P.E.I. government will not renew NHL deal

The P.E.I. government will not be renewing its three-year promotional deal with the National Hockey League.

Tourism Minister Ernie Hudson made the announcement on Oct. 22, but pointed to evidence that the deal has resulted in many benefits for P.E.I.’s tourism industry.

“The decision made was no, we will not be renewing the contract past Dec. 31,” Hudson told The Guardian in an interview.

The three-year agreement was signed by the province during the tenure of former premier Dennis King. The $7.5-million agreement allowed for cross-promotional advertising of Tourism P.E.I. as the “official travel destination of the NHL” and ensured that P.E.I. tourism ads were played during prominent NHL hockey games.

The agreement also generated backlash in the legislature from the Opposition Liberal and Green benches. Both parties have portrayed the deal as a waste of public resources.

Hudson conceded this criticism has been made.

But Hudson said a recent evaluation of the three-year agreement by the firm IMI International suggested the agreement did increase visitation to P.E.I. in recent years.

IMI International estimated that the three-year promotion generated between $32 million and $237 million in tourism spending on P.E.I.

“One of the things that we continuously did see in the legislature was, ‘that was a waste of money. Why did you ever go down that road?’” Hudson said.

“For me, the IMI report does a couple of things. It validated the decision that was made to enter into that partnership.”

Hudson said IMI International was a reputable research firm that was hired by Tourism P.E.I. to evaluate the deal. He said the province spent $36,000 on IMI’s evaluation.

A report prepared by IMI, provided to The Guardian by the department, indicated the firm relied on a June 2026 survey of 2,149 respondents, 450 of which were based in the New England states and 1,699 of which were based in Canada. New England was identified at the outset as a target market for Tourism P.E.I.

The survey found that 23 per cent of the 1,699 Canadians were aware of the NHL-P.E.I. Tourism promotional campaign, while 19 per cent of the New England respondents were aware of it.

Of those that were aware of the campaign, the surveys found 75-76 per cent took some level of action related to a P.E.I. trip planning process. This included researching accommodations (20 per cent), planning future travel (10-15 per cent) and booking a visit to P.E.I. (three to four per cent).

The survey also noted a margin of error of +/-2.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The study made an extrapolation of these results to the populations of Canada and New England states, which suggested the three to four per cent of respondents who booked a visit would equate to 315,000 people.

Based on these figures, IMI estimated the three-year benefits of the $7.5 million NHL deal to the P.E.I. tourism industry to be between $75 million and $347 million.

Hudson noted that 2024 and 2025 were “record-breaking tourism years.” He said 2026 was also on track to be another record-breaking year.

He said the IMI evaluation does show that the NHL played a role in this, although he acknowledged there were other factors involved.

When asked why the province was not renewing the agreement if the results were positive, Hudson said $2.5 million of the $8 million Tourism P.E.I. had allocated for marketing went to paying for the NHL deal in the last year alone.

“The other $5.5 million has shown results too. So we need to look at what was done there, where the positive results were, work with industry again, and build on the great momentum that we’ve seen generated to this point in time,” Hudson said.

Hudson said he has made a commitment to maintain — but not increase — the tourism marketing budget at $8 million in the coming Spring 2027 budget.

He suggested the tourism industry should play a role in setting the priorities for the province’s promotional efforts. He noted a five-year tourism strategy was established involving government and industry partners.

“It’s the strategy that was put in place from the industry. And that’s why it’s so important for the industry itself, with the dollars that I have committed to — that eight million — to maintain that and work with industry as to the best deliverable,” Hudson said.

The Rob Lantz government has, so far, had a difficult year. Three separate polls from Narrative Research have found low levels of political satisfaction with the performance of Lantz’s government. A byelection loss over the summer in Cornwall-Meadowbank also rankled some within the ranks of the Progressive Conservative party.

The Guardian asked whether Hudson believed public opinion about the NHL deal played a role in the decision to not renew it.

Hudson said there were “a number of different factors that are taken into account” in government decisions, but said he hoped the evidence from the IMI report would convince some Islanders that the deal yielded benefits.

“There’s still a tremendous difference between what was actually spent on the partnership contract and what the revenue that was generated for this province was,” Hudson said.

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Stu Neatby is a political reporter for The Guardian in Prince Edward Island. He can be reached at sneatby@postmedia.com and followed on X @stu_neatby.