The morning erupts with a rumble of excitement in Airdrie, Alberta, as Nancy Wigston unfurls a hand-sewn banner from her front porch. “Airdrie Loves Lord Stanley” stretches across the fabric in bold red letters, while her daughter attaches streamers to their family truck.
“It started as a joke,” Wigston tells me, adjusting her Calgary Flames cap despite the fact that her team didn’t make it past the first round of playoffs. “Our mayor mentioned casually that we should celebrate the Cup regardless of which team wins, and somehow it became this whole beautiful tradition.”
What makes Airdrie’s celebration remarkable isn’t just its enthusiasm—it’s the fact that this city of 80,000 located just north of Calgary has no NHL franchise of its own. Yet this June will mark their sixth Stanley Cup parade since 2007, a tradition that has transformed from quirky local oddity into a defining community ritual.
I arrived in Airdrie on a clear May morning, when playoff fever was already gripping the community. Local shops displayed homemade Stanley Cup replicas in windows—some crafted from aluminum foil and old salad bowls, others more elaborate constructions involving repurposed household items and extraordinary attention to detail.
At George McDougall High School, woodworking teacher Curtis Brandley supervises as students put finishing touches on this year’s parade centerpiece: a nearly life-sized replica of the Cup that will be mounted on the back of a restored 1967 Ford pickup.
“The kids start planning the design in January,” Brandley explains as sawdust settles on his flannel shirt. “It’s become a coveted project. Even students who couldn’t care less about hockey want to be part of building something that means so much to the city.”
According to Statistics Canada data, hockey viewership has declined somewhat nationally over the past decade, with younger Canadians less engaged with the sport than previous generations. Yet in Airdrie, the Stanley Cup celebration has paradoxically grown, drawing participants across demographic lines.
Mayor Peter Brown, serving his fourth term, beams with pride when discussing what locals simply call “Cup Day.”
“We’ve got a community divided between Flames fans, Oilers fans, and transplants from all over Canada with their own team loyalties,” Brown explains as we walk through Nose Creek Regional Park, where last year’s celebration drew nearly 15,000 people. “Rather than letting hockey divide us, we found a way to celebrate the sport itself—the tradition, the Cup, what it means to Canadian identity.”
The tradition began in 2007 when local business owner Trevor Devnich organized an impromptu street party after the Anaheim Ducks defeated the Ottawa Senators in the finals. Devnich, who passed away in 2019, had been disappointed that a Canadian team hadn’t won, but decided to celebrate the Cup’s Canadian origins anyway.
“Trevor always said the Cup belongs to all Canadians, not just the city whose team wins it,” explains his widow, Margaret, as she shows me scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings and photographs from previous parades. “The Cup was donated by Lord Stanley when he was Governor General of Canada. Trevor believed its spirit belongs here regardless of where it physically resides each year.”
What started with about 200 people and three decorated vehicles has evolved into a full-day festival featuring live music, street hockey tournaments, and appearances by former NHL players with connections to Alberta. Local breweries create special “Stanley” editions, and restaurants serve themed menus.
Sociologist Dr. Anisha Datta from Mount Royal University has studied the phenomenon, noting how it represents a fascinating evolution in how communities form meaningful traditions in the modern era.
“What’s remarkable about Airdrie’s celebration is how it both honors traditional Canadian hockey culture while simultaneously subverting expectations about who ‘deserves’ to celebrate,” Datta explains. “They’ve essentially democratized the Stanley Cup, removing it from the exclusive domain of winning cities and reclaiming it as cultural heritage.”
Not everyone embraced the tradition initially. Ron MacLean, longtime host of Hockey Night in Canada, once referred to it as “cute but missing the point” during a 2010 broadcast. Those comments sparked a flurry of defensive letters from Airdrie residents, eventually leading MacLean to visit the celebration in 2012, where he publicly changed his stance.
“I had it wrong,” MacLean told the crowd that year. “What you’re doing here isn’t diminishing the Cup’s meaning—you’re actually preserving something profound about it.”
At the local Cooper’s Sports Excellence shop, owner Jeff Milton shows me the glass cabinet where the “Community Cup”—Airdrie’s own trophy awarded to the winner of the street hockey tournament—is displayed between celebrations.
“We have kids who’ve grown up with this tradition who now bring their own children,” Milton says. “Some of them probably don’t even realize other cities don’t do this. To them, celebrating the Stanley Cup is just what Canadians do in June, like fireworks on Canada Day.”
The economic impact hasn’t gone unnoticed either. According to the Airdrie Chamber of Commerce, the celebration generates approximately $1.2 million in local spending, with hotels booking up weeks in advance as former residents return home specifically for the event.
As playoff season intensifies, Airdrie residents are already preparing, regardless of which teams make it to the finals. Local radio stations run Cup-related trivia contests, and the city’s parks department has planted red and white flowers in strategic locations along the parade route.
When I ask Mayor Brown what happens in years when a Canadian team actually does win the Cup—something that hasn’t occurred since Montreal’s victory in 1993—he laughs.
“That would be incredible, but honestly, I’m not sure it would change much about how we celebrate,” he says. “This stopped being about consolation years ago. It’s now about Airdrie and who we are as a community. The Cup is just the beautiful excuse that brings us together.”
As I prepare to leave town, I stop at Hometown Hockey Museum, a small but passionate collection housed in a converted railway station at the edge of town. Curator Samuel Chen shows me the growing archive of photographs documenting each year’s celebration.
“We’re writing our own hockey story here,” Chen says, carefully turning pages of the oversized album. “One that doesn’t depend on having an NHL franchise or even winning anything. It’s about claiming our place in Canada’s hockey culture on our own terms.”
In these images of children with painted faces, seniors waving from parade floats, and families gathered in celebration, I see something that transcends sports fandom. Airdrie has discovered that sometimes the most meaningful traditions are the ones you create for yourself, championship or not.
