You’ve heard it time and time again. It’s been 32 years since a Canadian-based team was able to skate around the ice carrying the Stanley Cup. And here we are, with one game done and another one to be played Friday night in Edmonton, with Canada’s last hope now just three games away from the ultimate goal.
Thirty-two long, frustrating years.
As a country of 40 million, we can proudly say it’s our passion for hockey and for our local teams that makes the NHL tick. We have kept the NHL relevant.
And even more emphatically, Wednesday’s first game of the Stanley Cup final between the Oilers and Florida Panthers was viewed by 4.5 million Canadians. That’s two million more viewers than watched south of the border, in a country with a population eight times larger.
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And did you know that the TV ratings for each of the seven Canadian teams are better than any U.S.-based team? Teams like the Winnipeg Jets have better ratings than Boston, New York, Detroit and Chicago. It’s hard to imagine.
Oh sure, there are great franchises and great stories amongst the 25 teams based in the United States. But understand, this truly is our country’s league. With almost half of the players Canadian, and so much of the business success around the NHL driven by Canadian markets and Canadian dollars, it’s important to know that we treat this league differently than the other major pro sports leagues.
Yes, it’s a business — big business and getting bigger all the time. But in our country, hockey is a public trust. For sure, the expectation of any or all of the fan bases in Canada is to win, but fans invest more than money. We feel the anguish of every loss, the joy of every goal, the pain of every hit. We don’t watch hockey, we live it.
That’s why 32 years feels oh, so long. And there are still no guarantees that the streak won’t get longer.
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