The Oilers are 8-2-2, which is still a flying start... even after dropping the last two, 7-2 to Toronto on Saturday and 4-3 in a shootout to Detroit on Monday. Wednesday night is the first Battle of Alberta of the season, Calgary at Rogers Place at 6:30 p.m., and half the city will be watching the same game at the same time.

That shared timing is exactly why game night finds weak plumbing. Everybody goes at intermission. Everybody flushes at once, runs a tap, grabs a shower after the game. A toilet that has been quietly struggling all week finally has an audience.

We are fans writing this as fans. It is just a very Edmonton way to notice a problem before it becomes a mess.

Table of Contents

Why intermission is a plumbing stress test

A toilet does not usually fail out of nowhere. It runs a little long after a flush. It needs a second flush sometimes. A drain gurgles when the washing machine runs. On a normal day, you barely notice. On game night, three people use the same bathroom in ten minutes, and the weak link shows up all at once.

That is the whole idea here. Game night is not hard on your plumbing because of hockey. It is hard because everybody uses it at the same time.

Edmonton already proved this, with real numbers. During the Oilers' 2024 playoff run, EPCOR watched water use spike at every intermission: 40 megalitres against LA, double that against Vancouver, and 120 megalitres between the first and second overtime one night. EPCOR's theory was that everyone was holding it and couldn't hold it anymore. Their operators now ramp the pumps up at the end of each period because they expect the surge, and EPCOR's line was that it would be easier on their pumps if the Oilers won in regulation. They have seen the same pattern during the Super Bowl, Olympic hockey, and even some Elks games.

Other cities see it too. At the Super Bowl this past February, New York City's water use dropped to decade lows during the 13-minute halftime show, then spiked in the 15 minutes after to the equivalent of 761,719 toilets flushing at once. Seattle counted about 60,722 flushes in the same window, roughly 7.8 percent of the city. San Jose's sewage plant workers even have a name for it: the halftime flush, with flow swelling by about 10 million gallons over an hour.

None of it breaks anything, by the way. The burst-pipe legend traces back to a 1984 Salt Lake City main break, and no halftime surge has actually collapsed a system. The surge is real, it just lands on your bathroom first.

The two minute pregame check

Do this before puck drop on Wednesday, while there is still time to do something about it.

  1. Flush each toilet once and listen. It should fill, stop, and stay quiet. If it keeps running, or starts refilling on its own later, that toilet is wasting water around the clock.
  2. Watch the bowl refill. Slow, weak, or needing a second flush usually means something is off with the fill or the flush, not that you need to push harder.
  3. Run a tap in the same bathroom and listen for gurgling in the drain. Gurgling is the drain telling you it is not breathing right.
  4. Find your toilet shutoff valve, the little valve behind the toilet near the floor, and make sure it turns. If a toilet ever starts overflowing, that valve is the fastest way to stop it.

Two minutes, no tools, no crawling under anything.

The signs to actually pay attention to

  • A toilet that runs, refills by itself, or needs a jiggle of the handle to stop.
  • Water at the base of the toilet, even a little. That is not condensation to ignore.
  • A drain that is slow only when another fixture is running.
  • A smell that comes back after you clean the bathroom. That can be a drain or seal issue, not a cleaning issue.

None of these mean an emergency on their own. All of them are worth a look before a house full of people leans on that bathroom.

If it goes wrong during the game

Turn the toilet shutoff valve off first, then mop up what you can. Do not keep flushing to see if it clears. If water is coming from the base, if a drain is backing up into a tub or a floor drain, or if you cannot stop it with the shutoff, that is a call, not a wait until morning situation.

And if everything holds up through the game... great. You just passed the intermission test, and you can enjoy the third period without thinking about the bathroom at all.

And if something does break, give us a call... ideally after the game 😉

Call or text 780-717-3743.

EVCO Plumbing is an Edmonton plumbing company writing as Oilers fans. This post is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the Edmonton Oilers or the NHL, and it uses no team logos or photos.