During the summer months, Calgary's mayoral race looked to be a one-man stampede, as city hall veteran Ric McIvor was expected to cruise to a fall victory over a pack of untested rivals.

But in recent weeks, an ambitious outsider and a former newscaster have gained significant ground, causing plenty political sparks in what was supposed to be a dull municipal contest.

Competing against nine-year alderman McIvor are Barb Higgins, a former primetime news anchor for CTV Calgary, and Naheed Nenshi, a Harvard-educated professor who has utilized an aggressive social media campaign to claw his way into the battle.

On Monday, voters in Canada's fourth-largest city will head to the polls, and it's still anyone's guess who will win. In fact, this year's contest is the closest race since 1980, when Ralph Klein mounted a surprise victory.

(Current Mayor Dave Bronconnier is stepping away from city politics after his tenure ends next week.)

Earlier this week, some of those tensions came to a head when Citytv interviewer Mike McCourt -- known for prickly interviews -- accused Higgins of being a "candidate dancing on somebody else's strings."

He also said that Higgins "picked some guy who was a screw up" when she hired political manager Donn Lovett to run her campaign in the summer. (Lovett was fired after Higgins missed a forum last month because of a scheduling mix-up.)

Responding to McCourt's salvo on live television, Higgins vigorously defended her former aide and her own credentials.

She also hit back at the interviewer: "Journalism is about asking questions without a bias. You clearly have a bias."

After the interview, with cameras still rolling, Higgins slammed down a handful of documents as she left the broadcast area. She also blasted a group of arts workers who had gathered in the studio for a scrum, though the audio was not broadcast on television.

"At the end of the interview, I walked across the studio, and I went, ‘who crapped in your corn flakes this morning?'"

Higgins would later say that her frustration stemmed from a stream of constant negativity during the campaign, and judging from other incidents, she's not alone.

Calgary's police chief even weighed in during the campaign, a rare step for a career bureaucrat, when he attempted to skewer Nenshi for questioning the city's expanding police budget.

And at a meeting last week, Nenshi was heckled with a smattering of boos when he accused Higgins of acting like a patronizing tourist after she spoke of social woes in the city's northwest, which is home to many immigrants.

Still, for many Calgarians -- especially younger voters -- the 38-year-old Nenshi has mounted the most exciting campaign of the pack.

City newspaper columnists have said that Nenshi represents true change for Calgary, which has grappled with financial strain and unparalleled urban sprawl in recent years.

Nenshi is no lightweight, either.

Though he's been accused of being a political neophyte, Nenshi once worked for the leading financial consultancy firm McKinsey & Company, and he's been a resident of the city since his infancy.

"I've been in Calgary longer than either of my two rivals: I grew up here, I'm part of this city," he said recently.

McIvor, meanwhile, is selling his experience as his main attribute.

"If Calgarians go with somebody without experience, it's frightening," he said. "You actually need somebody hitting the ground running on day one, not somebody trying to find their way around the building."

With a report from CTV Alberta Bureau Chief Janet Dirks