For decades now, the NHL sacrificed traditional hockey markets in an effort to expand the popularity of the sport to greener pastures, in almost every sense of that word. They saw American markets which traditionally had no hockey as potentially far more lucrative than traditional markets tended to be, so it was greener pastures in terms of money. Also, in terms of climate, as warm weather cities which remained greener than the rest of the continent suddenly saw NHL hockey franchises coming to them.
All of this seemed to target Canada, specifically.
What it translates to is Canada being on a particularly long and nasty losing streak when it comes to the NHL. It is a combination of some legitimate bad luck mixed with a designed from above attempt to promote those new, warm weather markets at the expense of the traditional base for hockey: Canada. That some individual Canadian players like Wayne Gretzky and Eric Lindros and Patrick Roy all left to make a bit more money on American teams might not be admirable, but it is understandable. But when you combine that with Canadian franchises leaving for American markets, and Canada not having seen a franchise hoisting the Stanley Cup for well over three decades now, and it feels not just really unfortunate in terms of bad luck, but a bit orchestrated. Especially when you remember that the Quebec Nordiques became the Colorado Avalanche just in time to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history in 1996, and the Calgary Flames were robbed of a Stanley Cup winning goal, preventing that franchise from their second ever Cup title.
When one thing happens, well, you can say that just happens. It's just one of those things. The Minnesota Vikings of the 1970's, the Denver Broncos of the 1980's, and the Buffalo Bills of the 1990's all kept reaching the Super Bowl. But those teams always seemed to lose the big game once they got there. It could be viewed as a mixture of bad luck, or just not being good enough, or their defeats beginning to eat at them mentally after a while.
However, when it's an entire country, and it's more than just one thing, it hits a little differently. Maybe when this particular edition of the Edmonton Oilers has now reached the Stanley Cup Finals twice in a row, and keeps losing to the Florida Panthers, you can just shrug and rationalize that they just were not good enough. But when you mix that with the NHL being generally more watered down than ever before (and this seems to favor the newer franchises in warm American markets somehow) AND every Canadian franchise also somehow failing to win the Stanley Cup Finals (more often than not failing to even get there) AND the very best Canadian players always seemingly leaving Canada to play for American teams (Gretzky and Lemieux in the 1980's, Lindros and Roy in the 1990's, Crosby in the 2000's) AND Canadian franchises always seemingly either relocating or on the verge of relocating to more lucrative American markets, it no longer feels like it's comparable to, say, the Buffalo Bills being enormously successful except still being unable to win the Super Bowl.
No, when you take all of those factors into consideration, and you add the Colorado Avalanche winning the Stanley Cup title on their first season of existence after Quebec fans had suffered through the long years and even decades of struggle to get there, and then you also add the Calgary Flames being cheated of the seemingly Cup-clinching goal in Game 6 in the 2004 Cup Finals when they were hosting and up in the series, three games to two, and then you also add the remarkable success that new, relatively warm weather market teams keep seemingly having (the Florida Panthers reaching the Cup Finals in 1996, the Dallas Stars winning the Cup in 1999, the Carolina Hurricanes reaching the Finals in 2002, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks reaching the Cup Finals in 2003, the Tampa Bay Lightning winning the Cup in 2004, the Hurricanes winning the Cup in 2006, the Anaheim Ducks winning the Cup in 2007, the Vegas Golden Knights reaching the Cup Finals in their very first season in 2018, and the Golden Knights winning the Cup a few seasons later, and now the two Florida franchises having won four of the past six Stanley Cup titles), it feels somehow not just like one of those things that just happens.
Instead of something just happening to go like that, it feels orchestrated.
This becomes a lot easier to believe when you see the NHL relentlessly promoting the wild success story of those rabid new hockey fans in warm weather markets during surprising playoff runs, for example. Or look at how the NHL has bent over backwards to prevent the struggling Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes from relocating, almost bending over backwards to prevent from any appearance of their strategy of southern expansion teams not being a wild success in every instance. Imagine if the NHL had intervened on behalf of Quebec City to prevent the Nordiques from moving in 1995, or the Jets from moving in 1996. That might have changed the whole complexion of what has happened to NHL hockey in Canada since.
But somehow, it did not seem all that important to the NHL to protect franchises from relocating when those franchises moved south of the border, until it felt like the problem was an epidemic. Only after the Nordiques left Quebec in 1995 and then the Jets left Winnipeg the following year did the other franchises located in Canada get any serious attention from NHL league officials, to prevent them from skipping town. Otherwise, it would have started to look and feel blatantly obvious.
Nowadays, when you add the mounting political tensions between the MAGA United States versus Canada into the mix, with Americans having voted in a president who continually bends over backwards to disrespect Canada and his administration (and him in particular, of course) relentlessly referring to it as the "51st state," this no longer feels even remotely lighthearted or funny. Especially when the owners of the Los Angeles Kings, Nashville Predators, and Vegas Golden Knights all endorse the Republican Party, which has effectively been taken over by Trump. Some of them apparently have their political differences with Trump, but that apparently does not seem to prevent them from donating money to the party that he not only belongs to, but which he pretty much dominates and runs. Thus, their monetary endorsement of the party supports him quite directly. Add to that the personal friendship which Wayne Gretzky, of all people, apparently has with Trump (despite Trump's blatant and relentless and entirely unprovoked disrespect towards Canada), and you really get the feeling that the NHL, the major North American league of the sport which serves as Canada's favorite past time, hardly seems to be bothered all that much with Canadians being systematically disrespected and overlooked.
In 2024, the minority owner of the Florida Panthers mirrored the Ugly American chest beating and blatant disrespect of Canada to a such a ridiculous extent that finally, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman apparently felt that he had to do something. The National Hockey League suspended "indefinitely" Florida Panthers minority owner Doug Cifu after a social media post where he condemned Canada, referring to it as the "51st state" after suggesting that Canada should "eat shit," and then insinuating that Canada (apparently, the entire country) is an "anti semite loser" (sic). Here is a snippet of what the charming, apparently dumb redneck Ugly American Cifu aid in that post, according to a United Press International article (see link to article below):
"Eat (expletive) 51st state anti semite loser. Israel now and forever. Until ever (sic) last Hamas rat is eliminated," Cifu later countered in his series of now-deleted posts in a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump saying Canada should be annexed by the United States as its 51st state.
Cifu received what amounts to a slap in the wrist. The NHL, which again represents the sport invented by Canadians and which is a proud Canadian past-time, should have loudly condemned not just Cifu and his mind-numbingly stupid Americentric sentiments, but should have used the opportunity to defend Canada against this kind of systematic Trump/MAGA trash talk. To make clear that this kind of blatant disrespect towards Canada, no matter what the motivation for doing it is, not only does not represent the NHL, but is an attack on the NHL, at least if it takes it's Canadian representation seriously. I just did not see any real evidence of any of that. Yes, they punished Cifu (kind of). But if they do not strongly and very loudly condemn it (as hate speech, frankly), and if later actions in fact seem to suggest that the NHL and Commissioner Gary Bettman are now actively working with the Trump administration, it feels like the NHL have become part of the problem. Radio silence when Trump refers to Canada as the "51st state," and then working with Trump later on after failing to condemn his anti-Canadian sentiments?
That's not the NHL that used to exist.
Thus, the NHL seems to have become yet one more echo chamber of ugly American nationalist sentiment, with too many Americans viewing it as still further proof of their alleged superiority. At a time when such sentiments are, frankly, undeserved, and have turned downright ugly and dangerous given the administration presently in power, and threatening to expand American borders (militarily, if need be, apparently) to Greenland, to the Panama Canal, to Gaza and, yes, by making Canada the 51st state.
So while my annoyance at these trends was, at first, restricted to sports, it now feels like something more sinister. A part of a problematic larger picture, where the only thing that matters to the ultrawealthy is money and power. And the NHL, which once felt like the most international of major North American sports leagues, now seems to have become symbolic of an arrogant mindset which caters to a redneck fan base more than any other of the sports. Until that changes, and until Canadian teams are better represented, I have lost pretty much all interest in the NHL.
Inasmuch as I will make any predictions about how this season will go, here is my prediction: no Canadian team will hoist the Stanley Cup this season. Maybe - and really only maybe - a Canadian franchise might reach the Stanley Cup Final. But make no mistake, an American franchise - probably one of the southern expansion franchises like Tampa Bay or Florida or Carolina or Vegas - will win the Cup.
Frankly, my own interest in that tiresome and repetitive scenario has never been less than it has been since Trump began to refer to Canada as the "51st state." Nowadays, it all feels politically charged. And to me, sports is entertainment, and supposed to be a pleasant distraction from the nuisances of "real life." When it becomes more of a symbol of it than anything else, my interest begins to wane. In fact, truth be told, I have lost a great deal of interest in the NHL. I used to be a serious fan, and would go to five or six games every season.
Now, I have no intention of going to a single NHL hockey game. Or even so much as watching a single NHL hockey game on television.
When I was growing up, the NHL felt admirably international in comparison to other North American sports leagues. Also, the team winning the Stanley Cup at the end of the season never seemed to simply assume that they were the best team in the world at their sport, because they understood that teams in other countries might have something to say about it. That is not the case with whatever team happens to win the World Series, or the Super Bowl, or the NBA Finals. Despite having, at best, maybe two franchises at times in Canadian markets (and no representation anywhere else in the world in these respective leagues), the team that wins the championship at the end of the season refers to themselves systematically as the "World Champions."
At that time, the NHL was a refreshing change. It felt more down to earth, the players not so full of themselves. The Cup champions did not automatically assume that they were "world champions." And there was far more international representation in the league, with more franchises based outside of the United States, and a very large percentage of players coming from numerous countries (particularly North America and northern Europe, of course). In short, the NHL felt like a league where you knew that the rest of the world exists and matters. It was not just an echo chamber for Ugly American nationalism and for the supremacy of the American dollar and corporate greed.
It feels like all of that has now changed. Yes, there are still more Canadian franchises than there are in any other North American sports league. But Those franchises feel more fragile and, frankly, irrelevant than they ever have before. There still are international players, yet the very best of them always seem to wind up on the American teams, somehow, even including Canadians. The franchises which came from the NHL's southern expansion policy still seem to get preferential treatment, with more consistent and apparently lasting success success than the other NHL franchises in more traditional hockey markets, with the possible exception of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Franchises like the Carolina Hurricanes (formerly the Hartford Whalers), the Colorado Avalanche (formerly the Quebec Nordiques), the Dallas Stars (formerly the Minnesota North Stars) and newer franchises like the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers and the Vegas Golden Knights seem to be competitive and win titles season after season after season, for decades now.
Some people enjoy all of this, are excited by the changes. I have met a few of them and so far, they have been exclusively American. However, I believe that this has not been natural or inevitable. It felt like league officials have pointedly made the NHL so, and have been cashing in the entire time. And the NHL is worse for it.
Until it changes it's ways, the NHL has become uninteresting to me. For all intents and purposes, the NHL lost me as a fan. Worse still, it has lost the respect I once had for it.
These are not things which I derive any joy in saying. Really, I used to quite enjoy the NHL. I seriously went to probably over 50 games over the years, although I have only been to exactly one NHL game (the Edmonton Oilers at the Los Angeles Kings playoff game in the spring of 2024) in about a decade. When the Devils won the Stanly Cup in 2003, I celebrated and attended their rally in the parking lot of Continental Airlines Arena (as it was known then). I used to really enjoy following it.
However, all of that has changed now.
Here is what all of that translates to on my end: Let their season go on without any more words from me. Until there are serious changes, I am no longer a fan of the NHL. Some people will remain fans. So be it. But not me. Frankly, the NHL lost my respect and my interest. Barring what seems a most unlikely scenario where, say, a Canadian team hoists the Stanley Cup, I have no more interest in watching the NHL or covering any NHL-related news here on this blog.
Screw the NHL.
Below are the links to the two articles which I in part used in writing this blog entry, and from which I obtained the quotes used above:
Florida Panthers executive 'indefinitely' suspended after X posts about Canada, Gaza By Chris Benson, May 13, 2025:
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/05/13/Canada-51st-state-Florida-Panters-Doug-Cifu/9161747156934/
Mavericks Owner’s $100 Million Trump Donation Dwarfs All Other Sports Owner Political Giving by Alex Schiffer and Margaret Fleming, Oct 30, 2024:
Sports owners have spent millions on the 2024 election cycle, largely
https://frontofficesports.com/nfl-mlb-nba-owners-2024-election-trump-harris/
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