Sunshine Village and Lake Louise, two of ski and snowboard resorts in Alberta, both report fewer visitors on Super Bowl Sundays, even when the big game coincides with a powder day.Sunshine Village
Super Bowl Sunday is just a few sleeps away, which means one thing: Time to go skiing.
The football game is one of the biggest sporting spectacles of the year, which means, well, everyone will be watching TV that day. Or eating snacks while other people watch TV.
This year, Taylor Swift’s boyfriend will be playing, attracting a new cohort of fans capable of twisting any combination of numbers into a math problem that equals 13, her favourite number. Super Bowl LVIII. Super Bowl 58. Super Bowl 5 + 8 = 13.
And so, while everyone else is spilling salsa on their jerseys, judging the halftime show and fighting over whether a pop star in the stands is ruining the game on the field, you should go to the mountains.
“It’s the best ski day of the year,” said journalist Dawn Walton, co-captain of my campaign to convince people to play in the big hills on Super Bowl Sunday. “And the lift lines are shorter.”
But don’t take our word for it. Trust the science.
Sunshine Village and Lake Louise, two of ski and snowboard resorts in Alberta – and among Canada’s biggest and best winter playgrounds – both report fewer visitors on Super Bowl Sundays, even when the big game coincides with a powder day. And because the Super Bowl is in February, the mountains typically have more snow compared to Christmas Day or New Year’s Day, two other reliably slow days to mark on your calendar.
Over the past 15 years, skier traffic at Sunshine has dropped by around 7 to 10 per cent on Super Bowl Sundays compared with other Sundays in February, according to spokesperson Kendra Scurfield. That translates to about 500 fewer people on the resort.
In 2021, the traffic differential between Super Bowl Sunday and other Sundays in February dropped to 4 per cent, when COVID limited gatherings and activities. Scurfield said the spread narrowed to 3 per cent and 5 per cent in some years, when storms heaped snow on Sunshine’s slopes, attracting power hounds.
At Lake Louise, 11 of the last 19 Super Bowls have resulted in the fewest number of visitors compared with the two or three Sundays before or after, according to spokesperson Leigha Stankewich.
The Lake declined to provide more precise data, but noted there was not much difference between regular Sundays and Super Bowl Sundays. Cold weather, Stankewich said, may have played a role in keeping people away. Super Bowl Sundays in 2021, 2019, 2016, 2014 and 2010 were “noticeably” lower than comparable Sundays, she said.
Andy Brown, a spokesperson for Tourism Golden in British Columbia, cheers for Kicking Horse Mountain Resort come the annual game day.
“Golden has its own Super Bowl,” he said, referring to one of the resort’s alpine expanses. “And the best part about it is on Super Bowl Sunday, there are less skiers and snowboarders, which means the better of the two Super Bowls is left untracked.”
And even those who do go skiing on Super Bowl Sunday often pack up by around noon to make it to a TV for the game, Brown said: “You can see the difference.”
In this Sunday’s game, the San Francisco 49ers will play Kansas City in Las Vegas. To combat the Super Bowl rut, Sunshine is knocking $30 off adult lift tickets for anyone wearing a KC or 49ers jersey, or dressed as Taylor Swift.
Skiers and snowboarders trying to game the system to avoid crowds need to star March 18 on their calendar, too. It is the day after St. Patrick’s Day, making it a predictably slow one for resorts.
Scurfield said Sunshine also notices a dip in traffic when the Calgary Flames, one of Alberta’s two NHL teams, have playoffs games. (Outlook for 2024: Not good for Flames fans hoping their team wins the Stanley Cup, or for skiers and snowboarders who would benefit from Calgary making a playoff run).
Carrie Tait