as well as women’s teams: the Rustlers, Victorias, Monarchs and Chimos.
The Oilers are the top dog, but the community also has something of an appetite for the Edmonton Oil Kings of the Western Hockey League, the U of A Bears and Pandas, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology Ooks, the MacEwan University Griffins, Concordia University Thunder, and Alberta Junior Hockey League franchises in nearby towns. The PWHL neutral site game between Ottawa and Toronto brought a crowd of 17,518 to Rogers Place in February.
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“I don’t think it’s appreciated enough, but the value of all those entities in our city, I think it’s very important,” said Suggitt.
The Bears and Pandas get all kinds of love on the U of A campus, something that became obvious to Pezer shortly after she began her tenure as athletic director in October.
There are 24 teams on campus and hockey is the biggest draw by far, accounting for one-third of the 35,000 tickets sold to all athletic events annually. Hockey is an expensive sport to support, but U of A sponsors and donors shell out for the cause, and the teams do their part to sell all those tickets by continuing to build on a legacy of excellence that includes 16 Canadian championships for the Bears, and eight for the Pandas.
“As our teams win, we retain fans over the duration of the season,” said Pezer. “So to me, that’s the biggest impact, how many people are coming and continuing to show up game after game and building the excitement. … As we win, we continue to give people those special moments, right? Those moments that are those unforgettable kind of core memories.”
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That said, is Edmonton’s love of the game, especially at the NHL level, any different than it is everywhere else in the country? Is the cult of Oilers hockey a defining characteristic of the Edmonton populace? Or is it just a myth perpetuated by fans whose grasp on the glory days is stronger than their hold on reality?
Simons has a theory on that topic.
“I don’t think hockey has the same place in Calgary because I think Calgary doesn’t have the same inferiority complex,” said Simons. “I think it matters more to us like it matters in Winnipeg and it matters in Quebec City. I think hockey matters more in Quebec City than it does in Montreal, and I think maybe it matters more in Ottawa than it does in Toronto, for the same reasons.
“I think for cities like Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec City, you know, second cities, mid-sized cities, cities that never feel that they’re getting their juice, cities that have that Rodney Dangerfield ‘we don’t get enough respect,’ I think the identity of a winning hockey team means that much more.
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“It’s not just a machismo thing, it’s a sense of identity that really matters.”
It is the considered opinion of every fan base that they are the most diehard and loyal; it is the publicly expressed opinion of every player on every Canadian NHL team that those fans are the best in the league, and it simply cannot be true.
But that, too, is a fact that gets lost in the crowds.
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