Around the League Thread | Conference Final Edition | We Are All Kevin Bieksa

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DS7

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Oct 9, 2013
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don't worry guys, the NHL is much less popular than it used to be. If the oilers win it'll be a story for a couple days and everyone will forget and resume watching euro and copa america (the sport people actually care about)
If the Oil win I look forward to never hearing the 30 year cup drought in Canada trope being repeated ad nauseum agai
 

StreetHawk

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Sep 30, 2017
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FLA has a nice track record of turning guys who didn't play as well as expected elsewhere. Impressive to be able to find players who fit into Q, Brunnette and now Maurice's system.

Forsling, OEL, Montour, Bennett, Reinhart, etc.
 
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VanJack

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I don't know what's funnier: arguably our biggest rival winning the cup again before we do or the guy we bought out who will lock us in cap hell for two years winning it.

Canucks luck and all that. :laugh: :cry:
Canucks Army has a piece up on the OEL buyout, and why it made absolute sense for the Canucks. And the fact he's only being paid $2m a season in Florida, means that it was a UFA signing that made sense for them.

As for Edmonton being our biggest rival---not sure that was the case until this spring's hotly contested seven-game series.

One thing is for certain though. This could be a 'won or done' year for the Oilers. McDavid and Draisaitl are at their peak, and will need new deals. And this franchise isn't built for long-term success. Their prospect pool is bereft.....and if they win a Cup, everybody is going to want a raise.

As for 'natural rivals' for the Canucks......it's more logical to assume that the team will eventually be the Kraken. But the teams will have to meet in the Cup playoffs for that to ever happen.
 

SeawaterOnIce

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Canucks Army has a piece up on the OEL buyout, and why it made absolute sense for the Canucks. And the fact he's only being paid $2m a season in Florida, means that it was a UFA signing that made sense for them.

As for Edmonton being our biggest rival---not sure that was the case until this spring's hotly contested seven-game series.

One thing is for certain though. This could be a 'won or done' year for the Oilers. McDavid and Draisaitl are at their peak, and will need new deals. And this franchise isn't built for long-term success. Their prospect pool is bereft.....and if they win a Cup, everybody is going to want a raise.

As for 'natural rivals' for the Canucks......it's more logical to assume that the team will eventually be the Kraken. But the teams will have to meet in the Cup playoffs for that to ever happen.
Edmonton should be good next year. It's the year after that's really problematic.
 

vancityluongo

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Meh, I feel comfortable guessing that everyone else in the country is cheering for them, even as I hate that supremely. I've been relieved to see very few open displays of Oiler fandom here in Ottawa (to my surprise), but this is the type of place that absolutely laps up the Canada's Team garbage, and the prairie teams are always the most revered for their Canadian pureness.

HNIC has always been in awe of the Oilers and their 'importance', even when they were bad (they have had a steady stream of Alberta guys and ex-Oilers doing broadcasts for years), and I think that seeps into the public's consciousness. They treat Toronto like the older sibling with expectations who needs to be responsible, and Edmonton as the spoiled younger sibling they gush about to their friends.

to go along with this, vancouver really is the (angry) middle sibling. my view is probably slanted, but the amount of hate towards edmonton seems to be disproportionately coming from the west, and in a one-way fashion. what's very weird to me is that calgary - the city that should be fuming right now - feels like a neglected cousin that just accepts they're held in lower regard or something. maybe has something to do with the one-sidedness of that rivalry in recent years. the van-edm tension is obviously exacerbated by the recent coin flip playoff series too

it's hard to place the flames, sens, and jets in the "canada's team" discussion, because i think they just don't register enough for anyone to really care if they make it far enough to start contending for the title. the leafs, oilers, and canucks, at least in recent times, have the most dominant fanbases in this conversation. and the habs are kind of a different thing altogether, quebec talk aside.

it's fascinating haha.
 
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theguardianII

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to go along with this, vancouver really is the (angry) middle sibling. my view is probably slanted, but the amount of hate towards edmonton seems to be disproportionately coming from the west, and in a one-way fashion. what's very weird to me is that calgary - the city that should be fuming right now - feels like a neglected cousin that just accepts they're held in lower regard or something. maybe has something to do with the one-sidedness of that rivalry in recent years. the van-edm tension is obviously exacerbated by the recent coin flip playoff series too

it's hard to place the flames, sens, and jets in the "canada's team" discussion, because i think they just don't register enough for anyone to really care if they make it far enough to start contending for the title. the leafs, oilers, and canucks, at least in recent times, have the most dominant fanbases in this conversation. and the habs are kind of a different thing altogether, quebec talk aside.

it's fascinating haha.
This will end up being a big mistake the NHL made by not having Canadian teams win the cup. Most fans in Canada can list a litany of game management calls that went against their teams going back to Bettman crushing the ref union.

For awhile it might have been as if all of Canada was one market but after decades of kissing your sister fans are just resolved that there will not be a Canadian team win the damn thing, regardless of how astronomically bad the odds show it hasn't happened to 1/5th of the entire league 31 times. Or if you like the other time no Canadian team in the finals, 1/5 the the league 52 times. For a cup that is flipping a coin 31 times and never getting a heads and 52 times for a finals showing. Actually it is much worse than that.

I still remember Bettman declaring Toronto was Canada's team in 1996. Like all of Canada was one market.

IMO betting has straightened that kind of stuff out and replays, no more ref instructions from the league before a game like it was or maybe still is.

Still it will be an event IF a Canadian team does win.
 

tradervik

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Am I hallucinating or did the league set the finals to start on Saturday, June 8?
 

crazychimp

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I don’t mind it hockey deeper into June isn’t terrible. Also both teams are relatively healthy so it’s a pretty even playing field.
 

Jyrki21

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it's hard to place the flames, sens, and jets in the "canada's team" discussion, because i think they just don't register enough for anyone to really care if they make it far enough to start contending for the title. the leafs, oilers, and canucks, at least in recent times, have the most dominant fanbases in this conversation. and the habs are kind of a different thing altogether, quebec talk aside.

it's fascinating haha.

Well I lived in Toronto during the 2004 playoffs and all of Toronto was ridiculously cheering for the Flames (as they were for the Oilers in 2006). There is a fascination Canadian hockey fans have with Alberta, I think both because the area represents the Platonic form of rugged Canadianness (even though the ‘80s Oilers were coke-fuelled feather-haired pretty boys), combined with the Hockey Man demographic being just kind of crazy-nostalgic for a time period when the Alberta teams happened to be good. So I think the Flames do get the media bandwagon too, but they are second fiddle to the Oilers.

The NHL Jets were never good enough to warrant anyone’s attention (HNIC barely ever mentioned them), and the Canucks have never counted in this mythos because Vancouver isn’t even really Canadian (and the Canucks were bad during the magical Oiler years). The Senators have nothing going for them – they weren’t even around during those years, the city is too small, and no one who lives here cheers for the team, so the media has never paid them much attention.
 

Bubbles

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This will end up being a big mistake the NHL made by not having Canadian teams win the cup. Most fans in Canada can list a litany of game management calls that went against their teams going back to Bettman crushing the ref union.

For awhile it might have been as if all of Canada was one market but after decades of kissing your sister fans are just resolved that there will not be a Canadian team win the damn thing, regardless of how astronomically bad the odds show it hasn't happened to 1/5th of the entire league 31 times. Or if you like the other time no Canadian team in the finals, 1/5 the the league 52 times. For a cup that is flipping a coin 31 times and never getting a heads and 52 times for a finals showing. Actually it is much worse than that.

I still remember Bettman declaring Toronto was Canada's team in 1996. Like all of Canada was one market.

IMO betting has straightened that kind of stuff out and replays, no more ref instructions from the league before a game like it was or maybe still is.

Still it will be an event IF a Canadian team does win.

I always felt the "No Canadian team has won since 1993" rhetoric was something the media kept pumping out and casuals who only watched hockey during the playoffs.


There's always going to be a Canadian player on any NHL team, so it's not like the cup won't come to Canada or something. My club team allegiance is different than my patriotism.

I'm patriotic about supporting Team Canada at different events, but I never considered another team in Canada to warrant my allegiance. Sure, if you asked me who I'd prefer, yeah I'll pick Habs/Sens/Jets, but I'll never support the Leafs, Oilers or Flames. If there ever was another GTA team, I'd support them! :laugh:
 
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