Jessica Alford sits on a bar stool sporting a Calgary Flames jersey signed by Lanny McDonald. The retired co-captain, best known for his red mustache and once holder of the team's regular-season scoring record, won the Flames first – and therefore most recent – Stanley Cup in 1989.
The Flames and four other Canadian teams are back in the hunt for the Cup. Ms. Alford is in the National, a bar on Calgary's 17th Avenue, a strip known as the Red Mile in NHL playoff season. She is drinking vodka sodas at the bar. National is at capacity (according to the bouncer). If the Flames excel this spring, the Red Mile will explode.
Every city has its own party hot spots police across the country must manage. The Red Mile became a sensation in 2004 when the Flames gave fans something to cheer about in the playoffs. But so far this year, not so much.
"The Red Mile is lame tonight," says the 30-year-old Ms. Alford after the Flames lost their playoff opener 3-2 to the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday evening. "Tonight is not the Red Mile."
The Red Mile is one part myth, one part potential for a serious party. Calgary Police Service (CPS), along with its counterparts in Edmonton, Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto, need plans to deal with hockey fans excited that their teams made the playoffs. Police forces must navigate the line between letting fans have a good time and preventing chaos. The CPS had it easy Thursday night; fans gathered on the sidewalks to light cigarettes, not firecrackers. It was an away game and chilly enough that officers wore black tuques.
The fact that the Flames are the underdogs in the opening series also helps keeps things subdued.
"I think playing Anaheim sucks for us," said Laura Bobyn, who is 24 and at National. "We kind of all know it."
Indeed, the energy on the Red Mile is only as strong as the Flames. The Red Mile has yet to match its 2004 peak because the team has yet to match the same level of success. The Red Mile ballooned 13 years ago as the Flames stretched the unexpected playoff run to the final, only to lose in Game 7 to the Tampa Bay Lightening. Up to 100,000 people partied on 17th Avenue, depending on the source of the head count. CPS leaned on the Edmonton Police Service and RCMP for additional officers to keep the Red Mile under control.
"I don't think it will ever be the same as it was then," Ms. Alford said.
The Flames last made the playoffs in 2015. The Red Mile was subdued then, too.
But slow starts and low expectations mean nothing to police. Law-enforcement officials in Edmonton and Calgary are refraining from providing the details of their playoff strategies, but tactics range from targeting petty problems to preparing for riots.
The CPS is particularly experienced when it comes to keeping parties under control, largely thanks to the city's annual Stampede blowout.
"We've been here before," CPS Staff Sergeant Claire Smart said in an interview. "We have a flexible plan."
The approach, while focused on safety and enforcing the rules, comes with financial concerns. "We're in tight economic times," she said. "Our planning team is really focusing on using as much on-duty coverage as possible."
Edmonton Oilers fans take to the streets before the Oilers play the San Jose Sharks in the first round of the NHL playoffs.
JASON FRANSON/THE CANADIAN PRESS
The Edmonton Oilers are in the playoffs for the first time since 2006. Riots, injuries and arrests in Alberta's capital were part of that playoff run. Edmonton fans congregate on Whyte Avenue, the city's equivalent to Calgary's 17th Avene. The Oilers new arena, Rogers Place, is close to downtown pubs and restaurants but not Whyte Avenue, creating potential for two hot spots.
Scott Pattison, a spokesman for the Edmonton Police Service (EPS), said the force will crackdown on legal violations, large and small.
"We certainly will condone celebration but we're not going to condone lawlessness," he said this week. "That goes from everything from jaywalking, et cetera."
Mr. Pattison, a Red Wings fans, added: "We want to make sure that people stick to the sidewalk." In 2006, some fans took an inch of leeway and turned it into a mile, he said. Not this time. "The ones that are there to cause trouble will be identified and if they are breaking the law, they will be dealt with."
The Oilers surprised the league by making it to the Stanley Cup final in 2006, but lost to the Carolina Hurricanes 3-1 in Game 7. EPS assigned hundreds of officers to police crowds that evening, with some cops decked out in riot gear. That night, fans accepted the loss peacefully. The EPS has not yet brought on extra staff to manage this year's crowds, Mr. Pattison said.
The Oilers lost Game 1 of this year's playoffs in overtime Wednesday, giving police an easy start to the 2017 chase. The Oilers have not won the Cup since 1990.
Making the playoffs comes with a price. In 2006, it cost roughly $1.4-million to keep Whyte Avenue under control every playoff game, according to Edmonton police estimates at the time. In Calgary, the CPS spent $999,529.74 in 2004 on overtime and covering the cost of the additional officers while policing the Red Mile, according to the Calgary Herald, citing the then-police chief. The CPS figure excludes costs such as regular salaries and fuel.
Calgary Flames fans walk along the “Red Mile” as the team plays the Anaheim Ducks in the first game of their playoff series.
Jeff McIntosh/For the Globe and Mail
The Red Mile moniker emerged in 2004, when fans packed Calgary's main drag. Pubs line the street and it connects to the Saddledome's entrance infrastructure on the east end, making it easy for a concentrated party pack to emerge. Boozy mobs filled the street with all the accoutrements of celebrations: fans carrying others on their shoulders; cheers; shouts; a one-man band; flags; firecrackers; and arrests. People were stabbed, a female police officer was assaulted.
Women flashing the crowd became one of the Red Mile's most infamous features. Indeed, an academic journal – Sport In Society – in 2012 published a paper on the 2004 practice. A debate over feminism wiggled its way into the party.
In Montreal, downtown bars and clubs around the Bell Centre, an area that has seen considerable residential and commercial development in the past two or three years, are reliably packed on game nights.
The Canadiens' Fan Jam, a few blocks to the south of the rink, plays host to live bands, a beer garden, and is a rallying point for Habs Nation before games. There's even a Ferris wheel.
Habs fans are legendarily boisterous, and occasionally their collective passion descends into something darker – the colourful history of hockey-related violence in the city reached its zenith in the 1955 Richard Riots, after Maurice (Rocket) Richard was suspended from a playoff game for whacking an opponent with his stick.
More recently, Montrealers tend to riot only after wins: civic unrest and destruction as celebration. The mob usually gathers on Rue Ste. Catherine, the city's main shopping artery; it happened in 1993, when the Habs defeated the Los Angeles Kings for their 24th Stanley Cup, the last time a Canadian team won the championship.
When Montreal eliminated arch-rival Boston in the 2008 playoffs, there was widespread looting and riot police waded in with tear gas and truncheons. In 2010, several police cars were torched after the Habs dispatched the heavily favoured Pittsburgh Penguins. Four years later, fans once again smashed storefronts when the Habs beat Boston again.
Toronto Maple Leafs fans gather outside the Air Canada Centre. The Leafs lost Game 1 in overtime Thursday night and last hoisted the Cup in 1967.
The Ottawa Senators, as with all the other Canadian teams, lost its first game of the 2017 playoffs. The Stanley Cup last called Ottawa home in 1927. Sens fans are not known for their rowdiness.
Meanwhile, in Vancouver, officers will be chilling out. Their hometown team missed the playoffs – a sure way to avoid repeating the playoff riots of 2011. That year, police used tear gas, pepper spray, flash bombs, dogs and batons to try to control the crowd after the Canucks lost Game 7 in the Stanley Cup final to the Boston Bruins. Rioters were involved in everything from fires to stabbings.
Winnipeg streets will also be quiet as the Jets failed to make it to the postseason.