The Edmonton Oilers make Pink Pony Club part of their playoff lore

The first rule of “Pink Pony Club” is you do not talk about “Pink Pony Club.”

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The second rule of “Pink Pony Club” is you do not talk about “Pink Pony Club.”

The third rule of “Pink Pony Club”  is if the Dallas Stars go limp, or tap out, the series is over.

It is now a playoff tradition, the kind of thing that will become part of Edmonton Oilers lore. The Oilers enter the Rogers Place ice surface to the chug-chugging guitar intro that has made Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” a sports stadium standard. But if the night goes well for the Oilers, after all the players enter the dressing room, Chappell Roan’s smash hit will be played at high volume.

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It has become such a part of this playoff run that the crowd of 18,000-plus at Rogers Place belted out “Pink Pony Club” during  Game 3.

But how did this song become the Oilers’ playoff anthem? That’s a closely guarded secret.

“We’re going to keep that one within the team,” said Oilers defenceman Evan Bouchard.

Goalie Calvin Pickard, who was in net for the team’s first six playoff triumphs of 2025 before falling to injury, offered little more.

“I don’t know if I can tell people that story, can I?” said Pickard.  “Well, I know exactly where it started, but I don’t know if I want to let that secret out. I know exactly when, because I was there.. But, I think I am going to keep it tight to the chest.

But does Pickard like the song?

“Yeah, it’s great,” he said. “We rally around it, for sure. My kids love it, and it seems like the city loves it, too.”

The fact that a lot of the sportswriters in the dressing room hadn’t heard of the song until the playoff run is a sign that a lot of us need to get out more. For those of you who have been living under a rock, Roan’s song has become more than the sum of its parts. It’s about a girl who moves from a small town to pursue her dreams in Los Angeles, but ends up dancing at a club, The fact that she knows her mother would be aghast with her life choices suggests that the venue in question is indeed a strip club,  but her line “and I heard there’s a special place, where boys and girls can all be queens every single day” has also made it anthem for the Queer community, and just about any kid who feels he, she or they simply don’t fit in. There was a Chappell Roan-themed drag night held at an Edmonton nightclub in the fall of 2024. It’s a pop song, but it might be the most unintentionally punk-rock anthem of this generation. Honestly, no one would have batted an eyelash had these lyrics been sung by Kurt Cobain.

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And that’s what makes hearing 18,000 fans belt out the song so spine-tinglingly wonderful; whether it’s intentional or not, they are signalling that the arena is a place of inclusion.

There’s a unique connection between random pop hits of the past and present and sports teams. In 2019, the St. Louis Blues went on a playoff run that ended in a Cup, with Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” as their victory song.  Singing along to Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” is part and parcel of going to Fenway Park and watching a Boston Red Sox game.

Some songs are local: when the Minnesota Twins win, they hear “Let’s Go Crazy” by the late, great Prince — the state’s most famous musical export.  The Seattle Mariners rock to Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire,” an homage to the local guitar legend.

Sometimes, when fans break into song, you wonder how and why the song got there. During Game 3 of the Oilers-Stars series, the fans belted out a version of the Cranberries’ “Zombie,” which is a protest song about the Irish Republican Army and a bombing that killed two kids. And this scribe has lost count of the times arenas play the Outfield’s “Your Love” when happy couples are shown on the big screens, even though the song is about infidelity.

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OK, back to “Pink Pony Club.” Oilers forward Evander Kane, who missed all of the regular season due to injury but returned during the first round of the playoffs, said he has learned to love the song.

“It certainly wasn’t me,” Kane laughed when asked who in the Oilers’ dressing room came up with the idea to make “Pink Pony Club” the team’s victory song. “Do I like to hear it? Well, I like it now, I guess. But, we’ll just keep it going as long as we can.”

Kane said his current pre-game pump-up song of choice is “Forever,” by Diplo and Hugel, so go ahead and add that to your playlist.

As for the Oilers’ entrance music, “Enter Sandman” is ubiquitous when it comes to sporting events. It would be impossible to list all of the sports teams that enter their fields, courts or ice surfaces to the duelling guitars of Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield.

Probably the most famous “Enter Sandman” entrance belongs to the NCAA’s Virginia Tech Hokies, where more than 66,000 fans at Lane Stadium rise to their feet as the home team comes out of the tunnel.

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But the Oilers’ entrance is pretty good, and it’s timed so that the dressing room doors open when the song kicks up from intro to the big guitar flourish. The starting goalie always leads the team onto the ice. But, until he was hurt and had to watch it rather than be a part of it, Pickard didn’t understand the majesty of the walk from the dressing room to the ice

“I’d never viewed it as a fan,” Pickard said. “And then I watched the game yesterday from the press box. It’s pretty cool.”

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