The five retirees chatting outside a public library in a suburb of Edmonton, Alberta’s provincial capital, had roots in South Asia.
Some were from India, others from Pakistan. The group included Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. Their work lives had changed.
But the group, which meets weekly at the library, was united by their long-standing love of hockey and, in particular, Edmonton Oilers.
Three members of the group said they would be in the library Thursday night watching the Oilers on television play their first home Stanley Cup Final in 18 years. (At the moment, the team is losing two games to none in the best-of-seven championship series.)
“I like all sports,” said Saleem Akhtar, a former field hockey player from Pakistan who was wearing a Nike jacket with the Hockey Canada logo. “But now that I’m here in Canada, hockey is number one and we have a good team.”
For Edmonton, the Oilers’ return to the finals of hockey’s biggest professional competition brings back memories of the 1980s. Those were glory days for both the Oilers, who won five Stanley Cups between 1984 and 1990, and the own city. (A Canadian team hasn’t won the Stanley Cup in more than three decades.)
Back then, the tar sands that feed Edmonton’s refineries were a source of national pride and made the city a magnet for job seekers from across the country.
now they are condemned by environmentalists as Canada’s largest source of carbon emissions.
Just as Wayne Gretzky’s undeniable talent led the Oilers to their first four Stanley Cup victories four decades ago, Connor McDavid who is widely viewed as Mr. Gretzky’s successor, has led the team within reach of the pinnacle of hockey.
But the Oilers play in a very different city than the one that reveled in Gretzky’s victories. Edmonton’s population has roughly tripled to 1.5 million and is now much more diverse and less white.
South Asian people, including Akhtar, who followed his children to Edmonton, now make up more than 11 per cent of the population.
But the growth, combined with a severe decline in oil prices that began about a decade ago, has also brought challenges. Edmonton has lost jobs and its financial difficulties are visible in the heart of the city.
Just beyond a vibrant neighborhood full of bars and restaurants next to the Oilers’ current stadium, which opened in 2016, downtown Edmonton’s shopping centers are nearly empty after two major department stores left downtown. city.
Its doors close at 6 p.m. most days, according to some locals, to keep out the area’s large homeless population. Many homeless people struggle with opioid addiction. Last year, opioid poisoning deaths in Alberta increased 25 per cent from the previous year.
While oil prices have risen since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many of the jobs that disappeared during the crisis have yet to be restored.
For many in Edmonton, the Oilers’ return to the Stanley Cup Final has rekindled memories of brighter days.
“We had kind of a ‘City of Champions’ dynasty era,” said Rollie Pemberton, a former Edmonton poet laureate and rap artist who acts as Cadence weapon.
“That made us feel really good about ourselves in Edmonton,” he added. “But we also had this inferiority complex that made us feel like we were overlooked, ignored in the national and international conversation.”
Mr. Pemberton, grandson of a star player on Edmonton’s Canadian Football League teamsaid that a description of Edmonton as “the boiler room” of Canada written by Mordecai Richler, the Montreal novelist, back in the 1980s resonated with him.
Many people in Edmonton, including Pemberton, take pride in the city’s gritty, industrial character.
“We’re a blue-collar city, we work hard,” Vera Ward said as she walked back to her compact SUV in a shopping center parking lot. The car was adorned with two Oilers flags mounted on plastic poles attached to the rear windows.
“Everyone is hoping to win the cup this year,” said Ms. Ward, who works as an office manager for a chicken breeders’ association. “It’s going to be fun. In the good times and the bad, we’re there for them, most of the fans.”
Shrines large and small dedicated to the Oilers’ former glory days still dot the city. But few are as prominent as the replica Stanley Cup that sits outside a big-box sporting goods store on the road between Edmonton’s airport and downtown. He is 12 and ½ feet tall and weighs 850 pounds.
Inside the United Sport & Cycle store, Kelly Hodgson, the general manager, was on the sales floor wearing an Oilers jersey with a cartoonish oversized chain with a medallion with Mr. McDavid’s name on it. Her outfit also included a plastic wig in orange and blue, the Oilers’ colors. On top of the wig he wore an oil worker’s helmet adorned with the team logo.
Oilers jerseys, including some with Gretzky’s name and his number, 99, lined a wall inside the sprawling store. The versions, made by Adidas, worn by players were already largely sold out and had been replaced by less expensive versions licensed by the National Hockey League and the league’s teams.
As Tamon Yanagimoto, a former Edmonton resident who had traveled from Seattle for this week’s games, inspected the commemorative merchandise, Mr. Hodgson said that, along with fans looking for Oilers merchandise, the playoffs had attracted the It catered to people who simply wanted to talk about games.
“It’s a way to unload,” he said.
Pemberton also returned to Edmonton from his new home in Hamilton, Ont., this week to record a video for an updated version of a song he wrote in 2017 when McDavid joined the Oilers.
Although he usually returns to Edmonton to visit his mother and sister, Pemberton said he returned to a different city this time.
“People in Edmonton sometimes feel dejected by circumstances,” he said in a meeting room in his mother’s apartment building, just west of the city centre. “The fact that this team is really successful, it really lifts up the whole city. Honestly, it means a lot to people. “It gives them something to believe in.”
Vjosa Isai contributed to the research.