Blue and orange forever: Oilers superfan dons face paint for every game

Oilers superfan Dale Steil displaying his Oilers fandom during the play-offs on April 22, 2024. (Darcy Seaton/CTV News Edmonton)

As the Edmonton Oilers face off against the Los Angeles Kings Wednesday night at Rogers Place for Game 2, superfan Dale Steil gets prepared as he would for any hockey game – with blue and orange face paint and a costume to boot.

Steil began dressing up at the Oilers' first game in the 2022 season. After that victory, Steil was bombarded with fan requests to get pictures taken with him, and that trend hasn't stopped.

"On a slow night, it's easily 150, 200 pictures of people. I'm a pretty social guy so I loved it," said Steil. "That just kind of took off like a whirlwind. I haven't looked back since."

It's not just face paint, his outfit screams Oilers superfan. The outfit is an orange sleeveless button up shirt with overalls covered in Oilers-related pins and blue and orange cowboys boots. Steil is almost never without his Oilers drum when it comes time to rally the fans.

Steil admitted that he isn't the most artistic person in the world, but that doesn't stop his passion for the Oilers as he takes inspiration from many of his interests including comic-book themed designs with Oilers colours, classic pro-wrestler face paint designs and Grant Fuhr's classic goalie mask.

In his early stages, a Steil-original face paint would take him about an hour to create. Now his more intricate designs can take nearly two and a half hours to complete.

When asked about how much he spends on face paint, Steil admitted the number was in the thousands of dollars "easily."

Since 2022, Steil has painted 91 different designs and he hopes to push that number to 100 this play-off season.

Steil is attending Game 3 and 4 in Los Angeles and he hopes his face painting antics won't stir up any security personnel in Los Angeles like he did last season.

"I went down there for Game 6 in April and security wouldn't let me in because my full face was painted," he said.

When Steil responded with a quip about how Will Ferrell paints his whole face when he comes to games, he says security asked him if he was comparing himself to a celebrity.

Steil facetiously responded with, "I'm kind of a local celebrity." Steil had to clean up half of his face and lose the drum before he would be allowed back in the arena.

A catalogue of Steil's face paint designs can be found on his Instagram.