It's obvious that one of the main reasons for people to root for a team in NHL is because it's their home town's or home state's team. But is there something else that gets overlooked?
I live in northern Europe (Finland) so for me it's not clear at all. I've been following NHL for about a year now, since last playoffs, and I've basically followed teams because of few individuals: Pens because of Crosby and Stars because of the newly formed Finnish mafia. With lack of geographical connection the hierarchy of emotional connection to a team when it comes to different type of factors goes something like this for me:
- Admirable player on and off the ice (Crosby)
- Fellow countrymen in the same team (Dallas/Florida)
- Highly skilled gameplay (McDrai/MacMak/MarMatt)
- Underdog (St. Louis, Montreal)
- Great fan culture / history (Toronto, Montreal)
- Youthful team/bright future (Sharks, Montreal)
- Aesthetics of jerseys (Red wings, Canucks)
But now I'm in a pickle because come next saturday Stars and Pens will face each other. And so I'm thinking "who should I root for here?". Obviously a win doesn't matter for Pens at this point. But I do respect Crosby the most out of anyone on those two lineups. But then again Stars have five of my countrymen on their team and they deserve to win as they have won 7 games in a row, so I'll probably root for Stars.
How do you choose which team(s) to root for?
If it was not for crosby, I litteraly hate the penguins, penguins = mario, penguins = crosby, a few years back would have added matt cooke Pejorative Slured behavior as a little spice up to the team, and laracque too, more respecfully, and I may be forgetting some (no need to mention geno and his breakway slapshots) but IDK if you go for penguins, I can assume with little to no doubt that once crosby retire, they will be shit for a long long period until they win the powerball again
Toronto, you have no reason to pick them if you dont live there
Dallas are good, personnaly I think hintz has a soft play, but they are really strong overall, always liked duchene,
Florida, well you can hate them just because of tkatchuk, but bennet is a stud IMO, always pulling it when all they other big piece are not, that and he rarely is on the first line, I could advance never but there were probably a few times during injuries
oilers is defenitly a go for, you root for a canadian team, which is for sure a win, and then they are very strong, feels really bad they got ditched by broberg and holloway, those too are blooming quick in st louis, so there is st- louis next,
st louis was going no where for a while, after the tarasenko, bouwmester, pietrangelo, and backes era, but now, defenitly a team to root for
Montreal well, spoiler alert!
they will win the stanley cup this year and a young russian who is tearing the KHL will make the team next year, another spoiler alert
probably the best rookie in the league next season, other than that, I think our goaltending is average, but there is a youn guy coming up in the system, last spoiler alert
might become one of the best in the league, defense is growing strong but still young, same for our offense, but it's close to something really strong like the blues, so another good team to root for,
I seriously would avoid any US teams, I would have said the coyotes, but sadly they became the mormons of utah, so ... so you may consider the cannucks, or not because petterson seams to be a smuck, boeser will leave, and hugues will be left alone to carry, I retake, petterson (F) is still young, but he's strowing away some bad vibes, they had potential for some time and everytime you thought well the canucks are for real... nope
You could go for the jets, if you like boring teams, calgary are hot IMO even if they lack high end talent, some may argue they have kadri " ъуъ ", I really like huberdeau, I think he got fleeced from a stanley cup, it took a year but now he's finding his touch in calgary
colorado is one of the US teams I could root for
anaheim, san jose, and chicago