Ever considered placing a sportsbet Canada? Then you will have surely noticed the choice and variety you, as a sports bettor, have at your disposal when it comes to the available sports. From basketball and baseball to MMA and cricket; When it comes to sports betting in Canada, the world is your oyster. Having said that, there is still one sport that dominates all others for Canadian fans and bettors, and that sport is ice hockey. Or simply “hockey”, as it is often called locally.
Focus on American NHL
One of the main reasons for hockey’s enormous popularity in Canada, apart from its long history and status as national sport, is the fact that Canadian teams can play in the National Hockey League (NHL) in the United States, one of the biggest sports leagues in the world. At the moment of writing, the NHL consists of 32 teams and 7 of those teams are from Canada: the Calgary Flames, the Edmonton Oilers, the Montreal Canadiens, the Ottawa Senators, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Vancouver Canucks and the Winnipeg Jets.
This ensures that Canadians have plenty of homegrown heroes to follow and support, while they compete in the biggest hockey league in the world. And that does not go for just Canadians, by the way, because some of the previously mentioned teams are well-known and often popular entities amongst American and other non-Canadian fans and bettors as well. On PowerPlay, for example, the Edmonton Oilers are at this very moment the favourite to win the 2024-2025 Stanley Cup, the trophy awarded annually to the NHL playoff champion.
National team glory
The American NHL is not the only competition that is followed closely by hockey fans in Canada. Far from it, as a matter of fact, in great part because of the extent to which Canadian hockey fans tend to be invested in their national team. And that interest is not just limited to the men’s national team at international tournaments, but to the junior ranks as well. International events like the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships, for example, are widely followed and bet on in Canada, as are the exploits of the national women’s teams.
It’s the first teams that take most of the limelight though, which can also be observed when looking at the sports betting offers for ice hockey in Canada. At trusted online bookmakers like PowerPlay, for example, you can currently bet on two international events, the 4 Nations Face-Off and the 2025 IIHF Women’s World Championship 2025. The former is a temporary replacement for the annual All-Star Game, held in Montreal and hosted by the NHL, in which Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States compete. The latter is the 2025 ice hockey World Championship for women.
Finally, Canadians also like to watch hockey from other countries and leagues, which explains why you can also place sports bets on, for example, the Czech Extraliga, the Finnish Liiga and the European Champions League. That is one of the big advantages when you live in a country like Canada, where hockey is still king for fans and bettors alike. Behind hockey are American football, with a focus on the Canadian Football League (CFL), and American basketball (NBA), which has been growing in popularity since the surprise championship victory by the Toronto Raptors in 2019.
What about other sports?
We can imagine if all this hockey talk has got you feeling a bit disoriented. Ice hockey, after all, is nowhere near as popular in the United Kingdom as it is in Canada. You can bet on the NHL and other (international) hockey leagues at most online bookmakers, but the sport definitely does not belong to the most popular categories.
We therefore figured it would be interesting to have a look at the English Premier League betting offer in Canada, seeing as the Premier League is one of the most followed and most betted-on sports leagues in our region (and the rest of the world). Keep in mind that, if you want to check it out for yourself, the category is usually called “Soccer” by Canadian bookmakers. Fortunately, the Premier League is almost always mentioned somewhere, so you don’t need to go looking for it.
At PowerPlay, for example, the Premier League is part of the HOME page’s shortcut menu in the top left corner of the screen. The fact that the competition is still ranked below the NBA, the NHL and the 4 Nations Face-Off gives a good idea of where the Premier League stands in terms of sports betting in Canada. On top of that, the odds seem pretty much in line with the odds at British bookmakers. For bets on the winner of the current season, for example, Liverpool are the stand-out favourites (1.25), followed by Arsenal (4.00).