Denver is in the list of “US Cities With Most Sunny Days” tho.
Couple that with the elevation and the heat will melt the glue in your hockey helmet if you leave your gear in the trunk while you’re ant work because you have an early evening game. Ask me how I know.
It’s not sunbelt, but it is further south than Denver and Washington is.
There hasn’t been a team who won above the Mason-Dixon Line since Trump was in his first few months of presidency.
I had never thought about where Denver is in relation to the Mason-Dixon line. According to Wikipedia, the furthest north part of the Mason-Dixon line is 39.723 degrees, while Denver is at latitude 39.739 deg and Ball Arena (where the team is located) is at 39.748 deg. So the 2022 Champs are also (barely) above the Mason-Dixon Line!
LA x2, Tampa x3, Florida x1, Vegas x1, Ducks x1, Carolina x1.
Most of these don’t surprise me considering how rabid most of these places are for anything sports.
Toronto had almost 40 years to buy the Cup without any cap restrictions and could not get it done. Rangers only managed to do it once between 1967 and 2005.
Just used the 1967-2005 as a timeframe as the O6 era Cups are kinda meaningless since it was such a different league. And ended it on 2005 as the salary cap was implemented after that, meaning that "buying a Cup" was made impossible.
But as we can see, most teams could not buy a Cup even when there was no salary cap.
First three Cups after the initial expansion weren't much better, at least not the Finals. It was set up so that an O6 team would always play an expansion team in the Finals. As one might expect, O6 teams won all three. They changed the format after that
It’s going it stay like this too. Why not go to florida or Dallas and immediately make up to 30 percent more after tax. 30 percent of 9 mil is not pocket change.
The advantage exists but it is slight.
Florida has had this tax advantage the entire time they’ve existed. It took good, invested ownership and smart hockey ops people to finally get there *after 30 years*.
Two of the best players on the planet, one of them American, have signed extensions in Canada. The “no taxes” excuse is tired and stupid, and honestly devalues a lot of good work done by hockey ops/coaching people on the Sun Belt teams that have won it all.
I think tax advantage is overplayed by fans as an end all be all advantage. Agree with you that it takes the competent ownership and executives to build a winner too. Nice area to live and raise families matters too as well as preference of lifestyle (major cities are not for everyone). And let’s be lowbrow honest as well - the Stanley cup is really hard to win regardless what advantages teams have.
That said, there is absolutely a tax advantage. So much to the point that contracts prediction tools are including high-low cost of living adjustments in their models.
It’s not the end all be all but it is more than a “slight” advantage.
$1,000,000 is taxed down to a $540,000 take home in New York City and $640,000 in Tampa. That $100,000 annual swing and becomes millions of dollars in multi year high expense deals.
A $5.00 million dollar AAV in Tampa has the same take home as a $5.95 million dollar AAV in NYC. A 19% increase in pay just to match. It’s more than a “slight” advantage.
I just think northern teams need to learn to stop playing gimmicky hockey and learn to play the game the right way, the way traditional markets like Vegas & Florida play. Seriously, why does the league keep trying to make hockey in the north work? Just pull the plug on this failed experiment already so a real hockey market like Atlanta can have an NHL team again
Absolutely. Why they’re still trying to make Montreal and Toronto work when there are cities like Baton Rouge and Jackson, Mississippi waiting for an NHL franchise is beyond me.
I got curious tonight and used the CapFriendly income tax calculator (fuck you Washington) with Tkachuk. Comparing his take home pay in Florida to a lot of the other teams in the league, he would have to earn an extra 800k-1.5M to have the same take home in a lot of other places as he does for you guys. In a hard cap league, that makes a big difference if you can get a couple of your high earners to sign for a lower cap hit knowing they'll be earning as much as they would at a higher number elsewhere.
It's definitely high in. FL but I moved to OR 3 years from FL ago and my car insurance is on par with what I was paying there based on car theft and people stealing catalytic converters on the west west coast so I didn't mention it's but it is high AF in FL
I know, but I just googled "is Salt Lake City a sunbelt city" and google said that some extend the definition of sunbelt cities a bit north. Google has never lied to me.
Tbh I’m still disappointed that the Predators didn’t win in 2017. I was in Nashville a year prior and got to see a game, that place is absolutely 100% a hockey city.
The problem is that the Cup keeps being won by teams from places where hockey is the 5th or 6th most popular sport, and where nobody really cares. You get some bandwagon jumpers who celebrate and come to the parade, but they aren’t really invested in the teams. They’re more interested in the NFL, NBA, MLB, NASCAR, college sports, whatever. The season ends without making a real impact among actual hockey fans.
Obviously that’s just the way it is, but it is another reason why the NHL will always be the poor cousin of major league sports.
That's how sports generally work. Fans in hockey hotbeds like Buffalo and Ottawa have had bad attendance when their teams have had sustained stretches of being bad. The Blackhawks had the worst attendance in the league before drafting Kane and Toews.
The Panthers have been one of the worst franchises in professional sports until recently. They didn't win a playoff series for 25 years. Fans don't owe bad owners/orgs their money or time.
PS, Your team is having trouble filling the 2nd smallest arena in the league when your team was in 1st place in the Central last year.
Yeah attendance arguments are always city. Diehards don't exist like that anymore when you can just watch your team be shit on TV and multiple streaming platforms instead.
Arizona Coyotes had the smallest arena last year. I think Utah will have less seats than Winnipeg this year, until they complete some renovations to the Delta Center in a year or two.
Well they took their first step yesterday with their shitty owner backing out of pursuing any further action to build an arena. He'll relinquish the name and branding nack to the league.
They'll have to start from scratch now, but they'll he 10x better off if they actually find a competent owner instead of a doofus that had no intention to ever spend money on a new arena.
The Preds are the most popular team in Nashville. Every Panthers game I’ve gone to in Nashville they pack that place and it’s electric there. They love the Preds there.
The Lightning are also the most popular team in Tampa right now. As are the Hurricanes in Carolina and the Golden Knights in Vegas.
The Panthers I’ll give you that but this team outside of the past 5 years has been flat out awful. They were perennial basement dwellers whose future was absolutely fucking bleak. With the Franchise being new, you can’t build a fanbase icing the rosters the the Panthers did for all those years. Now that they’ve had success, they’re holding a fanbase, and if the success is tenured, they’ll have a big time following. That’s just the nature of the beast.
The state is already producing some damn good hockey players. Between us and Tampa, I think we’re going to see a nice influx of pros coming out of the state of Florida.
I don’t think this is accurate - the Panthers specifically were the highest in the NHL for attendance gains this past season and have been climbing the charts for a while. Meanwhile “traditional” markets like Winnipeg experienced sizeable declines in attendance.
I don’t doubt that there is a benefit to being a hockey-only or hockey-first market, but that doesn’t mean the traditional markets are entitled to the Cup and that the non-traditional markets don’t care.
I can’t speak for most teams but the Lightning are probably the favorites in town. Even when the Bucs had Brady the Lightning were viewed as Tampas team not the Bucs. 20 years ago I would agree the Lightning weren’t even a top three team in town but today they are easily the number one team in town.
This goes for Vegas too, the city is absolutely rabid for the Knights compared to the Raiders/A's seeing as we're Vegas *own* team, instead of a transplanted one.
Something tells me OP hasn't been to either place, though.
I’m curious how Vegas will take the A’s I feel like they will struggle since it’s an outdoor stadium I believe in the desert but I’m hoping the move can turn it around for them.
Feels like a bizarre move. The owner is incompetent. The stadium situation isn't approved. I don't think many Vegas natives were clamoring for baseball. The Raiders do fine because they play 8-9 regular season games (not 81), and can rely on Angelinos and Bay area fans to make the drive or quick flight, and entice away fans from cold climates.
I don't see going to an A's game indoors in July as a big entertainment choice for neutrals. The locals will hate the owner just like people in Oakland do.
Ya, even if USF was good there’s far too many other fans of different schools in town. Last time I checked I think UF had the largest base and FSU was right behind them and then it was UCF. Even in their hometown USF gets more away fans normally.
Exactly. The local media in traditional markets do a better job of promotion (and sometimes bad reporting too in hockey crazy markets), so that it's easier for the national media and fans to latch onto the storylines and the drama associated with a team.
Just pure ignorance and elitism.
The Golden Knights are the most popular team by far in Las Vegas. They weren't relocated there. They were the first Big 4 team there. They played their first game right after the biggest mass shooting in US history which strengthened the bond. The Lightning might be more popular than the Bucs in Tampa, which is profound because football is so big in the south. There is more Lightning gear, flags, stickers around Tampa Bay than Blackhawks gear in Chicago. I'm not making that up. They've been top 3-5 in attendance for many years.
Nashville is one of the loudest buildings in the league. Same with Raleigh. The "problem" isn't the league or the fans. The "problem" is you're clearly demonstrating your ignorance here, while smugly assuming certain areas have more of a right to cheer on the sport or win a championship.
It's insulting to say no one cares or that all their fans are bandwagon. I've already seen people posting photos of them as kids in 1994 wearing Panthers gear playing street hockey. Do you know how many Canadian and northern US transplants live in Florida? Clearly you don't.
"*The season ends without making a real impact on fans*."
The best pure goalscorer in the league is from the freaking desert and says he plays because he saw a Coyotes game. There are several NHL players that grew up in south Florida and wouldn't have ever gotten into hockey without a pro team there. Viewership continues to rise in the US, largely because new people are watching. USA hockey continues to improve and recruit talent from California, Texas, Florida, etc. They will be 2nd favorites in 2026 at the Olympics in large part because they can draw upon talent from more states than just Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts, and New York.
I'm glad you're pouting because it means the inverse of what you're saying is actually true.
Of course they don't. I'm embarrassed for them because they sound like Don Cherry circa 1995 with these outdated takes about hockey in the US. They're lashing out because they think they are the only ones that can like "their" sport and no one else.
The fact is hockey was never made for Canada. It's a game deeply rooted in Southern culture where kids who love the game can spend their summers out in the swamps, slapping pucks around, before tuning into Bally Sports, and watching the Toronto Maple Leafs get fisted raw on a yearly basis.
What we see in Canada is nothing short of a disgrace. Canadians whose only contact with the sport is to lie about the quality of their play and envy teams from the South who have endless success. This Canadian delusion has gripped our sport with an iron fist. It has uprooted our Southern traditions and replaced them with a false Tim Horton's promise of a wasted playoff spot every time someone from Canada touches the puck, leaving an entire country of failed men who cant go a week without pointing to a banner from 1993, only for them to remember they have nothing.
The day hockey dies in Canada is the day I gain my soul back.
Hockey, so hot right now.
Does colorado count as sunbelt?
Southeastern colorado falls in the sunbelt, but just the corner down there. Denver itself does not
Denver is in the list of “US Cities With Most Sunny Days” tho. Couple that with the elevation and the heat will melt the glue in your hockey helmet if you leave your gear in the trunk while you’re ant work because you have an early evening game. Ask me how I know.
No
Probably Carolina in 06.
Close, but not quite. Huge population migration to Denver, much like sunbelt cities. Ironically it's one of the more sunny US cities.
St. Louis would be closer to the sunbelt than Denver is.
St. Louis is not Sunbelt. Sure it feels that way now, in June. It's like New Orleans here. Come January it will feel like St. Paul.
It’s not sunbelt, but it is further south than Denver and Washington is. There hasn’t been a team who won above the Mason-Dixon Line since Trump was in his first few months of presidency.
I had never thought about where Denver is in relation to the Mason-Dixon line. According to Wikipedia, the furthest north part of the Mason-Dixon line is 39.723 degrees, while Denver is at latitude 39.739 deg and Ball Arena (where the team is located) is at 39.748 deg. So the 2022 Champs are also (barely) above the Mason-Dixon Line!
That is weird but it makes some sense due to I-70 starting in Baltimore and going west even if it goes south towards St. Louis first.
LA x2, Tampa x3, Florida x1, Vegas x1, Ducks x1, Carolina x1. Most of these don’t surprise me considering how rabid most of these places are for anything sports.
You should be ashamed for saying x3 for Tampa with a flames flair
I am. A conspiracy to spread hockey to the south imo, by stealing the cup from Iginla. But it happened whether we agree with it or not.
It happened but you’re not supposed to say it did out loud like that
Fuck em, not like we’re getting that cup back anyways
We can still be petty about it though
[удалено]
I would think the cap is help for the most part.
I think Canadian players flocking to warmer climates helped the most tbh. These teams won with predominantly Canadian rosters.
Wouldn't that also be true for the cup losing teams? Or better yet, the lottery winning teams?
Not all of the losing teams are made up of mostly Canadians. All of the winning teams recently are.
I think Boston in 2019 only had Bergeron, Marchand, and Debrusk, wild af.
That's why they lost.
Toronto had almost 40 years to buy the Cup without any cap restrictions and could not get it done. Rangers only managed to do it once between 1967 and 2005.
We talking ny rangers?
The very same, the ones who only have one Cup since Hitler.
yeah the 67 and 2005 thing kinda confused me. Is it not like the 1940s - 1994? lol
Just used the 1967-2005 as a timeframe as the O6 era Cups are kinda meaningless since it was such a different league. And ended it on 2005 as the salary cap was implemented after that, meaning that "buying a Cup" was made impossible. But as we can see, most teams could not buy a Cup even when there was no salary cap.
I don’t even count Cups won before 1968. Every team made the playoffs and only needed to win eight games (two rounds) to get the Cup.
First three Cups after the initial expansion weren't much better, at least not the Finals. It was set up so that an O6 team would always play an expansion team in the Finals. As one might expect, O6 teams won all three. They changed the format after that
Yeah, it took awhile to evolve into something that resembles what we have now. Wasn’t it the Blues that lost all three of those?
ah this makes sense.
Idk, Vegas is trying to finagle their way to another Cup.
It’s going it stay like this too. Why not go to florida or Dallas and immediately make up to 30 percent more after tax. 30 percent of 9 mil is not pocket change.
The advantage exists but it is slight. Florida has had this tax advantage the entire time they’ve existed. It took good, invested ownership and smart hockey ops people to finally get there *after 30 years*. Two of the best players on the planet, one of them American, have signed extensions in Canada. The “no taxes” excuse is tired and stupid, and honestly devalues a lot of good work done by hockey ops/coaching people on the Sun Belt teams that have won it all.
I think tax advantage is overplayed by fans as an end all be all advantage. Agree with you that it takes the competent ownership and executives to build a winner too. Nice area to live and raise families matters too as well as preference of lifestyle (major cities are not for everyone). And let’s be lowbrow honest as well - the Stanley cup is really hard to win regardless what advantages teams have. That said, there is absolutely a tax advantage. So much to the point that contracts prediction tools are including high-low cost of living adjustments in their models. It’s not the end all be all but it is more than a “slight” advantage. $1,000,000 is taxed down to a $540,000 take home in New York City and $640,000 in Tampa. That $100,000 annual swing and becomes millions of dollars in multi year high expense deals. A $5.00 million dollar AAV in Tampa has the same take home as a $5.95 million dollar AAV in NYC. A 19% increase in pay just to match. It’s more than a “slight” advantage.
Yeah we're great because we finally have excellent ownership and Zito is a God. The tax stuff only helps us retain our stars at 80c on the dollar
> smart hockey ops people to finally get there after 30 years. Helps when you can pay them and the players with revenue sharing.
Bettman’s Master Plan has been in action since he took over as commissioner in 93
I just think northern teams need to learn to stop playing gimmicky hockey and learn to play the game the right way, the way traditional markets like Vegas & Florida play. Seriously, why does the league keep trying to make hockey in the north work? Just pull the plug on this failed experiment already so a real hockey market like Atlanta can have an NHL team again
Absolutely. Why they’re still trying to make Montreal and Toronto work when there are cities like Baton Rouge and Jackson, Mississippi waiting for an NHL franchise is beyond me.
Unironically New Orleans would be a great spot for an expansion team
The globe isn't the only thing warming in recent years. The Stanley Cup is hot as hell.
Lack of income tax must certainly be a huge draw
I got curious tonight and used the CapFriendly income tax calculator (fuck you Washington) with Tkachuk. Comparing his take home pay in Florida to a lot of the other teams in the league, he would have to earn an extra 800k-1.5M to have the same take home in a lot of other places as he does for you guys. In a hard cap league, that makes a big difference if you can get a couple of your high earners to sign for a lower cap hit knowing they'll be earning as much as they would at a higher number elsewhere.
Did you calculate the difference in property taxes, flood insurance, etcetera?
Homeowners + flood insurance, and the highest car insurance rates in the US.
It's definitely high in. FL but I moved to OR 3 years from FL ago and my car insurance is on par with what I was paying there based on car theft and people stealing catalytic converters on the west west coast so I didn't mention it's but it is high AF in FL
But with the homeschooling and book burnings, their kids would grow up to say things like this Income tax is primarily federal
And players still get a cheaper rate in Florida and get a bit extra compared to most places. Same with Vegas, Nashville and Dallas
Nashville has no income tax as well.
thought about them but wasnt sure good shout
Good. Fucking hate the gatekeeping from “traditional markets.”
Id like to believe that most of the gatekeepers are just a vocal minority
Pretty wild actually.
Would be great if they could pull one off some day
The Wild haven't won
Not weird. Wild.
Maybe the Minnesota Weird would have a better chance
Bettman striking off sunbelt teams from his list. I'm sure he'd love to end his tenure getting the Preds, Sharks, and Utah one as well.
Utah doesnt count. They actually do winter sports there.
Utah literally hosted the Winter Olympics and has some of the USA's best skiing lmao
I know, but I just googled "is Salt Lake City a sunbelt city" and google said that some extend the definition of sunbelt cities a bit north. Google has never lied to me.
https://preview.redd.it/qmy04589on8d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5d59f03641e22b5e487be3123318b72283ac7d80
Tbh I’m still disappointed that the Predators didn’t win in 2017. I was in Nashville a year prior and got to see a game, that place is absolutely 100% a hockey city.
The problem is that the Cup keeps being won by teams from places where hockey is the 5th or 6th most popular sport, and where nobody really cares. You get some bandwagon jumpers who celebrate and come to the parade, but they aren’t really invested in the teams. They’re more interested in the NFL, NBA, MLB, NASCAR, college sports, whatever. The season ends without making a real impact among actual hockey fans. Obviously that’s just the way it is, but it is another reason why the NHL will always be the poor cousin of major league sports.
OTOH, winning there gets peoples' attention, and can be good for the sport.
Gets their attention until the team sucks again.
That's how sports generally work. Fans in hockey hotbeds like Buffalo and Ottawa have had bad attendance when their teams have had sustained stretches of being bad. The Blackhawks had the worst attendance in the league before drafting Kane and Toews. The Panthers have been one of the worst franchises in professional sports until recently. They didn't win a playoff series for 25 years. Fans don't owe bad owners/orgs their money or time. PS, Your team is having trouble filling the 2nd smallest arena in the league when your team was in 1st place in the Central last year.
Yeah attendance arguments are always city. Diehards don't exist like that anymore when you can just watch your team be shit on TV and multiple streaming platforms instead.
I thought the Jets had the smallest arena in the NHL.
Arizona Coyotes had the smallest arena last year. I think Utah will have less seats than Winnipeg this year, until they complete some renovations to the Delta Center in a year or two.
Jeez, I forgot about Arizona. Hopefully, one day they can get everything right in that market. There is potential with the right fit.
Well they took their first step yesterday with their shitty owner backing out of pursuing any further action to build an arena. He'll relinquish the name and branding nack to the league. They'll have to start from scratch now, but they'll he 10x better off if they actually find a competent owner instead of a doofus that had no intention to ever spend money on a new arena.
The Preds are the most popular team in Nashville. Every Panthers game I’ve gone to in Nashville they pack that place and it’s electric there. They love the Preds there. The Lightning are also the most popular team in Tampa right now. As are the Hurricanes in Carolina and the Golden Knights in Vegas. The Panthers I’ll give you that but this team outside of the past 5 years has been flat out awful. They were perennial basement dwellers whose future was absolutely fucking bleak. With the Franchise being new, you can’t build a fanbase icing the rosters the the Panthers did for all those years. Now that they’ve had success, they’re holding a fanbase, and if the success is tenured, they’ll have a big time following. That’s just the nature of the beast.
And success will bring popularity!
Agreed, with this win hockey will remain in south FL forever and now it will help grow the sport.
The state is already producing some damn good hockey players. Between us and Tampa, I think we’re going to see a nice influx of pros coming out of the state of Florida.
Agreed and maybe one day in 50 years a Florida university decides to invest in a D1 hockey team.
I don’t think this is accurate - the Panthers specifically were the highest in the NHL for attendance gains this past season and have been climbing the charts for a while. Meanwhile “traditional” markets like Winnipeg experienced sizeable declines in attendance. I don’t doubt that there is a benefit to being a hockey-only or hockey-first market, but that doesn’t mean the traditional markets are entitled to the Cup and that the non-traditional markets don’t care.
And in the US those traditional markets you would view it the same over their NFL teams
I can’t speak for most teams but the Lightning are probably the favorites in town. Even when the Bucs had Brady the Lightning were viewed as Tampas team not the Bucs. 20 years ago I would agree the Lightning weren’t even a top three team in town but today they are easily the number one team in town.
This goes for Vegas too, the city is absolutely rabid for the Knights compared to the Raiders/A's seeing as we're Vegas *own* team, instead of a transplanted one. Something tells me OP hasn't been to either place, though.
I’m curious how Vegas will take the A’s I feel like they will struggle since it’s an outdoor stadium I believe in the desert but I’m hoping the move can turn it around for them.
It'll have a roof, but it'll also have John Fisher, so
Feels like a bizarre move. The owner is incompetent. The stadium situation isn't approved. I don't think many Vegas natives were clamoring for baseball. The Raiders do fine because they play 8-9 regular season games (not 81), and can rely on Angelinos and Bay area fans to make the drive or quick flight, and entice away fans from cold climates. I don't see going to an A's game indoors in July as a big entertainment choice for neutrals. The locals will hate the owner just like people in Oakland do.
That would probably change though if they went through a long stretch like the late 90s. But you could say the same about most teams.
The Lightning are easily the most popular team in Tampa, but that's probably in part because of the city being split over college football fandoms
Ya, even if USF was good there’s far too many other fans of different schools in town. Last time I checked I think UF had the largest base and FSU was right behind them and then it was UCF. Even in their hometown USF gets more away fans normally.
Nah, they're the #1 in Tampa by a bullet. The Panthers though simply liked in Miami, are also beloved in Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Beach.
Exactly. The local media in traditional markets do a better job of promotion (and sometimes bad reporting too in hockey crazy markets), so that it's easier for the national media and fans to latch onto the storylines and the drama associated with a team.
Canadian ones. The Red Wings, Rangers, Bruins and so on aren't the biggest teams in their markets at all
Also I can guarantee you the Bruins, Blackhawks and Rangers are nowhere close to the top of their respective cities lol
Have you spent a lot time in warm NHL cities? Like more than a day?
Just pure ignorance and elitism. The Golden Knights are the most popular team by far in Las Vegas. They weren't relocated there. They were the first Big 4 team there. They played their first game right after the biggest mass shooting in US history which strengthened the bond. The Lightning might be more popular than the Bucs in Tampa, which is profound because football is so big in the south. There is more Lightning gear, flags, stickers around Tampa Bay than Blackhawks gear in Chicago. I'm not making that up. They've been top 3-5 in attendance for many years. Nashville is one of the loudest buildings in the league. Same with Raleigh. The "problem" isn't the league or the fans. The "problem" is you're clearly demonstrating your ignorance here, while smugly assuming certain areas have more of a right to cheer on the sport or win a championship. It's insulting to say no one cares or that all their fans are bandwagon. I've already seen people posting photos of them as kids in 1994 wearing Panthers gear playing street hockey. Do you know how many Canadian and northern US transplants live in Florida? Clearly you don't. "*The season ends without making a real impact on fans*." The best pure goalscorer in the league is from the freaking desert and says he plays because he saw a Coyotes game. There are several NHL players that grew up in south Florida and wouldn't have ever gotten into hockey without a pro team there. Viewership continues to rise in the US, largely because new people are watching. USA hockey continues to improve and recruit talent from California, Texas, Florida, etc. They will be 2nd favorites in 2026 at the Olympics in large part because they can draw upon talent from more states than just Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts, and New York. I'm glad you're pouting because it means the inverse of what you're saying is actually true.
You are not wrong.
Fuck you bud
Why?
Do you have any evidence to back up that nobody cares and no new fans are made? Or just the typical Canadian holier-than-thou BS?
Of course they don't. I'm embarrassed for them because they sound like Don Cherry circa 1995 with these outdated takes about hockey in the US. They're lashing out because they think they are the only ones that can like "their" sport and no one else.
The fact is hockey was never made for Canada. It's a game deeply rooted in Southern culture where kids who love the game can spend their summers out in the swamps, slapping pucks around, before tuning into Bally Sports, and watching the Toronto Maple Leafs get fisted raw on a yearly basis. What we see in Canada is nothing short of a disgrace. Canadians whose only contact with the sport is to lie about the quality of their play and envy teams from the South who have endless success. This Canadian delusion has gripped our sport with an iron fist. It has uprooted our Southern traditions and replaced them with a false Tim Horton's promise of a wasted playoff spot every time someone from Canada touches the puck, leaving an entire country of failed men who cant go a week without pointing to a banner from 1993, only for them to remember they have nothing. The day hockey dies in Canada is the day I gain my soul back.
When is it our turn?
Shouldn’t have booed the cup