Why Edmonton Oilers fans are complaining about bathrooms
The Edmonton Oilers are facing more than a problem with Anaheim's late rally on Wednesday night.
They officially have an issue with their bathrooms.
Earlier this week, Global News reported that the team changed two women's restrooms to men's restrooms in order to help alleviate long lines for male fans. According to Rogers Place management, this is a common practice depending on the event.
"For playoffs, what we're seeing is we're getting predominantly men in here - the more exciting the hockey gets, I think the less guys are willing to give up their tickets," said Susan Darrington, general manager of Rogers Place. "So we've adjusted our plans and we flipped a restroom on our main and on our upper concourse to be more available for men."
But there was, as documented by numerous places, some not very happy Oilers fans because women were then forced to wait in long lines while there were reportedly no lines for men's bathrooms.
So this should have all been fixed for Wednesday's game, right?
According to the The Canadian Press , not so much. More from the Press:
Those two washrooms remained converted Wednesday despite the complaints, but stanchions to expedite queues and more staff to direct people were added, according to the senior vice-president of the Oilers Entertainment Group.
"We all think it will add up to an improvement," Tim Shipton said. "We're going to review it at the end of the night and if there's things we need to change, we will do so.
"The goal is to get people back in their seats. We don't want people missing the game action."
While one fan that spoke to the newspaper seemed relatively calm about that wait (she pointed out that women make friends in bathroom lines, which can be totally true especially when you can bond over something like how long the bathroom line is), other fans took to social media again to complain about the long lines. But really, it's just become mostly an internet punchline at this point - because most people on the internet aren't waiting in the bathroom lines, so think this is all funny.
But the bathrooms at Rogers Place have long been a source of complaints for visitors. Take these tweets from earlier this year:
The National Post even did an entire article on the problems with going to the bathroom in April It ended on this hopeful note:
"We are instituting some changes in our washroom venue processes to speed up queuing and the flow-through time for fans using the facilities," said Shipton. And there's always the nuclear option: baseball field-style pee troughs. However, even Northlands Coliseum at the height of the 1980s Oilers Dynasty did not answer the siren song of mass-urinals.
Luckily for the Oilers, Friday's game is at the Honda Center.