For quite some time now, I made clear that my interest in the NHL has fallen off so much, that I have no intention of covering the NHL playoffs anymore. This is particularly true as long as the Canadian teams in particular, collectively, still have this "curse" imposed on them.
Let me be clear: this was not always the case. Not at all. In fact, the NHL seemed to me the be the most international of the major North American sports leagues when I was a kid growing up. First of all, it had six Canadian franchises, and would add a seventh in the early nineties, with the Ottawa Senators. Also, there were players from a whole bunch of other countries playing in the league. Finally, they seemed to have exposition matches involving teams from other countries, such as when the Soviet team played against the Canadiens. So hockey seemed to really have a distinctly worldly feel. In short, it felt a bit sophisticated, less provincial, than pretty much all of the other North American sports leagues.
Somehow, this changed. And it happened to change at precisely the time when the other leagues began to feel a bit more worldly. In the early 1990's, the NFL created the World League of American Football, later known as NFL Europe, to try and introduce American football to other markets in the world, particularly in Europe. These days, the NFL has spoken, and appears to want, franchises in foreign cities, most notably Toronto and London. Major League Baseball had two Canadian franchises, and one of them, the Toronto Blue Jays, won back-to-back World Series. Granted, one of those Canadian franchises, the Montreal Expos, relocated to Washington. Yet there happened to be MLB games played internationally, such as in Japan. True, there were some rednecks like Mark McGuire who expressed their disapproval. But who cares? There will always be dissent. And the NBA expanded to include two Canadian franchises. Again, one of them relocated from Vancouver to Memphis. Still, the Toronto Raptors won the NBA title in 2019. So the other leagues seemed to recognize that expanding beyond American borders was desirable.
Meanwhile, the NHL seemed to go in a decidedly different direction, although some people seemed to think that it was expanding it's horizons into new, non-traditional markets. The problem was that the league seemed willing to try this experiment at the expense of the loyalty of fans in those more conventional hockey markets that had helped the NHL grow as big and prominent as it had become in the first place. You see, I am of the mind that at some point in the late eighties/early nineties, some major officials in the NHL - perhaps Gary Bettman was one of them, perhaps not - hatched up the idea that in order for the NHL to increase in popularity, it needed to expand to non-traditional markets. That effectively meant increasing the presence in warm weather markets where natural ice outside is not the norm.
The problem, as I see it, is that this has harmed the reputation of the NHL, possibly beyond repair. Because this strategy, which I have in the past referred to as the southern expansion program, has come at the expense of cold weather markets. Don't believe me? Since this southern expansion strategy was hatched and then implemented, look at the cities that have gained new hockey franchises, versus those that have lose their hockey teams. Some of the teams that gained flashy new hockey teams include Tampa Bay, Miami (Florida Panthers), Atlanta (which also lost the team due to a lack of interest), Carolina, Nashville, Dallas, Denver (Colorado Avalanche), Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Jose, and Anaheim.
Now, let's look at the northern cities that either lost their teams, or came uncomfortably close to doing so: Quebec, Winnipeg, Hartford, and Minnesota all outright lost their teams, although Winnipeg and Minnesota, in fairness, did get new teams back. Then, there are the northern market franchises which were perennially in danger and seemingly threatening to relocate: Buffalo, New Jersey, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton.
Notice a trend?
Now don't get me wrong: maybe some of this is due to mismanagement. That, at least, is the argument put forward by some who like this new NHL. But the Devils only narrowly averted relocation because, well, they won the Stanley Cup in 1995. It seems likely that, in fact, they would have gone elsewhere had they failed to win the Cup that year. And as far as I am concerned, the Calgary Flames did win the Stanley Cup in 2004, but were robbed of the game and series winning goal in Game 6. Remember, the Flames owned a 3-2 series lead and scored what sure appeared to be the Cup-clinching goal with very little time left to break a tie game. But it was taken away from them. Or you could be more blunt, and say that they were robbed, which I still feel they were. And given how long the wait was between the actual goal and the decision to reverse it and given that their opponents in the Cup Finals that year were one of the poster franchises for the southern expansion program, you can start to get a bit suspicious.
The goal was reversed, taking the air out of the sails of the Calgary Flames. The game went into overtime where - surprise, surprise - the Lightning won to force a Game 7, which they would get to host in Tampa Bay. And of course, they ended up "winning" a series which they actually had lost. The NHL touted the wild enthusiasm of the fans in Tampa during that playoff run, somehow neglecting to show many of the empty seats during the regular season. That was when my own interest in hockey seriously began to drain away. The next year, the entirety of the NHL season was cancelled. After that, Edmonton made it to the Cup Finals in 2006, and once again, a Canadian franchise lost to a southern expansion franchise. This felt like déjà vu. Once again, I remember the NHL promoting the huge, staggering success of a southern expansion team, once again with wildly enthusiastic fans cheering their incredible team (formerly the Hartford Whalers) on. Yet again, they failed to show the empty seats prominently in evidence for much of the season, but the indifference of most in that region was wonderfully captured in one of the most hilarious articles from "The Onion" that I ever read (here is the link below):
Carolina Residents Confused, Terrified As Victorious Hurricane Players Riot In Streets PublishedJune 22, 2006:
https://www.theonion.com/carolina-residents-confused-terrified-as-victorious-hu-1819568534
A cynic might say it's all about the dollar bills, yo. Somebody in the higher ranks of the NHL thought that it would be a good idea to expand at all costs, even at the expense of pushing away fans from more traditional markets, and they went to extraordinary lengths to try and preserve this illusion. So commercials showing the "wild" support of suddenly successful warm weather franchises during deep playoff runs, and "stunning" success stories of those same teams - from the 1996 Florida Panthers to the 2004 Tampa Bay Lightning to the 2002 and 2006 Carolina Hurricanes to the 2003 and 2007 Anaheim Ducks to the 2018 and 2023 Vegas Golden Knights - seem to underscore just how successful these southern franchises can be, at least in the eyes of NHL officials.
But for some fans, including yours truly? It's like a bad joke.
It has become predictable, which is to say boring. And my suspicion is that this is not something that you want any sport to be. After all, what is the point of tuning in?
Now, my rooting tendencies have altered with the NHL for some time now. When I was a little kid, I liked the Islanders, although hockey was something that I hardly remember seeing on television until sometime in the nineties. By that time, I began to root for the Devils, but also liked the Québec Nordiques. So in 1995, when the Devils were coming off a narrow miss at qualifying for the Stanley Cup Finals, and Québec enjoyed the best regular season of any team in the Eastern Conference, I was excited. But the shadow of a relocation hovered over both franchises. The Devils saved themselves from that prospect by enjoying a long playoff run that ultimately resulted in raising the Stanley Cup at season's end. The Québec Nordiques, however, were not so lucky. They got bounced out of the playoffs in the very first round by the defending champion New York Rangers. The franchise would win the Stanley Cup themselves the very next season, of course. But by then, they were known as the Colorado Avalanche. The new fans of Colorado were gifted with a team that won the Cup in their very first year of existence, while the long suffering fans of Québec were basically screwed. Sorry if that sounds crass, but that's how I viewed it.
The very next season, the Winnipeg Jets were relocated, and to an even more ridiculous location. The franchise went from frigid Winnipeg, Manitoba, to the hot as hell desert in Phoenix, Arizona. Ridiculous! That said, at least they did not win the Stanley Cup right off the bat. So by 1996, it was hard not to notice a new and unfortunate trend with the NHL. A Canadian team losing it's franchise to a region that never sees ice felt like salt in the wound, and the Avalanche winning the Cup literally the year after relocating from Québec felt like double the salt in the wound. The 1996 Stanley Cup Finals featured the Colorado Avalanche sweeping the Florida Panthers. Neither team had so much as existed when the decade began. I fully began to realize the implications of the Minnesota North Stars relocating to Dallas. Suddenly, I began pulling for the franchises north of the border, as well as the "Original Six.". If anything, I had resented both the Canadiens and the Rangers, but began to see them as welcome reliefs to franchises like the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks and the Phoenix Coyotes.
And the trend certainly did not end there. In 1997, it was the Hartford Whalers who relocated to a destination to the South, becoming the Carolina Hurricanes. And somehow, the Canadian teams in particular entered a phase of complete irrelevance. While they had been incredibly impressive for an entire decade, from 1984 until 1993, with the Edmonton Oilers winning the Cup five times, the Montréal Canadiens twice, and the Calgary Flames once, and with the Vancouver Canucks pushing the Rangers to a seven game series in 1994, now they all collectively, simultaneously took a plunge into astonishing ineptitude.
One somewhat saving grace - if you could call it that - since then was that some of the "Original Six" teams were now finally enjoying major success. Yet even this felt a bit tainted, because it happened to be only the franchises south of the northern border among the "Original Six" which actually enjoyed the highest achievements. So even this ode to the past, if you will, feels incomplete and thus tainted. The Detroit Red Wings became a dynasty starting in the late 1990's, and went right through to the late 2000's. They Chicago Blackhawks became a dynasty in the 2010's. The Boston Bruins won it all in 2011, and enjoyed a number of years of being a highly competitive and impressive team. And the Rangers, of course, had won it all in 1994. Yet somehow, the two Canadian franchises of the "Original Six" suddenly were largely irrelevant. Just two more Canadian franchises that couldn't get their shit together, if you will. Yet, we were told to be thankful, because the franchises in Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, and Buffalo were so inept that there was constant talk of that now dreaded but all-too familiar word, "relocation."
Yet, we were supposed to get excited about the amazing success of hockey teams in new markets. As already mentioned, the Colorado Avalanche hoisted the Cup in their first year in Denver, and have won it three times overall. The Tampa Bay Lightning have become a force in the NHL, also winning three Cups and seemingly often reaching the Cup Finals. Their first Cup was earned by beating a Canadian team, the Calgary Flames, of course with the assistance of a highly controversial call. The Carolina Hurricanes reached the Cup Finals in 2002, then went back and this time, won it in 2006, also against a Canadian franchise. The Anaheim Mighty Ducks reached the Cup Finals in 2003, barely losing to the Devils. When they made it back in 2007, one small mercy was that they at least had scrapped the Disney cartoonish "Might Ducks" name and were not simply the Ducks. But they beat the Ottawa Senators, a Canadian team, in the Cup Finals. It was the third straight Cup Finals where a new American franchise beat a Canadian one officially, although again, I still feel that the Calgary Flames were robbed of the 2004 Stanley Cup championship. The Vancouver Canucks lost a heartbreaking Cup Finals series to Boston in 2011, but at least that was one of the "Original Six" franchises. But when that amazing run by the Canadiens was ended with another Cup victory by the Lightning of Tampa Bay - that known hotbed of ice hockey - it was feeling more and more like a bad joke. Frankly, it feels like league officials in the NHL are almost going out of their way to see these franchises in new, clearly non-traditional hockey markets will succeed, and yes, at the expense of more traditional markets.
This year was a perfect example. There were three Canadian teams that qualified, and three of the "Original Six" franchises qualified (Toronto is included in both lists). But exactly none of those teams survived to reach the Conference Finals. Indeed, that is normally the case, particularly with the Canadian franchises, with the exceptions almost proving the rule. There had been a lot of hoopla over the offseason moves of the Calgary Flames, with some experts claiming that they were now one of the favorites to hoist the Cup. It was similar to hype for other Canadian franchises in fairly recent years, from the Ottawa Senators of the early 2000's, to the 2011 Vancouver Canucks, to the Winnipeg Jets just a few years ago. But Calgary did not even qualify for the playoffs. Winnipeg got bounced quickly and easily and very predictably. Edmonton made it to the second round, then got bounced as well. Toronto is supposed to be very talented, although we were supposed to take great joy in them finally winning their first playoff series in nearly two decades. None of them felt like serious contenders.
And in the end, who actually made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, supposedly ice hockey's most prestigious series? The Las Vegas Golden Knights and the Florida Panthers. Let me tell you, I did not bother turning the television sets for so much as a minute of that series. In fact, I made a point of tuning it out. I only learned about what was happening in that series because of sports updates on the morning news, and learned that Vegas had won the Cup because somebody on Facebook mentioned it. Somebody who, it should be noted, as talking about betting lines, and was neither a fan of hockey nor of the Vegas franchise. When I learned of this "exciting" news, I shook my head in disgust after allowing myself a few seconds to dwell on it, then went on about my life. Because honestly, I have grown used to not caring about the NHL anymore.
And as the headlines of the news stories below suggest, I am hardly alone. And if what I suspect to be the case is right, that will not change anytime soon. It will only change when the NHL finally admits that maybe they went too far - like way too far - in accommodating all of those new hockey markets, hoping to make a killing in these new hockey markets, where I assume they expected to be treated like geniuses. The promotional value by the NHL of the "wild enthusiasm" of fans in these new markets whenever one of these teams suddenly, somehow, enjoys long playoff runs has itself grown boring, tired. The ratings themselves bear the facts: nobody cares about a franchise like the Vegas Golden Knights taking the Stanley Cup. I suspect that few people in Las Vegas actually care. In fact, not many people will care about whatever happens in the NHL until the transparency with which the NHL seems to cater to the new markets at the expense of older, more traditional cold weather markets in the northern United States and especially Canada, finally ends.
Will the league officials, surely including Gary Bettman, finally wise up?
Don't hold your breath.
Meanwhile, again, I will not be covering the NHL much, and especially not the Stanley Cup playoffs. Not out of anger (it's been too long for my anger at all of these trends to still be burning), but more out of boredom and indifference from the predictability of it all. I didn't care about the "astonishing" success of the Vegas Golden Knights when they were an "amazing" success story by reaching the Stanley Cup Finals in the first year of existence, and I don't care about them winning the Cup now, just a few short years later. I don't care about the Tampa Bay Lightning, another perennial Cup favorite, or the Carolina Hurricanes, yet another Cup favorite.
Frankly, the success of these franchises, highly touted and promoted as a huge success by the NHL, was once offensive to me. Now, after literally decades, it's just repetitive and boring. And like apparently millions of others, I have tuned it all out.
Below are the links to the articles which I used in writing this particular blog entry, and from which I obtained much of the particular information and statistics used in the same:
Betting lines reveal why NHL ratings are plummeting By Michael Leboff, Action Network February 26, 2023:
https://nypost.com/2023/02/26/betting-lines-reveal-why-nhl-ratings-are-plummeting/
Report: NHL US ratings drop 22% on ESPN and Turner Live game audiences on both networks averaging 373k viewers. 1 FEBRUARY 2023 JOSH SIM
https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/nhl-regular-season-2022-23-us-tv-ratings-audience-viewers-espn-turner-tnt/?zephr_sso_ott=XuttdZ
Those NBA Finals, Stanley Cup ratings fears? Overblown, so far: Sports on TV by Bill Shea Jun 6, 2023:
https://theathletic.com/4586609/2023/06/06/nba-finals-stanley-cup-final-ratings/
Controversial call brings back bad memories for Flames Scott Burnside, ESPN Senior Writer May 6, 2015, 08:53 PM ET
https://www.espn.com/blog/nhl/post/_/id/36909/controversial-call-brings-back-bad-memories-for-flames
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