Is it time for a Canadian only professional hockey league?

[ricky0034]

Gary Bettman assumed office 30 years ago. That’s why.

yeah one of the first things he did after taking over as commissioner was rigging things for Montreal to win

but he almost got caught and hasn't been able to rig it again yet

 

[WarriorofTime]

They get eliminated before winning four consecutive series

 

[McGarnagle]

With 32 teams in the league and 7 being Canadian, everything else being equal there is a 22% chance that they win. You'd think over 30 years that that number would hit at some point, but each year is a new event and every individual year there is a 78% chance that a Canadian team *doesn't* win, so it's not the biggest shock in the world that they've lost each year.

But beyond that, I would say management mainly. They've all have flaws of some kind. I'm not sure whether this "pressure" everyone speaks of affects player performance on ice, but I do think the media and fanbase pressure causes some impatience in the team building so rather than patiently building they'll pull a Dubas and throw money and picks around to go all in.

 

[Necrobutcher]

Gotta say i honestly think it's just an anomaly and nothing more. Shit like that can happen in a 30+ team league.

 

[Rebels57]

Look at who the GMs of the Canadian teams have been for the last 30 years lol

 

[Section 104]

There have been times when the exchange rate have hurt Canadian teams

Excessive pressure if you are the only game or the main game in town

Many guys don’t want to work in cold climates so Canadian teams get a lot of Do Not Trade to listings and few free agent signings
randomness. There was a time in the 1960s and 1970s when the NL beat the AL in baseball’s all star game by an overwhelming margin. Similarly in the 1980s and 1990s the NFC. won a lot of Superduper Bowls. Random shirts happen

 

[JianYang]

With 32 teams in the league and 7 being Canadian, everything else being equal there is a 22% chance that they win. You'd think over 30 years that that number would hit at some point, but each year is a new event and every individual year there is a 78% chance that a Canadian team *doesn't* win, so it's not the biggest shock in the world that they've lost each year.

But beyond that, I would say management mainly. They've all have flaws of some kind. I'm not sure whether this "pressure" everyone speaks of affects player performance on ice, but I do think the media and fanbase pressure causes some impatience in the team building so rather than patiently building they'll pull a Dubas and throw money and picks around to go all in.

If you go further back, obviously the Habs and leafs won the most cups pre expansion and only made up 33% of the league back then.

Post expansion, the Habs won 5 or 6 cups in the 70s?

In the 80s, the oilers, habs, and flames won something like 5 or 6 cups in total?

90 to 93 represents two more cups between the Habs and oilers.

As futile as they Canadian teams have been in the last 30 years, they were punching way above their weight prior to that from a representational standpoint.

 

[End on a Hinote]

I've always felt that shit luck is the one that ultimately costs the Canadian teams championships.

It's kind of like Final Destination. In the end, failure will always prevail. Look at the '94 Canucks, '04 Flames, '06 Oilers, '11 Canucks and '17 Senators.

All teams were able to prevail against the odds of being in Canada. They had competent management, enough key players willing to be there, and faced mostly non-biased officiating.

Then, when the road looked clear as crystal and the Cup was in plain sight....in came the universe with its bag of cursed shit luck.

1994 Canucks - Lafayette's last minute goal post

2004 Flames - Martin Gelina's no goal

2006 Oilers - Rolston injury

2011 Canucks - Ended up facing the only team that could have beat them (I have a much harder time watching the B's 1st round game 7 OT winner against Montreal than any second of that Finals, that was the goal that cost the Canucks the Cup IMO)

2017 Senators - Lost game 7 of ECF in OT. I have no doubt they would have beaten Nashville in the Finals.

At the end of the day, something (fate, universe, curse, whatever....) will always prevail in costing Canada a championship.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Generally poor management. Look at all of the GM's of Canadian teams over the past 30 years, it's a total shitshow.

Even the most competent ones like Gillis and Dubas get absolutely savaged by the Canadian media and run out of town despite actually being pretty good at their jobs.

 

[Duodenum]

Less likely to tear it down and do a full rebuild. Instead, Canadian teams hang out in the worst possible position, bad but not bad enough.

 

[MikeyMike01]

1) # of teams. Occam's Razor here - it simply comes down to the fact that there are a greater number of American teams in the league. Less Canadian teams = less chance of winning the Cup.

It cannot be this. The math disproves it.

7 out of 32 (which is actually worse odds than Canada has had, from ongoing expansion, but for simplicity we’ll pretend it’s been 32 teams the whole time)

(25/32)^30 = 0.00061

If all teams had an equal shot at the cup, there’s less than a 0.061% chance of Canada not winning in the last 30 years. It’s clearly something else.

 

[JianYang]

Generally poor management. Look at all of the GM's of Canadian teams over the past 30 years, it's a total shitshow.

Even the most competent ones like Gillis and Dubas get absolutely savaged by the Canadian media and run out of town despite actually being pretty good at their jobs.

I think Canadian teams are generally going for the quick fix to try and stay competitive even when the writing is on the wall to start things over, and then get overly impatient when they start building back up.

The rangers remind me of this as well, even though they are not Canadian.

 

[TLEH]

Its some bad management, but also just luck. I think its a statistical anomaly. Hockey doesn't make sense.

 

[JianYang]

It cannot be this. The math disproves it.

7 out of 32 (which is actually worse odds than Canada has had, from ongoing expansion, but for simplicity we’ll pretend it’s been 32 teams the whole time)

(25/32)^30 = 0.00061

If all teams had an equal shot at the cup, there’s less than a 0.0061% chance of Canada not winning in the last 30 years. It’s clearly something else.

Is that stat also taking into consideration the disproportionate number of cups they won prior to the last 30 years or is that irrelevant towards this number?

 

[Jee]

Occam's Razor, management issues, and bad luck, mostly. There are additional one-off factors, like Montreal artificially limiting their talent pool by unofficially requiring bilingual leadership, or Eugene Melnyk being undercapitalized for an NHL owner in the modern era, but in 4 of the 6 Cup finals since 1993 featuring a Canadian team, they lost 4-3. A couple bounces go differently in those series, and we're not having this conversation at all.

Noted francophone Jeff Gorton.

 

[MikeyMike01]

Is that stat also taking into consideration the disproportionate number of cups they won prior to the last 30 years or is that irrelevant towards this number?

It’s irrelevant if you consider them independent events.

As in, flipping a coin five heads in a row, the next flip is still 50/50.

 

[JianYang]

Noted francophone Jeff Gorton.

Gorton was a creative hire. But I'm confident they absolutely wanted to make sure that the mouthpiece was bilingual. Despite what the titles say, it feels like Montreal has a co-gm setup, and I wonder if they go down that route if they weren't so concerned about language.

 

[orby]

There have been a few Canadian teams over the past decades that were absolutely good enough to win a cup; the 2011 Canucks come to mind, among others. But the playoffs are always a crapshoot no matter how stacked your roster is. Luck is a much bigger factor than most people probably want to admit. A lot of the Canadian teams have had generally mediocre management over the years, too.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Theyve been run by nincompoops for years,


Only reason toronto and edmonton are even good is because they got incredible top 5 picks

 

[ponder719]

Noted francophone Jeff Gorton.

And prior to 2021, how many other monolingual English speakers have been head coach, GM, or President of the Canadiens? I remember the hiring of Gorton making a huge splash specifically because this was not a common occurrence.

And I'm not alone in remembering that.

What the Puck: Language matters when it comes to the Canadiens

Jeff Gorton, the new head of Canadiens' hockey operations, should learn French to show respect for the team's fans.

montrealgazette.com

Habs eye French-speaking GM to assist Gorton

The Canadiens plan to hire a French-speaking GM to work with new executive vice president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton, who will be tasked with turning around the struggling organization.

www.espn.com

I could keep looking, but the point is clear.

 

[LeafGrief]

Horrendous ownership who are either too corporate to have a clue, or too deep into their fandom to have a clue. The Leafs are run by suits who can't skate, the Oilers are run by the memory of the 80's Oilers. The Jets and Sens have small market problems, the Flames just haven't been particularly well run, and the Canucks have a meddling owner. The Habs are probably the best run team with passionate ownership who know how to get out of the way, which is why they go on a deep run every few years. If they'd had a better GM than ol' Bargain Bin, they might have had one.

It's a hard league to win in, you gotta be good to get lucky, and then you still gotta get lucky. Bad ownership sinks you before it starts, then bad leadership structures underneath that will sink you again.

 

[JianYang]

And prior to 2021, how many other monolingual English speakers have been head coach, GM, or President of the Canadiens? I remember the hiring of Gorton making a huge splash specifically because this was not a common occurrence.

And I'm not alone in remembering that.

What the Puck: Language matters when it comes to the Canadiens

Jeff Gorton, the new head of Canadiens' hockey operations, should learn French to show respect for the team's fans.

montrealgazette.com

Habs eye French-speaking GM to assist Gorton

The Canadiens plan to hire a French-speaking GM to work with new executive vice president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton, who will be tasked with turning around the struggling organization.

www.espn.com

I could keep looking, but the point is clear.

Molson has made no secret about it. He thinks it's very important that the language of management represents the language of its fans.

 

[Some Other Flame]

The crux of it is essentially impatient and poor owners that like to look for quick fixes and "win now" moves.

Aquilini (Canucks) and Edwards (Flames) are the two worst owners in the league at the moment. Melnyk (Senators) was the worst until his passing. Katz (Oilers) was/is forever obsessed with re-creating his childhood dream of being friends with the Oilers players from the 80's. Toronto is Toronto.

Montreal has or had that thing about only bringing in people who already spoke French, although I think they've relaxed that a bit now. Jets actually go the other way in that maybe they're too patient and too hands off, but they're easily the best out of the Canadian franchises, for now at least.

 

[JaegerDice]

It cannot be this. The math disproves it.

7 out of 32 (which is actually worse odds than Canada has had, from ongoing expansion, but for simplicity we’ll pretend it’s been 32 teams the whole time)

(25/32)^30 = 0.00061

If all teams had an equal shot at the cup, there’s less than a 0.061% chance of Canada not winning in the last 30 years. It’s clearly something else.

2004
2006
2007
2011
2021

Their representation in the Finals is on track. They’ve all just lost. Luck has been against them in the most random, luck-influenced sport there is.

 

[M88K]

Well, poor construction of rosters, Pressure and bad luck.

Not to pick on the leafs, but I mean it's the Leafs if anyone deserves it, it's the people that routinely plan the parade in September.
But look at the leafs, every year they lose in the PO, and out comes a ton of articles hating on the big name players. That's not to say they don't deserve critique, but every little mistake is magnified in those markets, and it's not just losing the PO, every little thing gets scrutinized.
Then you have poor management of both roster and cap.
2 different teams went into the season thinking Matt Murray and Jack Campbell would lead to PO success. It's those same poor decisions that lead to players like Nurse eating up large swaths of cap space.
Hell one of those same teams also though Cody Ceci was a legitimate top 4 defense option.

There's poorly run teams in the US as well, (Buffalo, Arizona, etc) but there's also 25 total US teams, so 50% of the possible winning pool doesn't disappear with a couple of very poorly run teams.