Edmonton hockey fans are behaving responsibly while celebrating the Oilers’ success, says police Chief Rod Knecht.
“I think we expected a little bit more public drunkenness,” Knecht told reporters Monday.
“We’ve seen it trending up slightly since beginning of playoffs with arrests for drunkenness, but not an alarming amount.”
Fans are also finding safer ways to get home after a night of partying, he said.
“We would have expected impaired driving to go up. We’re not seeing that.”
Instead, he said, fans are policing themselves and interacting positively with police. At the same time officers are not enforcing laws overly aggressively, he said.
Nonetheless, the cost of policing the streets on game nights is rising as Oilers go deeper into the playoffs.
Every game night 200 officers hit the streets with 100 officers around Rogers Place, 50 more on Jasper Avenue and 50 on Whyte Avenue.
During the first round many officers were rescheduled to keep overtime costs down, but each round becomes more expensive as the EPS leans more on overtime to staff game nights, Knecht said.
So far the EPS has spent $400,000 on game-day policing, about $50,000 a night. The chief said he hopes the spending can be absorbed into the annual policing budget.
“If we can’t absorb it, we’ll probably go forward and ask for some relief.”
Meanwhile, like all fans, Knecht is hoping that the policing of game nights won’t end Wednesday when the Oilers play the Anaheim Ducks in California in Game 7.
“I’m hoping I can wear this jersey into June,” he said.
The @edmontonoilers stay afloat with a massive #orangecrush. Be safe and responsible driving home and get ready for #game7! #letsgooilers pic.twitter.com/E9XzBqvhci