Quote:
Originally Posted by MegaErtz
Not sure if you've been a Calgary Flames SINCE 1988 or if you were born in 1988, but the NHL had something called the "Canadian Assistance Program" to help even out the playing field due to the weak Canadian dollar, which was worth only 59c US at one point in the early 2000s. All I heard from Gary Bettman during the lockout was how if they didn't get a salary cap, Canadian teams wouldn't be able to compete in a post-lockout NHL. Well guess what? They haven't been able to compete even with a salary cap.
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They have been able to compete. They haven't been able to win championships. Those are not the same thing at all.
When your business model is based on selling out your arena every year to long-term fans, you try very hard not to lose. When your business model is based on selling seats at high prices to bandwagon fans, you try very hard to set yourself up to win, even if it means losing a lot in the meantime.
This fits right in with the Canadian aversion to risk that I mentioned upthread. Hockey is a nice, safe business in Canada, as long as you don't go crazy by gambling and trying to win championships. In the U.S., it's a feast-or-famine business with a high risk of continued failure, but big rewards for the rare owner who succeeds. Guess which side makes the effort to win?
When you have 20 owners who are taking risks to win it all, and 7 who are playing it safe, the odds are very poor that one of those 7 will ever come out on top. (The other four or five owners are stuck with the no-hope franchises like Arizona. They don't figure in the calculations one way or the other.)