OTTAWA — With election day on Monday fast approaching, political parties are looking for their last chance to advertise their cause.
Luckily for them, they can do it on one of the biggest stages in Canada: the Stanley Cup playoffs. And it also comes at a moment when interest in hockey is peaking.
This year’s Stanley Cup playoffs features five out of the seven Canadian teams, which is the most since 2004. It’s also coming on the heels of the Four Nations Faceoff tournament, which saw heightened national attention due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and rhetoric about Canada.
On top of that, last year’s Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Edmonton Oilers and the Florida Panthers was the most-watched broadcast in Rogers Sportsnet’s history.
Now, political campaigns are taking advantage of this increased viewership.
“There are only two things that cause people to watch live television in numbers anymore,” said Mitch Heimpel, who was an advisor to former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole campaign and is an avid hockey-watcher. “One is big live news events and the other is live sports.”
“There were some echoes in these ads of the 2015 campaign when the Blue Jays were in the playoffs in October, where there were political ads laced throughout commercial breaks,” Heimpel continued.
The battle of Ontario, which pits the Ottawa Senators against the Toronto Maple Leafs, is particularly crucial for advertising campaigns, as Ontario is home to many of the key battleground ridings parties are looking to win.
The Conservatives have aimed ads at an older audience, as they try to pry those voters away from Liberal Leader Mark Carney. One of the ads features two older men golfing and discussing why they will be voting for the Conservatives. The video has also gone viral over social media, amassing over 4.6 million views on X.
We can’t afford fore more years.
Vote for Change. Vote Conservative. pic.twitter.com/i68ZbqwFgM
— Conservative Party (@CPC_HQ) April 19, 2025
“The two guys in that ad are not empathetic characters in a political ad for anybody under the age of 60,” Heimpel said.
The Liberal have notably excelled in the polls among older generations.
According to Nanos’ election tracking
, 53 per cent of people polled aged 55 and over preferred Carney’s Liberals, while only 33 per cent preferred the Conservatives.
“The polling has demonstrated that the boomers are generally more in play and susceptible to arguments about the United States and Trump’s impact on the economy,” Heimpel said. “Those boomer men who have typically been dialed-in Conservative voters are, for the first time in years, the subject of competition in this election.”
Additionally, the Conservatives have released an ad featuring former prime minister Stephen Harper directly endorsing Pierre Poilievre.
“The two men running to lead us both once worked for me, and my choice unequivocally is Pierre Poilievre,” Harper says in the ad.
“We’re talking about a group of voters that responds to authority very well,” Heimpel said. “They see Stephen Harper as a sign of solid fiscal management, and probably a saner time in the country’s politics.”
Heimpel says that this ad was especially meant for the Senators-Maple Leafs game.
“Those boomer men in Ontario probably voted for Stephen Harper three times, at least.”
The Liberals and NDP are also airing advertisements during the playoffs, though taking opposite approaches. The NDP has released ads about health care and other policies, while the Liberal ads have placed their leader front and centre.
“The Liberal ad is very Mark Carney-focused,” Heimpel said. “It tells you that as a brand, Carney is polling ahead of the party.”
The election advertising blackout occurs this Sunday, the day before the election. Every Canadian team is guaranteed to still be competing by Saturday, which means that the parties will have the opportunity to use the playoff ad breaks right until the end of the campaign period.
Heimpel says that he is interested to see if the parties create new promotional material before the blackout, even if this seems unlikely.
“The one thing that has changed though over the years is that the turnaround time (for producing ads) is shortening,” Heimpel said. “So we could see closing ads on Saturday night.”
National Post
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