And I know some of you will think there's some USA vs Canada thing going on, but I assure you that Americans feel absolutely none of that. You Canadians are proud of hockey; it's your CREATION, your CULTURE, and borderline religion. You feel territorial about that. But American hockey fans LOVE YOU GUYS for that. Hockey is your gift to the world and thank you, thank you, thank you. We know all the words to O Canada, and we'd probably move there for Tim Horton's and universal health care if it wasn't colder than a penguin's taint. The only time we hate you is during the Olympics (Even then, we're like "okay, my team's best player is on their team...")
We just think it's amusing that the Leafs should be the "New York Yankees of hockey" and haven't won in 54 years; Or that the Habs ARE the French Yankees and they haven't won in 28 years; and the Canucks fans will riot again if they lose in the finals. (And I was rooting for the Canucks HARD in 1994).
If you actually win the Cup (against "not MY team"), we'd all be like "Good for them." Faster for some teams that others, of course, but it has nothing to do with "They're Canadian!"
I just think it's harder to build a really good team in Canada because the Canadian dollar/cold makes it harder to lure free agents and more importantly: your GMs face more pressure to make moves and that leads them to screw up more.
I'm sure the Edmonton sports section lead story was about who the Oilers were going to protect in the expansion draft. And Lou Lamoriello opened the New York papers to the read about whether the Yankees should buy or sell and which starting pitcher the Mets should target at the trade deadline; and then probably like 7 stories about the NBA finals and the NFL before seeing if anyone mentioned the Islanders.
Canadian teams are 22.5% of the league and were participants in 27% of the trades this past season. The pressure to act doesn't automatically make every Canadian GM bad at their job, but it's clearly a factor.
Glen Sather went to the Rangers from Edmonton, and I remember a Rangers/Yankees fan friend saying to me "He doesn't get it. He's acting like (Yankees GM Brian) Cashman all the time, when Rangers fans don't expect them to be like the Yankees. The Yankees are SUPPOSED TO WIN EVERY YEAR; the Rangers went 54 years without a Cup, you can BUILD for 3 to 5 years, just get us really deep in the playoffs 2 or 3 times a decade, win a Cup every 20 years and you'll be a legend."
Sather came from Canadian pressure to the Rangers and Yankees fans could see the similarities with the pressure NY Yankees GMs are under. GMs of the American teams have the luxury that the media will be jumping down the throat of another sports GM during the off-season. And that's why there's a lot more quality teams in the other divisions than this year's North.
And by the way, I could write an essay on why the "Usual Metro" or "This Year's East" is clearly the deepest division full of the most good teams... but the fans in the West and Central wouldn't make a thread like this!
God Bless you Canadian hockey fans. May your team eventually win a Cup, just not at the expense of my team.