Neech Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 Canadians ruin their own hockey clubs with immense public pressure and hockey player hyperbole. They build false gods to tear them down and watch them win Cups elsewhere or just enjoy their retirement years in a sunny city. Their passion is why the Cup hasn't been around in two decades. Adding more Canadian teams just means easier odds for the American teams. I'll take the passion over indifference every day. Do I want Quebec City to win the Cup? Or Winnipeg? Nope. Only one team gets to win it anyhow. Even bloody New Jersey and NYI lose money, and they're in the biggest sports market on the continent. Quebec City wouldn't be in the bottom 8, and would have big support in good years (like Ottawa). And they would care - Atlanta doesn't miss the NHL and Phoenix wouldn't. Only the snowbirds in Florida would, and a Cup is the only reason why Carolina and Tampa would. I'm a fan of the sport, not the dollar figure on Bettman's next TV deal. The bastard makes $15 million and doesn't care one iota in the way that Quebec City and the whole province of Quebec would if the Nordiques came back. The NHL will survive whether or not ESPN or NBC carries it. Passion and packed arenas, I want these for the NHL and any league I watch. The Nordiques are special in a way that few American teams are. They belong in the hockey world. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KoRP Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 Canadians ruin their own hockey clubs with immense public pressure and hockey player hyperbole. They build false gods to tear them down and watch them win Cups elsewhere or just enjoy their retirement years in a sunny city. Their passion is why the Cup hasn't been around in two decades. Adding more Canadian teams just means easier odds for the American teams. Lets me see, packed arenas and team loving/fanatical fanbase... yeah, terrible formula for success, jeezuz man what nonsense. The terrible refereeing was directly responsible for the Carolina, Tampa, and hell even last Boston cup, all refs directed to give the US teams the advantage, so much so it was more than obvious, keep living Bettman's dream MoLG. Bettman doesn't give two shits about the game, it's non-stop changes for the sake of changes is dizzying. Money matters most, the game is just for that alone now. Great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Chicoutimi Cucumber Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 It is a legitimate question why Canadian clubs seem to suck disproportionately. And the answer may reside in the fervent pressure to make the playoffs, which exposes organizations to that trap of trading picks and compromising the system in exchange for short-term help. This is certainly the trap Vancouver fell into after 2011, for instance. And it's certainly been what befell Toronto for all those years, prior to the new regime; and I think (though I'm less certain) that Calgary also suffered from this tendency back in the Iginla days, and is still recovering. Hunger for quick fixes. If that's right, then 3 of 7 teams are still actively paying the price for this 'Canadian Syndrome.' That drags down the percentages. So the idea is that it's harder - not impossible - to build a really strong team if you refuse to tank. And this refusal to tank has disproportionately affected Canadian teams. Add to that an organization that is systematically, chronically inept (Edmonton), two paradigm cases of middling//mediocre organizations (Ottawa and Winnipeg), and terrible luck (this year's Habs) and hey presto, no Canadian teams in the playoffs. More disconcerting is that the ONLY Canadian city that can boast a fundamentally sound organization is Montreal. Last year, we had five Canadian teams in the playoffs, but only one of those had any plausible pretension of actually being good (the Habs). So, I'd speculate that it's not that every Canadian team is distorted by this fan/ownership obsession with short term fixes. It's just that there is a sufficiently critical mass of them to skew our overall numbers downwards, relative to the American teams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DON Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 Don't want to see any more frickin expansion, but a relocation of Carolina, Columbus, NJ or Phoenix to Quebec I am 100% for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovett's Magnatones Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 Full arenas for bad professional sports teams is a strictly Canadian phenomenon. Floridians like their football just fin, but when the Buccaneers or Dolphins suck the stands are empty. The same is true of NBA teams. Nobody goes to the Wizards game and DC's Georgetown has had a big following in college hoops forever. There's more to the economics of the game than filling seats. The NHL is a fourth sport financially because of the TV contract. The MLB/NBA/NFL have monster TV contracts. The idea is that by covering Phoenix and Miami, there's more TV money. Whether that's happened is debatable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neech Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 Florida is notoriously fickle for pro sports. There are other places in the US that have good attendance with bad teams, and even the Habs have had empty seats this dismal season. The NHL is the fourth sport (or fifth or sixth) for geographical and cultural reasons that go way beyond whatever TV contract is signed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.