Podcasts about Edmonton, Alberta

Most of what plays on this page is the Edmonton Oilers, heard from several distances. One show weighs a line before a playoff series with the Ducks: Leon Draisaitl, Kasperi Kapanen and Vasily Podkolzin, it notes, had outscored opponents 12-3 in 141 minutes together. Another is a fan the day after a 5-2 win over the Utah Mammoth, frustrated that a team capable of solid defence keeps choosing when to play it. Around the hockey sit the Elks, city council, Alberta politics and interview shows more interested in people than results.

What Edmonton is

Edmonton is the capital of Alberta, a city of roughly a million people on the North Saskatchewan River. It is home to the provincial legislature and a major university, and its economy has long been tied to oil and gas. Its professional teams include the NHL's Oilers and the CFL's Elks.

Lines, reactions and the goaltending argument

The Oilers shows differ less in opinion than in how close they stand to the game. Locked On Oilers works from the lineup card and the numbers. That Draisaitl line comes from it. Its clips from the days before the Anaheim series also mark Matt Savoie's hat trick in the season he became a regular, and catch the host comparing NHL defence to treading water until fatigue lets the current overwhelm a player.

The Austin Hockey Podcast is built around single games, and its titles follow a pattern of pre-game reports, post-game fan reactions and day-after discussions. In the day-after clip on the Mammoth win, Austin notes the Oilers allowed only 18 shots. Then he asks why a team that has shown this month it can defend chooses when to. He also makes room for Mochi, who does not usually join the videos.

Struddy's World - Got Yer Back, steered by Jason Strudwick, is where the argument turns tactical, in short bursts and plain hockey vocabulary. The voices in one clip hold that goaltending is a byproduct of solid, predictable defence, and that reading the play, not reflexes, makes most saves. One concedes Jari may be owed an apology after a second look at a spinning goal. In another clip, Jack Michaels says Edmonton "cannot afford losses to the likes of St. Louis and Chicago and Vancouver".

Sports desks and a kick in Regina

Oilers NOW with Bob Stauffer and Inside Sports both sound like working sports desks built on guests, and here they meet over one football game. On Inside Sports, the interviewer passes along a friend's text calling the 36-34 win over the Rough Riders in Regina possibly the most significant Elks win since the 2015 Grey Cup. Elks sideline analyst Gord Hinse calls that the hottest take ever, then allows that for the last ten years it just might be. On Oilers NOW, Elks radio play-by-play voice Morley Scott explains how Edmonton got out from its own eight-yard line and won on Vincent Blanchard's 57-yard kick.

Where they part is range. Oilers NOW keeps hockey at the centre and uses stats, standings and history to sharpen an opinion. Louie DeBrusk sizes up a young Vancouver defence, recalls being on the worst team in the league in Tampa Bay, and says Zach Hyman "plays the game the right way". Inside Sports goes wider. Stingers head coach and general manager Jordan Baker says CBL games are decided by identity and execution in chaotic random play, and the guests named in its titles include NFL analyst Dalton Wasserman.

People rather than results

The Hockey Edmonton Show, filed under local and amateur hockey, keeps its titles plain and its interviews personal. It sounds patient, circling a point rather than landing it in one line, and it leaves the rough edges in. In the Brock McGillis interview the line cuts out, and the question about the years since he came out publicly in November 2016 is asked again. McGillis describes living by hockey tropes and coming out after a text from Brendan Burke. He warns that more than 40 percent of unhoused youth in Canada are LGBTQ+. Danielle Gregg calls qualifying for the Olympics the huge accomplishment, and the Olympic village and ceremonies unreal.

City of Champions, filed under Edmonton city life, covers arts, business and sports in the city. Its titles run from "Edmonton Police Chief Dale McFee | Protests, Policing, and Progress" to design. In a 2019 episode Councillor Tim Cartmell compares mass transit to an old telephone network and pictures vehicles moving like data packets. He also recalls crossing North America with his family at 14. A 2022 episode turns to a film about Michael Bisping, who chased championship fights with one eye and no depth perception.

Council chambers and the provincial line

The news shows split along the same line as the governments they follow. Speaking Municipally is two voices working through Edmonton city council: one asks the question a listener would have, the other unpacks the vote and the stakes. Its clips stay on the ground:

• the Remax Field parking lot, which the Riverhawks say could become four housing parcels, one of them high-density
• possible new tax subclasses for derelict and vacant properties, with some rates possibly starting by 2030
• the city's estimate that removing Whyte Avenue's scramble crosswalks will cut delays by 30 to 50 percent

Talking about Rossdale, one of them recalls Fort Edmonton moving up the hill because of flooding, onto ground where the legislature later stood. Then they describe the area now: cut by huge roads, dirt lots that turn to mud in the rain, a pain to reach by transit. The titles are dry one-liners: "Is Whyte Ave chopped and unc?", "Would you like to purchase a bag for 25 cents?"

Shaye Ganam takes the provincial view at a faster pace. It sounds like live, deadline-driven radio, and its main ground is Alberta politics and policy. In one clip the talk runs from a coal project in the south that a petition might shut down, to companies that sink tens or hundreds of millions into the province and get booted out. From there it moves to the separation question adding uncertainty, and to why anyone would want a pipeline that cannot make money. The show goes as far as lunar orbit, with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen describing three-dimensional depth in the galaxy.

Where to start

• Oilers, closely: Locked On Oilers for lines and numbers, Struddy's World - Got Yer Back for the argument about goaltending and defence, and The Austin Hockey Podcast for one fan's day-after view.
• The Elks: Inside Sports with Gord Hinse on the win in Regina, then Oilers NOW with Bob Stauffer for Morley Scott's account of the same kick.
• City and province: Speaking Municipally for council, housing and Whyte Avenue; Shaye Ganam for Alberta politics.
• A life in hockey: The Hockey Edmonton Show's conversation with Brock McGillis.

The Edmonton feed on this page plays clips from these shows.