NATIONAL PULSE – Fans say Leafs or Oilers can end Canada’s cup drought

By ANGUS REID INSTITUTE

April 15, 2024 – Just days before the National Hockey League’s regular season ends and the spring rite of passage that is playoffs begin, Canadians know that they’ll have four representatives in the perennial springtime battle for the Stanley Cup.

New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds renewed hope that one of Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, or Toronto will bring Canadians a desperately sought after Stanley Cup parade. This, more than three decades after the Montreal Canadiens won the Cup in 1993.

Asked which team they believe represents Canada’s best opportunity, Canadian hockey fans are divided equally between the Toronto Maple Leafs (21%) and Edmonton Oilers (20%). Fewer, but still 14 per cent say the Vancouver Canucks will be the team to break the drought, while just five per cent believe the Winnipeg Jets have what it takes.

For many Canadians, the team to win has evidently become less important than the act of winning. In 2016, 57 per cent of Canadians said they didn’t care which team ended the drought, while 43 per cent said the team to win was important to them. Now, nearing two-thirds (64%) say they’ll cheer for any team that calls Canada home.

As to which team Canadians will be cheering for, a considerable east-west divide exists. Ontario east, the Leafs are easily the top choice for hockey fans, with three-quarters in Ontario (73%) and half in Atlantic Canada (52%) cheering for Auston Matthews and Co. In British Columbia, it’s largely Canucks or bust, with 83 per cent of NHL followers in that province cheering for the odds-on Norris favourite Quinn Hughes and his team.

The same story is true in Manitoba, where that province’s hockey fans hope the Jets can take flight and mount a run to the Cup final in June. Two-thirds of Albertans who follow the NHL (64%) will be pulling for last year’s league MVP Connor McDavid and the Oilers, though evidently Calgary fans hold back some of the enthusiasm for that province’s only representative in the tournament.

More Key Findings:

• Seven-in-ten Canadians say they pay at least some attention to the NHL (70%), while two-in-five could be considered active fans (40%). This is the highest mark noted by ARI in nearly a decade of asking Canadians about the league.

• Among the pool of hockey fans – that aforementioned 70 per cent of the population – about half say they’re excited about playoff hockey. This excitement jumps in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario, where provincial teams are represented, and drops lowest in Quebec, where the Montreal Canadiens rebuild continues.

• The Toronto Maple Leafs have also been the top hope for Canada to win a Stanley cup in 2019 and 2021 surveys, but have not made an Eastern Conference final since 2002

Link to the poll here: www.angusreid.org/