The Edmonton Oilers make Pink Pony Club part of their playoff lore

National Post

2 days ago

The first rule of Pink Pony Club is you do not talk about Pink Pony Club.
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The second rule of Pink Pony Club is you do not talk about Pink Pony Club.
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The third rule of Pink Pony Club is if the Dallas Stars go limp, or tap out, the series is over.
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It is now a playoff tradition, the kind of thing that will become part of Edmonton Oilers lore. The Oilers enter the Rogers Place ice surface to the chug-chugging guitar intro that has made Metallica's Enter Sandman a sports stadium standard. But if the night goes well for the Oilers, after all the players enter the dressing room, Chappell Roan's smash hit will be played at high volume.
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It has become such a part of this playoff run that the crowd of 18,000-plus at Rogers Place belted out Pink Pony Club during Game 3.
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But how did this song become the Oilers' playoff anthem? That's a closely guarded secret.
'We're going to keep that one within the team,' said Oilers defenceman Evan Bouchard.
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Goalie Calvin Pickard, who was in net for the team's first six playoff triumphs of 2025 before falling to injury, offered little more.
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'I don't know if I can tell people that story, can I?' said Pickard. 'Well, I know exactly where it started, but I don't know if I want to let that secret out. I know exactly when, because I was there. But, I think I am going to keep it tight to the chest.
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The fact that a lot of the sportswriters in the dressing room hadn't heard of the song until the playoff run is a sign that a lot of us need to get out more. For those of you who have been living under a rock, Roan's song has become more than the sum of its parts. It's about a girl who moves from a small town to pursue her dreams in Los Angeles, but ends up dancing at a club, The fact that she knows her mother would be aghast with her life choices suggests that the venue in question is indeed a strip club, but her line 'and I heard there's a special place, where boys and girls can all be queens every single day' has also made it an anthem for the queer community, and just about any kid who feels he, she or they simply don't fit in. There was a Chappell Roan-themed drag night held at an Edmonton nightclub in the fall of 2024. It's a pop song, but it might be the most unintentionally punk-rock anthem of this generation. Honestly, no one would have batted an eyelash had these lyrics been sung by Kurt Cobain.
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And that's what makes hearing 18,000 fans belt out the song so spine-tinglingly wonderful. Whether it's intentional or not, they are signalling that the arena is a place of inclusion.
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There's a unique connection between random pop hits of the past and present and sports teams. In 2019, the St. Louis Blues went on a playoff run that ended in a Cup, with Laura Branigan's Gloria as their victory song. Singing along to Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline is part and parcel of going to Fenway Park and watching a Boston Red Sox game.
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Some songs are local. When the Minnesota Twins win, they hear Let's Go Crazy by the late, great Prince — the state's most famous musical export. The Seattle Mariners rock to Jimi Hendrix's Fire, an homage to the local guitar legend.
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Sometimes, when fans break into song, you wonder how and why the song got there. During Game 3 of the Oilers-Stars series, the fans belted out a version of the Cranberries' Zombie, which is a protest song about the Irish Republican Army and a bombing that killed two kids. And this scribe has lost count of the times arenas play the Outfield's Your Love when happy couples are shown on the big screens, even though the song is about infidelity.