Edmonton Oil Kings
Rink: Rogers Place
Capacity: 18,347
Built: 2016
League: WHL
City: Edmonton, Alberta
Home Of: Edmonton Oil Kings
Games Attended: 1
Only Game: September 23, 2023 vs Red Deer
Unique Arena: #67
WHL Arena: #14
Rogers Place in Edmonton sits on the edge of downtown, with empty lots and an LRT station just to its north and the main hub of downtown with bars and restaurants just to the south. As we obviously know, the Oil Kings are the secondary tenant with the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers getting top billing here. While I am sure parking for an Oilers game would be much harder and expensive to come by, we parked for free on a residential street nearby. This building is huge and looks like a spaceship. Being on the edge of downtown, it is front and centre of the skyline when looking from the north.
This was my first time inside an NHL building built in the last 20 years and I was very impressed. As expected being an NHL building, facilities are far and beyond what you normally see at the major junior level. All the lower bowl seats are wide and comfortable, and the views of the ice are great. The Oil Kings are owned by the Oilers, so a lot of the game-day staff crosses over and hence you get a professional NHL-caliber presentation as well. However, some of the staff I talked to said they actually like working the Oil Kings games more as it’s a bit more of a laid-back atmosphere.
In 2022-23 the Oil Kings had the highest average attendance in the WHL at 6,412 despite finishing last place in the league, with just 10 wins all season. It shows that there is a great fanbase in Edmonton for junior hockey despite sharing a building with an NHL generational talent. Unfortunately, even with very good crowds the noise gets lost in an NHL-sized building with a curtained off upper bowl. Our game had roughly 5,000 people in attendance and it wasn’t exactly rocking, through no fault of the faithful. A CHL team realistically isn’t going to ever draw much better than the Oil Kings do outside of rare occasions, so it’s unfortunate that you likely won’t get an amazing atmosphere noise-wise, but the professional presentation and well-run organization definitely makes up for it.
I very much enjoyed the Oil Kings game I attended, and purely from a facility standpoint it’s head and shoulders above any building in the CHL, but that’s not exactly a fair fight. That said, while it’s the best facility in the Canadian Hockey League and it is a cool experience, it’s not exactly the junior hockey experience. Just from a pure enjoyment standpoint there are other rinks I would rank ahead of Rogers Place if I were to rank all 60.
Extra side note – kudos on this day to the Oil Kings for bringing out an 80-year-old alumnus (didn’t catch his name) who was a part of their 1963 Memorial Cup Championship team and whose grandson currently plays for the team as of this writing. While the building is obviously covered in Oilers colours and gear, it’s nice to see the Oil Kings have their banners in the rafters and plenty of their own merch in the Oilers stores.
