Battle of Alberta
| Flames–Oilers rivalry | |
Eric Godard and Matt Greene fight during a game in 2008. |
|
| Teams |
Edmonton Oilers Calgary Flames |
| Originated | 1980–81 NHL season |
| Regular Season Record | Calgary leads 107–94–18 (includes overtime and shoot-outs) |
| Playoff Record | Edmonton leads 4 series to 1 |
| Hitmen–Oil Kings rivalry | |
The Hitmen and the Oil Kings face off in Calgary. |
|
| Teams |
Edmonton Oil Kings Calgary Hitmen |
| Originated | 2007 |
| Regular Season Record | Calgary leads 33–23 (losses include overtime and shoot-outs) |
| Playoff Record | Both teams tied 1 series to 1 |
| Stampeders–Eskimos rivalry | |
Doug Falconer (33) attempts to block |
|
| Teams |
Calgary Stampeders Edmonton Eskimos |
| Originated | 1949 |
| Regular Season Record | Edmonton leads 125–97–3 |
| Playoff Record | Edmonton leads 14–12 |
| Roughnecks–Rush rivalry | |
| Teams |
Edmonton Rush Calgary Roughnecks |
| Years | 2006–2015 |
| Regular Season Record | Calgary led 26–10 |
| Playoff Record | Edmonton led 3 series to 1 |
The Battle of Alberta is a term applied to the intense rivalry between the Canadian cities of Edmonton, the capital (since 1905) of the province of Alberta, and Calgary, the province's most populous (since 1976) city. Most often it is used to describe sporting events between the two cities, although this is not exclusive as the rivalry predates organized sports in Alberta.
The worst way to engage Edmontonians is to tell them how things are done in Calgary.
Harvey Locke identifies a longstanding cultural divide in Alberta between the centre and north on one hand and the south on the other as a recurring theme in the province's history going back to pre-contact Aboriginal cultures. The peoples of the boreal forest, and to a lesser extent, the aspen parkland, led a subarctic lifestyle which involved trapping fur-bearing animals and traveling by canoe, which made the region a natural fit for the fur trade. By contrast the plains cultures on the prairie to the south relied on the buffalo. The predominant political force on the prairie during the fur trade, the Blackfoot Confederacy, would not allow the Hudson's Bay Company to establish itself within Blackfoot territory, preferring to ride to Edmonton House (established 1795) to trade. Around this time some Cree and allied peoples (the Iron Confederacy) pushed south onto the plains, and became rivals of the Blackfoot. By the 1810s, explorer Peter Fidler identified the Battle River as a disputed frontier between the two groups. Locke asserts that the lack of an HBC presence in the south set the stage for very different patterns of settlement in the different regions. Calgary was founded as a North-West Mounted Police fort and was not much of a settlement at all until the mid-1880s when the Canadian Pacific Railway suddenly shifted its planned route across Western Canada from a northern one (via Edmonton) to a more southerly path (via Calgary). Therefore, the economic and cultural origins of Calgary and its region, were created up by the NWMP and the CPR, not the HBC. Because of the CPR line, Calgary's agricultural hinterland was settled much sooner, mostly by people of British, and particularly Scottish, origins but it also has an American influence because of the ranching culture brought into the region by American cowboys. By contrast, Edmonton's hinterland is marked by a French Canadian and Métis presence, and is predominantly occupied by people of non-British European origins. In particular, the region just to the east of Edmonton, Kalyna Country, is Canada's oldest and largest area of Ukrainian settlement.
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