The last time a Canadian hockey team won the Stanley Cup, the prime minister was Brian Mulroney. So an Edmonton Oilers win could be just the morale boost the country needs, especially amid continued threats of annexation as the “51st state” from U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Oilers are on the brink of elimination in the Stanley Cup final against defending champs Florida Panthers. The Alberta team could bring the trophy back to its homeland, where it hasn’t been hoisted since 1993 when the Montreal Canadiens won, if they win two consecutive games this week.
The NHL has been dominated by American teams when it once was considered Canada’s game. Hockey historian and author Eric Zweig told Yahoo Canada that past Stanley Cup wins were never considered too big of a deal for Canada because everyone just assumed that a Canadian team, or Canadian players at the very least, would win it.
“Everybody understood hockey was Canada’s game,” he said. “I don’t think any individual Stanley Cup win set off national feelings of pride across the country.”
Canada’s long history of NHL champs
Zweig said that Canadian teams were winning all the time then. Think of the Toronto Maple Leafs dynasty in the 1960s, or the Montreal Canadiens’ reign in the 1970s. And if a Canadian team wasn’t winning the Stanley Cup, Canadian players were. Zweig said up to 90 per cent of the players on American teams were Canadian throughout the 20th century.
So when the Boston Bruins won in the 1970s, nobody said, “Boston’s stealing our game,” according to Zweig. Rather they agreed that Bobby Orr was the greatest player — and he was from Perry Sound, Ont.
NEW YORK, NY – MAY 11: Bobby Orr #4 of the Boston Bruins drinks from the Stanley Cup after Boston defeated the New York Rangers in Game 6 of the 1972 Stanley Cup Finals on May 11, 1972 at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York. The Bruins defeated the Rangers 3-0 and won the series 4-2 in six games. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios via Getty Images Studios/Getty Images)
How times have changed.
Canadian teams have faced a decades-long Stanley Cup drought, and threats of Canada becoming the “51st state” from Trump have only sharpened the national mood. Those developments mean a Stanley Cup win this season could spark feelings of national pride, Zweig said.
Canada-U.S. feud: Fans boo national anthems
Hockey has played a surprisingly big role in the current Canada-U.S. feud. Soon after Trump became president for a second time and began his talks of annexation, Canadians began booing the U.S. national anthem at NHL games. This caused Americans to boo the Canadian anthem in return, as well as a few fist fights between players. Zweig said the Four Nations Face-Off tournament in February was a big win for Canada to say “take that Americans.”
“It used to be mostly just about Canadian hockey pride, like ‘this is our game and our country and we’re the best at hockey,’” he said. “Now it’s more of a, ‘You can’t have us.’”
Carleton University political science professor Stephen Saideman told Yahoo Canada that a Stanley Cup win could be a boost to the Canadian psyche and reinforce pride and nationalism, seeing a surge at some of its highest levels in years due to Trump’s tariffs and rhetoric.
But he doesn’t imagine a win will change Canada-U.S. relations at all.
Anthem booing over the winter didn’t register with Trump even though he is often quick to hit back against any perceived insult. Trump’s shunning of hockey, even though his state of residence, Florida, is competing, likely means a Canadian Stanley Cup win won’t mean much to him, according to Saideman.
“The Americans are not paying attention to hockey nor are they paying attention to Canada,” he said. “It’s really not going to change Americans attitudes towards Canada at all.”
Americans are not paying attention to hockey nor are they paying attention to Canada.
What will affect Canada’s future more is the potential trade and security deal Canada and the U.S. are reportedly negotiating, Saideman said.
Stanley Cup win for Canada: Pride, spending boost — but not much else
If a Stanley Cup win won’t bother the Americans, could it at least boost Canada’s economy?
According to Carleton University sports economics professor Moshe Lander, that won’t be the case either. Although there are often reports of sports playoffs boosting spending on bars and restaurants, especially for the host city, Lander asserted that in the long run there is no noticeable economic boost as people are just directing their disposable income from one expenditure to another.
“At the end of the day there’s no new jobs, your disposable income hasn’t changed,” he said. “It’s just moving pieces around on the chess board.”