Games without frontiers
In the months leading up to last year's Stanley Cup playoffs, the marketing whizzes at Boston Pizza pondered what might make a good campaign centred around the Canadian teams that were participating.
They settled on the idea of getting Canadians to set aside their own team affinities and cheer for whichever squad north of the 49th made it to the finals – assuming one did. The company knew it was risky. Its own research showed it would be difficult for many to put aside their deep-seated passion for their own team and cheer for someone they normally cheered against – which last season ended up being the Edmonton Oilers.
Still, the restaurant chain pressed onward. 'We knew we were walking on sensitive ice but not thin ice, if that makes any sense,' Boston Pizza's vice-president of marketing, James Kawalecki, said in an interview. The organization produced a smart, well-received ad that began by highlighting the many missed opportunities Canadian NHL teams had to win the cup in recent years, stretching back to the Vancouver Canucks' Stanley Cup run in 1994. The narrator said it was time to try something different to reverse the curse. 'This playoffs, let's cheer with the fans we've always cheered against.'
The Edmonton Journal newspaper responded with a story under the headline: News flash: Edmonton doesn't care if Oilers are Canada's team. The author, Robert Tychkowski, wrote: '… Boston Pizza can run all the commercials about fans of all Canadian teams banding together in national harmony it wants – rivals don't cheer for each other. Nor should they.'
Well, then.
Which brings us to this year's finals, which begin on Wednesday, and again feature the Oilers against the same team they faced for last year's cup, the Florida Panthers.
Will Canadian hockey fans temporarily set aside their NHL allegiances to cheer on the Oilers' bid to bring the cup back to Canada after 32 years? Will the swell of national pride in the face of threats by U.S. President Donald Trump make that easier? Or will separatist musings coming out of Alberta complicate that issue for people?
So much to ponder.
In April, the Angus Reid Institute dug into the question of whether fans of the Vancouver Canucks or Toronto Maple Leafs or any Canadian NHL team could clap, holler and scream in support of players on a rival Canadian squad.
The survey found that 71 per cent would cheer for 'any' Canadian team to win the cup, not just their own. That represented a seven-point increase over the previous year and a 14-point hike since 2016.
An event that may have injected some juice into the current situation is the 4 Nations Face-Off, which was held in February. Animosity between the Canadians and the Americans spilled over in their first meeting, where there were several fights to start the game, ultimately won by the U.S. They would meet again in the final, which was clinched in overtime by Canada on a goal by superstar Oiler forward Connor McDavid. The warm feelings many Canadians felt toward him then could easily extend to the Stanley Cup finals, making it easier to cheer for his Edmonton team against Florida.
That said, if Wayne Gretzky, generally considered the greatest hockey player of all time and whose best years were with Edmonton, shows up to cheer on his old team, things could get complicated. Gretzky's association with Trump, whom he considers a good friend, has not gone over well in Canada. Nor has the fact that he refused to speak out against the President's repeated assertions that he'd like to make Canada a 'cherished 51st state.' In the same April Angus Reid polling, the firm found that 45 per cent of those surveyed have a negative view of Gretzky. In 2011, a Harris-Decima poll showed that only one in 16 Canadians had an unfavourable view of the Great One.
Gretzky might be advised to watch this series on TV.
Meantime, Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, doesn't think the current political situation playing out in Alberta will negatively affect support for the Oilers. 'While separatist sentiment in Alberta is drawing strong pushback both outside and inside the province, it's hard to see those who'd prefer to keep the country together venting their annoyance at the Oilers,' Kurl said. 'While the perfect data crosstab of separatism by hockey fandom by Oilers hate does not exist, one can draw a few conclusions.'
On that front, she said, Edmonton is not exactly ground zero for secessionism. And the thirst for a Canadian team to finally bring home the cup doubtlessly surpasses any separatist backlash that may exist against the team. 'Although the team may not benefit from public displays of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in the stands,' Kurl said.
As always, the question of fan support for NHL teams is complicated by other factors. Many in eastern parts of the country rarely watch the Oilers play because of the time-zone difference. How well a person knows a team and its players can influence their decision to support them or not. Then there are fans of the Calgary Flames. The intra-provincial rivalry between the Oilers and the Flames makes any support for the other – regardless of the circumstances (see Stanley Cup) or maybe even more so because of them – extremely difficult. Although, some might make an exception on the basis of provincial pride.
The folks at Boston Pizza, meantime, have come up with a new campaign for this season's playoffs, one that doesn't ask Canadians to cheer for an NHL rival but rather suggests they get ready for the cup to return north of the border.
The ad shows actors in raincoats and goggles getting ready to uncork Champagne bottles when the cup celebration the ad is manifesting to happen eventually occurs. 'This country is ready to pop,' one of them says. In an earlier playoff ad that Boston Pizza ran last month, there are echoes of the current political discourse. 'This is our game and we're not giving it back,' the narrator says at one point.
Kawalecki said that was intentional.
'If the cup isn't in Canada it's in the U.S. and that isn't right,' he said. 'It's been too long. We need to bring the cup back to where it belongs. We need to fight for what is ours.'
Q+A: Will the Oilers win the Stanley Cup? Ask our hockey experts your playoff questions
Excitement, nervousness and a sense of déjà vu grips Edmonton
At Vancouver's unofficial Oilers bar, Edmonton fans find a little piece of home during the playoffs
Oilers-mania runs deep in this remote Dene community
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