Canada is supposed to be the home of hockey. The world's fastest game is played from coast to coast on rinks in big cities and small towns with early morning pee wee practices and late night adult leagues being the norm. Hockey is a religion in Canada. The NHL was born in Canada and we have given the world the best hockey players ever to lace up the skates. Despite all these facts, Canada has some of the worst NHL teams in the league.
The Leafs , the Oilers, and the Flames are the epitome of mismanagement. NHL fans in those cities have been suffering for way to many seasons as bottom dwellers. The glory days of giants like Sittler, Gretzky, and MacDonald are long gone and the fans should be demanding results, now !!! The knuckle heads at the Air Canada Center (in Toronto) are the kings of NHL mediocrity. These guys have truckloads of money but they have put together a string of losing squads which has put the Queen's City hockey credibility in the toilet.
The Habs are in the same pot as these three drifting wrecks because they could also be doing much better. The fans in Montreal are loyal to a fault and management counts on this blind optimism to fill the seats. The Habs rarely make the needed moves at the end of the season (to get them over the hump) and their willingness to spend cash in a timely manner is a problem in the off season. It is always the same nonsense with the Canadiens; strong start, sloppy mid-season and then the hope and pray end of season.
We would love to see the Canadian teams come to life this year. Hell we would settle for them coming to life even next year or the year after. If we had to guess who was next to win a cup out of this sorry lot; we would put our money on the Oilers. Assuming they finish near the bottom this year; the Oilers will draft well again in 2012. Eventually the Oilers could look like a Canadian version of the Penguins and hockey glory will return to Northern , Alberta between 2013-2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment