What REALLY Drives Hockey Players Away from Edmonton
Why don’t players like to live in Edmonton? I don’t think this is true. One thing that players don’t like about Edmonton, it’s cold as anything. That’s well known. Everybody that lives in Edmonton, everybody that’s been there knows, listen, this is not an ideal climate in the winter months. Uh, as Bri once famously said, it’s the minus 30 is the winter months, I believe, is something something to those lines. Um, that’s the only reason PE people don’t players like to play in Edmonton. Uh, the staff is phenomenal. The arena is as good as it gets. The fans are as good as it gets. Um, everything’s top-notch. Players are excited to come play. Obviously, anybody’s excited to come play with Connor and Leon for good reason. Um, but not just that, I know I know for a fact they’ve got some of the best staff around in the league. Um, the facilities are incredible. The coaching staff is
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They have space toilets too!
It's more that it isn't as beneficial to play in Canada. You keep way less of your money, healthcare is terrible (for people with money), and all the nice places are overun with drugs and crime.
That's what the players and agents are talking about.
I believe you don't get a real chance to play in Edmonton but losing every year wasn't fun also
I love the cold, so, Edmonton would be ideal for me. đ
all no mvement eligible players have all Canadian teams on the no trade list..it's not a well kept secret
Alberta is definitely the best province to play hockey in but there are just better overall options in the states.
Winter wise Winnipeg is thĂŠ worst though.
Just so everyone knows these guys play ice hockey for a living. Scared of cold weather ? lol. Hillarious as they count millions in the summer months.
I always was huge fan dub.
Players don't like to be celebrities either. Canadian hockey fans are unrealistic. Who wouldn't want to play in Florida, Dallas, Anaheim where you can just be yourself and forget about hockey. Hit the beaches and stuff.
Itâs the taxes, not the weather
Players need to suck it up , yes it's cold here and imagine the construction workers that need to be out there 10 hours a day , not going from the car to the stadium.
How many months a year is it very cold there? What's in the springtime? In summer? Half of the time in the winter, the players are on the road. They play hockey in Florida, Dallas and Los Angeles. Finally they have maybe a few more days im Alberta than players from other teams have, but finally all hockey players in the NHL spend a lot of time in cold regions of North America. I think that the oilers a team are everybody likes to play for.
Plus itâs ugly as hell. Grey buildings everywhere. Very bleak. Calgary is much better
Because it's too close to Winnipeg. Other than that, a player has to decide whether it's worth playing in Edmonton when their hockey wife, or puck bunny continually nags them about living in LA or Vegas instead. Most hockey players would be happier if they were never married.
They're on the road half the time aren't they?
Hockeyâs a winter sport. If you canât live with making millions a year living in a place where itâs actually winter and people support winter sports, then donât play winter sports. Go play beach volleyball.
-30 Means you Can play pond hockey for 5 months Hockey players not liking the cold is a Myth imo.
It's cold and the area is ugly as hell (sorry, not sorry). The vast wastes of the frozen Canadian prairie is not anyone's idea of pleasant. Calgary is cold but at least it's set amongst the beautiful backdrop of the Rockies. Winnipeg has the lake and stunning boreal forests. Edmonton? 4 months of flat ass grassland, and 8 of frozen nothingness.
Everything great but the oilers just suck
GO PANTHERS STANLEY CUP CHAMPION 2025!!!
Players don't like Edmonton is because its a garbage city.
If you donât work outside and have AWD or a 4×4 itâs completely manageable especially when youâve grown up in Alberta.
Nah but dw. Mcdavid has that heated driveway
Probably the main reason players don't want to play in Canada is that the sports media is so horribly invasive and critical, and a lot of the fans are really toxic and unhinged. Constantly being under all that pressure would probably affect most players negatively, even though some claim they don't listen to outside noise. Just look at what happened with Mitch Marner leaving Toronto, and Stuart Skinner's family receiving death threats. Pretty sure JT Miller was happy to get out of Vancouver too after he was put under so much scrutiny re: his supposed feud with Elias Pettersson, who was also clearly stressed by how the media zeroed in on him, and JT, with nearly nonstop rumours and questions that clearly irritated and stressed both of them out and affected their play, and negatively affected the entire Canucks team. Even worse rumours were also being spread online about infidelity in Miller's marriage etc that went too far and disrespected him and his family. Also some psycho 'fans' online bullying of Pettersson was criminal, with these lunatics telling him he should off himself, it got so bad he left social media altogether. Jim Rutherford opening his big mouth all the time did nothing to help matters in that situation either. So I'm sure most players prefer not to have their privacy violated on an everyday basis and get harrased by unhinged fans on the internet. You only have to read the comments on Canadian team's social media pages to realize just how toxic and negative and nasty so many fans are. Even new guys getting added get sh*t all over in social media posts before they've even had a chance to play. As a Canadian hockey fan the entitled behaviour of these fans is super embarrassing, it's so crazy and stupid and makes everybody up here seem like real losers, even though that's not the case and most people just really love hockey, there's so many bad apples the bunch is beyond rotten unfortunately. The worst thing about it besides the sheer assh*lery of it all is that it's a factor in driving players away from wanting to play in Canada. As far as money is concerned players in Canada get paid in US dollars that go a lot farther in Canada, so I think that probably negates whatever taxes they have to pay. Canada has its problems with crime, but it's nowhere near the level of the US where people carry guns and there's shootings all the time, so it would seem that Canada is safer in that respect. Also the current state of the government in the United States is pretty scary, especially with so many cuts to health / environment / science programs, it's quickly becoming a massive train wreck with an unstable felon for a leader who wants to be be a dictator and turn the country into an oligarchy and has no respect for the laws or constitution, or the people in the country he was foolishly entrusted to lead, so it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to live there right now imo đ¤ˇââď¸ As far as Marner is concerned I can't really figure out why he'd want to raise his kid in a place like Last Vegas, or live in a boiling desert, but maybe Toronto was so bad that seemed like a better option. Vegas as a team has a bad reputation too though for how some players have been treated, so it may end up being one of those the devil you don't know being worse scenarios. I think it was mostly about the money with him though, besides being sick of Toronto. Plenty of Canadian players are thriving in the US though, just look at the Florida Panthers. Anyways there are pros and cons to playing in both countries, but the general consensus seems to be that players prefer to play on American teams. Edmonton and Winnipeg have no redeeming qualities as far as I'm aware, besides being insanely cold in the winter, they are generally not considered desirable cities to live in by most people.
Players want to win. They donât want to want to play with guys who perennially try hard but canât get it done when it matters most. Could McDavid and Draisaitl be the 5th and 6th best players on a championship team? Sure.