Canadian Gift Guide

Every household should, if it doesn’t already, own a Monopoly game. The fun thing is, Monopoly is quite possibly the most customized game out there – you can buy a version for the Star Wars, Disney, Coronation Street, and Pixar fans in your life, plus one of hundreds of unofficial versions that focus on specific cities or other unique hobbies and interests.

If someone you know is just moving into a new place, or – shocker – doesn’t own a Monopoly game, why not bring them in the 21^st century with the newly launched Monopoly: Canada Edition?

Back in the blustery winter months, Hasbro put together a list of about 60 Canadian cities and opened things up to public voting. The top 20 cities found a place on the board, while other cities that were ‘voted in’ entered the wildcard race to win one of the two spots typically occupied by the low-rent properties (woo Baltic!). The results are, admittedly, mixed. The Boardwalk and Park Place spaces are occupied by little-known small towns that deserve kudos for their gusto in making it to the top, but make me shake my head at Hasbro for including them over say, wildcard cities like Banff and Niagara Falls (only one of which actually made it onto the board). The fact that the Maritimes and Prairies (save for Alberta) are largely overlooked is also a little disheartening.

That being said, the game is a neat slice of Canadiana, including the cheesy but awesome golden hockey figurine playing piece. Everything on the board has been changed to reflect Canada, including the Chance and Community Chest cards. Plus because this is a ‘Here & Now’ edition of the game, the property values have been adjusted to reflect more modern-day prices, and the box includes a digital banking system to make calculating those millions that much easier.

You can pick up Monopoly: Canada Edition at most toy & game retailers, or you can go to my fallback – boardgames.ca, which has every game you could ever want. It’s a little on the pricy side, but a nice collector’s keepsake that will certainly get use by whoever you gift it to.