Most fans in Alberta? Oilers or Flames?

[djsFlames]

Edmonton has quantity.
Calgary has quality.

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Quality, not quantity. That’s what counts.

Oh dang, was beaten to it.

[TheChief]

Ive lived in Red Deer my entire life and it inst close. So many Coiler fans here its unreal. I'm a sales rep so I get to know quite a few people, there are no flames fans. More Bruins/Canadians fans in Red Deer then Flames fans.

[corporatejay]

Flames are like the Sox, Mets, Angels. They have a die hard fan base but most "casual" fans in those areas are fans of the Cubs, Yanks and Dodgers. It's pretty rare to find a Flames fan outside of Calgary or southern alberta.

[stamps]

I don't care how many people cheer for the Flames in this province ... I cheer for them and that's all that matters .... Calgary is my hometown and would not not trade anything with Edmonton ... they can have their city , team and whatever else it is that's Edmonton ... I do not Identify with them , and not in a bad way ... they are just not part of our region ... that's the way I feel ..

[djsFlames]

Probably half their current make up are just McDavid bandwagoners that jumped on since 2015, which is the lowest kind of fan on the fan tier hierarchy.

Literally the laziest reason to jump behind a team. I say that because nothing about McDavid's personality is remotely likeable or charismatic, unlike Sid. And he plays the game selfishly to boot.

People who make creepy paintings of him up there and paint/decal their ferraris are just tacky bums that live for 1 vs 4 defense-splitting goals, ignoring the abysmal effort at the other end of the ice the rest of the time.

So basic.

[Five-hole]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

There are definitely more Oiler fans, however, I think this is also a big factor. Oiler fans, like Roughrider fans, feel the need to where their colours everywhere, at all times. I have always felt it was a bit of an insecurity, attention-seeking thing.

Like that couple that went to the games in Dallas in Oiler jerseys, pretty much every Flames game I have been to in other cities, there were Oiler jerseys present. Roughrider jerseys as well.

What goes through your head that leaves you thinking your Oiler/Roughrider jersey is the way to go for a Knights/Flames game in Vegas?

To be fair, they probably thought of it as the nicest piece of clothing they own and "dressed up" for a night on the town.

[browna]

If you reside outside of Edmonton in this province, are between the ages of 30ish and 40ish,of weak moral fibre, where a bouncing ball of winning a round every so often floats your boat, you are probably an Oilers fan and highly impressionable person.

From 1992ish forward to 2004, the time when the Flames didn't win a series for 12 years, the Oilers scraped into the playoffs a bunch of times, one and done most of the time, and winning a round twice.

[Inferno]

I can't speak for all of Manitoba but here I think it's pretty split. I know/know of just as many if not more Flames fans than Oilers fans. I know one of my neighbors is an Oilers fan but I'm not sure he even knows I'm a Flames fan or if he's that hardcore that he cares.

I know my cousin from Winnipeg adopted the Flames as his team until the Jets came back. He doesn't care too much for the Oilers even now.

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I like that there are more Oilers fans. The more crushed souls when the Oilers lose, the merrier for me.

There has to be enough tears for everyone to drink, bud.

[Matty81]

What I've noticed in the okanagan is that there are not a lot of oiler fans who actually live here full time but there are a lot who set their families up here and fly in fly out of Northern Alberta and are here like 5-10 days a month but mostly live in a camp somewhere. I have known at least 10 families like that where the dad is never home but they are huge oilers fans and rocking the matching hat and jersey the rare time you do see them.

Someone said it earlier in the thread, we've never been the big dominating dynasty or had the generational player so I find our fans are a special breed, always enjoy meeting a flames fan who is really into the team instantly enjoy chatting with them, personally I think it takes a certain character to stick with a team long run that hasn't had a ton of glory. Gretzky and mcdavid definately attract a certain type of fan outside the home city and it ain't us.

[Sandman]

I don't ever recall Edmonton having to do a "Save the Oilers" season ticket drive like we did. If it wasn't for the 2004 run, we might not have a team right now. Look at what that fan base has been through in the past 15 years-I don't recall recall them having any problem selling tickets (correct me if I'm wrong). Their fanbase far exceeds ours in numbers though.

I still hate Edmonton and their fans.

[robertsfanatic]

i have met more and more Flames fans in the GTA (Toronto area) throughout the years and every year the numbers grow at Leafs games.

another run this year will make a lot of new JG fans.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

There are definitely more Oiler fans, however, I think this is also a big factor. Oiler fans, like Roughrider fans, feel the need to where their colours everywhere, at all times. I have always felt it was a bit of an insecurity, attention-seeking thing.

Like that couple that went to the games in Dallas in Oiler jerseys, pretty much every Flames game I have been to in other cities, there were Oiler jerseys present. Roughrider jerseys as well.

What goes through your head that leaves you thinking your Oiler/Roughrider jersey is the way to go for a Knights/Flames game in Vegas?

Yup. Oiler jerseys in the mall, not during POs, not even on a game night (hell, in mid summer) always struck me as “we have nothing else going for us”.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Sandman

I don't ever recall Edmonton having to do a "Save the Oilers" season ticket drive like we did. If it wasn't for the 2004 run, we might not have a team right now. Look at what that fan base has been through in the past 15 years-I don't recall recall them having any problem selling tickets (correct me if I'm wrong). Their fanbase far exceeds ours in numbers though.

I still hate Edmonton and their fans.

There was a literal lawsuit for an injunction to prevent the Oilers from being sold and moved to Minneapolis in 1993.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by Sandman

I don't ever recall Edmonton having to do a "Save the Oilers" season ticket drive like we did. If it wasn't for the 2004 run, we might not have a team right now. Look at what that fan base has been through in the past 15 years-I don't recall recall them having any problem selling tickets (correct me if I'm wrong). Their fanbase far exceeds ours in numbers though.

I still hate Edmonton and their fans.

Before Katz bought the team they had 32 owners. They had to pass around the collection plate to save the team.

[Mattman]

Just down here in Lethbridge I would say it's almost even but slight advantage to the Oilers. Just based on people I now, work with, and day to day interaction.

[Goriders]

Wonder what the comparison would be between the fan bases with respect to IQ levels.

[Matty81]

Yeah they came way closer to moving than the flames that community group that kept them in town was super poor relative to other NHL owners... I seem to remember one of the papers actually bought in as part of that huge group that saved the team before Katz bought it from them and that's when their media went full homer/unprofessional, and never looked back. When things got bad in the 90s things were obviously lean for the flames too but Calgary had a fairly robust corporate sector to fall back on for box and lower bowl seasons compared to the grease who were a lot more reliant on blue collar guys rocking up and buying tickets.

Stereotype back then was that the Oilers fans were white trash and Edmonton was a poorer city than Calgary before wages exploded in the trades sector, thus a lot of the mullet, sweatpants, women with bruises on their legs, jokes that carry on to this day but maybe don't make as much sense anymore were really born in the late 90s when the dudes you saw cheering for the oilers were aging rocker holdovers from the 80s dynasty.

I feel like their fanbase was ashamed in the 90s and they lost a generation of 10 years or so of young kids, I never used to see Oilers gear anywhere in that era, and then in the late 90s, like 97 or 98 they broke through and made the playoffs again and they really reeled a lot of those guys now in their 20s who were gloryhound kids in the 80s back to the team strongly - they stuck around after that because the economy there has stayed strong and it's frankly not a great place to live in the winter with not a lot of entertainment options so you have a lot of people pouring a lot of themselves and their money into the team that is not common in larger centres with more options, or similarly sized cities where the blue collar workers are not making the kinds of wages they do in Northern Alberta which is pretty rare in the world. And then even when they were bad more recently they were so bad that they were getting all these handouts from the league and had 1st overall picks to market every year which is pretty unique.

[Infinit47]

Originally Posted by Sandman

I don't ever recall Edmonton having to do a "Save the Oilers" season ticket drive like we did. If it wasn't for the 2004 run, we might not have a team right now. Look at what that fan base has been through in the past 15 years-I don't recall recall them having any problem selling tickets (correct me if I'm wrong). Their fanbase far exceeds ours in numbers though.

I still hate Edmonton and their fans.

They were hours from losing the team at least twice. Once when there was a massive season ticket drive where the Real Canadian Superstore bought 1000 season tickets to save them and the second with the EIG where they were minutes from being sold to a Texan.

Oilers fans like to pretend they have never waivered in their support, but they have.