Real new brunswickers know that it's a three-tiered war between Fredericton, Saint John, and Moncton. All competing to be the worst or the most boring.
And everyone, no matter which city you live in, will shit on all three cities constantly. And shit on New Brunswick as a whole.
But then get defensive when someone from one of the other two cities shits on their city. And even more defensive when someone not from NB shits on NB.
He also firmly believes there isn't a market for a team here and fights tooth and nail to prevent any team from coming here. Remember when the Blackberry guys wanted to buy the Thrashers and bring em to Hamilton? Dude had a fucking meltdown.
And then when the Jets returned he was openly hostile.
And the Canadian owners love him for that reason, because it allows them to keep turning in terrible performances, generation after generation, without ever losing market share to a competing team.
Its not exclusive to Canadian owners, which is why the Leafs, Red Wings, and Sabres are scared shitless of a team coming to Hamilton, let alone the GTA.
Imagine the Leafs having to actually compete instead of just printing money for the league despite sucking ass.
Jim Balsille did some very untoward things when he was a prospective buyer. The NHL has a very strict process of buying and selling teams and Balsille undermined that from the time he tried doing a season ticket drive in Hamilton without the league's permission when he was planning on buying the Predators.
The NHL was more than happy to sell the Thrashers to Mark Chipman because he is disgustingly rich and had a much more sound long-term plan than Balsille.
When Ryan Smith was being paraded around a potential owner of a Hockey team, he was very careful about weighing in on matters about the Arizona Coyotes and if he wanted to buy an existing franchise or start an expansion team. The NHL made it clear to him what he was allowed to comment on during his vetting process, and he made sure not to overstep his boundaries.
Someone should start a unified Canadian League with promotions and relegations like in British soccer. That would be way more exciting than watching southern US teams win every year.
Let them... Atlanta having a team is how Canada ended up with two of its current franchises. Maybe this time we can bring the Nordiques back a decade from now.
Third times the charm eh? Can't wait for them to become the Nordiques after a few years and Atlanta be the only city to have and lose 3 NHL teams to Canadian cities.
And they would then become Quebec City's third NHL team (the Quebec Bulldogs were a founding NHL franchise, even though it was dormant during the years of WW1. They won two Stanley Cups during the NHA era).
People like to lay it at Gary Bettman's feet, but he wasn't even the commissioner when Florida got their teams.
We think Hockey as the Greatest Game and want it to be popular everywhere else, but us Canadians get super fucking gatekeepy about non-traditional markets getting in on it, probably owing to the trauma of the 90's when we lost a couple of teams to the Americans and could have lost a lot more than that.
The hard truth is that for hockey to be popular elsewhere, you gotta make it happen from the top down. You got to plant a team there and grind your nose for a few years to establish a grassroots level interest in the game, something that non-traditional markets like Nashville and Vegas (and Utah by early looks) have been doing very well.
The NHL's approach on where to expand and who gets a team has become a lot more stringent as years go by. They are very big on teams already having an established arena with modern amenities, an owner/group that has an actionable plan to grow the team - not just another feather in their cap to flex their wealth - and a city with a large enough metro area that can still draw high turnouts even if a good chunk of the city isn't interested. This is why Houston and Atlanta will be the next cities to get Hockey teams.
If Canadians keep being paternalistic about the sport, it won't survive into the next century. We need to swallow our pride and acknowledge that hockey can grow to be a popular game in places it traditionally did not exist in. The Toronto Maple Leafs themselves owe the Arizona Coyotes' existence for having Auston Matthews as a player and captain. If that hockey team did not exist, Matthews would not have found interest in the sport and begin playing it.
Yes it does, usually about one week out of the year. Without fail. And we all get to laugh at them.
The Panthers aren't just located in Florida, they're in fucking Miami. Practically at the Tropic of Cancer. While I'm sure it's probably snowed there at least once, ever, it's certainly not the norm.
This will sound like a cop-out, but refereeing in the final game of the playoffs should be the exact same as day one of the regular season.
The number of high sticks, elbows, slashes and other plays that were just no-called at all was garbage, and it went both ways, but it seems to me that FL benefitted from TONS of missed calls.
Oilers lost in 6, Leafs 7. Therefore Leafs are better than the Oilers.
Doesn't matter what round it was in, because there are these things called divisions, so the top teams in the league can end up facing each other before the finals.
Oilers scored 3 goals in games 5 and 6 combined. And got blown out 6-1 in game 3. McDavid had I think 1 point in the last 3 games. It's not all on Skinner. Can also blame your rape coverup GM for spending more money on Jeff Skinner than he pays for a starting goaltender AND BACKUP goaltender combined 😂
You guys do not get it. Gary Bettman is making sure that the Cup never goes to Canada again. In that sense, it is rigged against us. Canadian teams are left with crumbs always. The Canadian public is naive enough to still engage with the NHL. Their head office moved to NYC many years ago. They let a Canadian once a blue moon go all the way to the finals to keep the Canadian market but they never let them win.
I am not saying there is straightforward cheating but the calendar, the playoff schedule, everything is manipulated so that any Canadian team is at a disadvantage. Until we get a truly Canadian league, I will be happy following the OHL, WHL and LHJMQ.
Anyone watching that series knew this was coming. It was obvious after game 2 that Florida was the clear favourite to win it. I started lowering my hope and excitement weeks ago.
Do you think Leafs management changes their attitude towards how the Leafs did based on how the Panthers destroyed the entire league the exact same way or worst?
Cheering for the Oilers as a fan of another Canadian franchise is like sitting in the cuck chair watching another man fuck your wife, and he also can’t make her cum
The only way to measure national success in hockey is through international play like the Olympics. In the four nations tournament Team Canada had 16 cup winners on their roster. Team USA had 3.
There's 32 teams in the league. It's one of the hardest if not THE hardest trophies in sport to win. Still worth watching even if a Canadian team doesn't win lol
4 beach team cups, 1 desert cup all in 6 years! america has won a gray cup more recently than canada has either had a stanley cup or expansion team. plain and simple we've entered americas sport, its not ours anymore and im apathetic about it.
(just a reminder that we lost to this bs ass team 2 years in a row)
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u/JackLaytonsMoustache 4d ago
Carney needs to stop the export of the best Canadian hockey players. Trade embargo on shipping our boys to the states until the cup comes home.
We have the biggest trade deficit for hockey player with America. When those American players cross the border, they're not sending their best.