2 weeks Ago By Jordan Ercit
“How about them Oilers?” During playoff time, it’s the ultimate icebreaker for Edmontonians who meet on the street. It’s also a great opening line for the political candidate who comes to your door. As the Oilers begin their first-round Western Conference series against the Los Angeles Kings, candidates are fully aware that they need to use their Edmonton hockey acumen to their advantage.
Trisha Estabrooks, the NDP candidate in Edmonton Centre, will spend Monday night at the Crestwood Curling Club, watching Game 1 with community members. And she’s going door to door sporting a pair of blue and orange beaded Oilers earrings. She’s making sure to advertise just how much the Oilers mean to her.
When she’s door-knocked in the past, she’s seen what the Oilers mean to the city. “It’s great when we are in apartment buildings,” she said. “We can tell how the game is going by the cheers we hear as we’re in the hallways.
” But will Estabrooks knock on doors after the opening faceoff of an Oilers’ playoff game? Absolutely not. It’s her team’s policy not to knock on doors after 8 p.m.
“out of respect for young families.” The first four games of the series are set to go before election day, and only Game 4, on April 27, is set to face off before 8 p.m.
So, for those on the campaign trail, the late game starts work in their favour. They still have good portions of the evenings to work the neighbourhoods. Despite the fact that polling aggregator site 338Canada calls Edmonton Centre a “likely” Liberal win, Estabrooks said the colours she sees in the community remind her of the Oilers and indicate a Tory-NDP race in the riding.
“It is orange and blue throughout,” she said. “Those are signs I see in the riding.” Like Estabrooks, Edmonton Strathcona Liberal candidate Ron Thiering wants to be done his door-knocking by 8 p.
m. But that can’t always be the case because his team likes to make sure it finishes an entire neighbourhood before calling it a night. So, if there are a street or two left to do, the goal is to finish it all.
He said that he and other candidates are always at the mercy of the schedules of their volunteers. These are people who are giving up their time to help with a campaign, so he has to be respectful that their schedules aren’t always flexible. Also, while the majority of Edmontonians are Oilers fans, we know that every time they come to town, the Maple Leafs bring out a massive throng of fans to Rogers Place.
Yes, Leafs Nation walks amongst us, and the Buds are in a Battle of Ontario first-round series against the Ottawa Senators, with start times before the dinner hour in Alberta. “We may have instances where people don’t answer the door because of the hockey game,” said Thiering. “We may have to adjust our schedules.
” Kelly McCauley is looking to keep Edmonton West Conservative blue on April 28. He’s fully behind the Oilers, even though it means he’ll have to catch up with games as he’s working the doors. He won’t be cutting off his work when the first period begins.
“It doesn’t affect us at all,” said McCauley of his plans to campaign head-to-head against the playoffs. “We will continue to door-knock as usual. Happily, we’ll be updated on the scores, and people are happy to share the scores.
In the lead-up to the playoffs, on game night, sometimes we could even hear the cheering for the Oilers from the streets. We’re looking forward to the Oilers winning the Cup and bringing it home.” Brad Fournier is looking to unseat McCauley and make a Liberal gain in Edmonton West.
He said that his team will be out on the streets as long as they can every night leading up to the April 28 vote. And that means being out after the puck has dropped. “We will be asking for forgiveness and their vote,” said Fournier.
“A lot of people have already voted. People are very interested in this campaign. They are expecting us at the door.
” He agrees that starting the conversation about the Oilers might be a way to keep that door open. “That’s a possibility. We’re all big fans, too.
” Blair-Marie Coles, running for the Liberals in Edmonton Manning, will not go to the doors after the games begin. “When the puck drops, the door stops as it’s time to shift strategy,” said Coles. “In Oil Country, we know what it takes to win.
It’s not just skill and resilience, timing is everything. In Edmonton Manning, trading doorbells for goal bells during the playoffs becomes the strategy.” Hockey has already played a role in the campaign.
Last week, the start time of the French-language leaders’ debate was pushed up so the majority of it wouldn’t clash with the Montreal Canadiens’ final regular-season game, which was a win-and-win scenario for the Habs. And, just before the election call, Prime Minister Mark Carney appeared at Rogers Place, put on the Oilers blue and orange colours and skated with the team . This is the first election campaign since 2011 that has clashed with the Stanley Cup playoffs.
In 2011, Elections Canada pegged voter turnout at 61.1 per cent. It was better than the all-time low of 58.
8 per cent set in 2008, but still stands as the third-worst of all time. If advance polls are to be seen as a sign of what’s to come on election day, we should expect a better turnout for 2025 than we saw in 2011, when the Boston Bruins came back from a two-games-to-none deficit to beat the Vancouver Canucks in seven games. The Vancouver riot began as the Bruins skated around the ice with the Cup.
The Oilers were in the midst of the Decade of Darkness, nowhere near being a playoff contender. Numbers coming from Elections Canada Elections Canada will be releasing advance poll turnout numbers on Tuesday. The refined data by electoral district should be made available later in the week.
But an email from spokesperson Leanne Nyirfa stated that it “does appear to be trending towards more people voting at the advance polls in this election versus 2021.” On Friday, people were lined up for approximately an hour, about 70 people deep, in Fort Saskatchewan. Meanwhile, on Saturday, at Mother Margaret Mary High School in Edmonton Riverbend, it was easy to walk in, vote and leave.
But on Monday, it was a different story, as voters needed to endure long lineups to get to the ballot boxes. On Monday, at Glenora Community League in Edmonton Centre, there was a steady line of about two to three people waiting to vote. Also in Edmonton Centre, several families and pet owners were seen at the Hellenic Centre, where all three polling stations had lineups.
Elections Canada does have the stats from last week’s Vote on Campus initiative , which saw about 120 advance polling stations set up between Sunday and Wednesday last week on post-secondary campuses across the country. A total of 75,471 ballots were cast across the country, of which 8,856 came from the Alberta polling stations. As for Oilers owner Daryl Katz, Elections Canada records show him making political donations to the Liberal Party of Canada, a total of around $14,000, between 2005 and 2015.
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