22 Years and Counting - Lord Stanley dislikes Canada

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by saillias

Ottawa and Vancouver as well. I think Calgary and Ottawa were the two teams most screwed over by that 04-05 lockout.

How do you figure?

[jeffporfirio]

I would never, even if highly inebriated, cheer for the oil, cannucks, leafs, or habs.
Jets or Sens, meh.

[polak]

Flames fans who would cheer for the Oilers or Canucks are the worst.

There is no acceptable situation where a fan should cheer for his teams biggest rival to win a championship. None.

Maaaaybe if your first born is playing for them but even then... you should probably stop calling yourself a fan.

[Stay Golden]

Honestly if the Flames don't win the mug i don't pull for Van, Mon, TO to win the mug.
Edm doesn't factor into the conversation lol.
Ott or the Jets i guess are the only ones that i would be ok with if the Flames are out.
It won't take long for the Jets to fall into that nope don't want them to win either.

[_Q_]

The one thing that gets me is when Flames fans hate other Canadian teams, but still cheer for them because of some weird sense of nationalism. I had a guy at work right after the Flames were eliminated say "God I hate the Habs, but oh well, I gotta cheer for the only Canadian team left." I heard similar garbage last year as well as similar stuff in '06 and '11 with the Oilers and Canucks.

[Armchair Quarterback]

Love one team, hate all the rest. American, Canadian...doesn't matter.

Sometimes I do wish more Canadian teams would win it though, only because Gary Bettman sucks and I disagree with having hockey in places where they have to give away free tickets in order to fill seats in the playoffs. American markets where they care about hockey? More power to 'em. But I can't stand seeing teams win it when even the locals don't know/care.

[browna]

Originally Posted by polak

Flames fans who would cheer for the Oilers or Canucks are the worst.

There is no acceptable situation where a fan should cheer for his teams biggest rival to win a game. None.

Maaaaybe if your first born is playing for them but even then... you should probably stop calling yourself a fan.

FYP.

The argument "well, it'd be nice if another Canadian team wins" is pure tripe. Sure, if you like the team, go for it, but for Canadiana-only reasons, it's junk...a better, and more acceptable indicator, are the captains of the Stanley Cup winning teams.

Since Montreal won, 15 of the 18 times the Stanley Cup has been awarded, a Canadian has been the first to lift the trophy from the commissioner.

[sadora]

I'm of the ABC or ABE mindset. Anyone but the Canucks or Anyone but Edmonton. If the Flames aren't in the playoffs I'd cheer for the other Canadian teams, maybe because it has been 22 years since a Canadian team has won Lord Stanley. You gotta figure at this point this has to be some type of curse that's gotta break sooner rather than later, and hopefully by Calgary!

[CliffFletcher]

22 years of 6/7 teams out of 30 not winning a championship does defy probability. A few factors:

* For the first half of the draught, half the Canadian teams (Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary) were under severe financial duress and could not compete with the deep-pocketed teams in the league.

* Canadians teams were slow to adapt to the capped league, with many clinging to mediocrity instead of rebuilding through the draft (Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver). Impatient fans, management, media, and owners largely to blame.

* Owing to geography and size, half of the Canadian cities are unappealing destinations for free agents, and show up on a lot of No Trade lists (Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa). Two of the Canadian cities that don't suffer from these handicaps have a ferocious media climate that makes them tough cities to play in (Toronto, Montreal).

[blender]

With the exception of arch-rivals, my feelings toward other teams ebbs and flows as rosters change and styles of play. Always kind of liked the hawks as I wore that jersey playing minor hockey, and I love watching that skilled group play (am I the only one who thought last years west final was some of the best hockey ever played?), and I sure liked the 2011 Bruins.
Definitely hawks this year for me.

The Canadian-based-team-cause-I'm-Canadian theory is a puzzler since every team is at least half Canadian content anyway.

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by renny

Statistically it's just harder for a Canadian team to win the cup 6/30 < 24/30 simple math.

From a pure random statistical perspective, accounting for the league makeup each year and excluding the lost season, the odds of no Canadian team winning the cup in the past 22 years is just shy of 0.5%.