Come On, Canada!
As most of you know, there are currently seven Canadian professional hockey teams in the National Hokey League. The cities having these corresponding teams are Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto for the Eastern division and Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver for the Western Division. This year, for the second time since the 1969-70 NHL season, none of these Canadian teams have managed to make the playoffs, which is quite frustrating and disappointing because hockey is Canada’s sport. The last time that no Canadian team made the playoffs, there were only two franchises’ in the League: the Montreal Canadians and the Toronto Maple Leafs. To see no Canadian team in the post season back then was still pretty respectable seeing that there were only two teams in the league, NOT SEVEN! Not only have these Canadian teams disappointed their nation by missing the greatest part of the hockey season, but six out of the seven current teams are sitting in the bottom six of the NHL standings. Yes, that’s right, the last six teams in their respectful division are Canadian. Are they all tanking that hard to get that number one draft pick and secure the services of the all so talented Austin Matthews? Is this youngster great enough to deceive all of Canada and their great hockey fans? Last time I checked, this kid wasn’t at the level of Conor McDavid, but we’ll just have to wait and find out. Also, let’s give a huge shout out to the Ottawa Senators for not completely embarrassing Canadian hockey by actually making a push to secure a playoff spot. Their effort is well appreciated, but they are still 21st overall in the league, which just shows you how much the Canadian teams were not even close this year.
The Montreal Canadians actually started the season off with nine victories in succession and with zero losses. Not only were they the fans’ favorites to take home the Lord Stanley but they were technically supposed to make the playoffs as well. They are actually the first team in the Montreal Canadian history to win nine games in a row at the start of the season while not winning the Stanley Cup, as the previous three teams did. They are also the first team to beat that record and not even make the playoffs, which is really sad. Last season, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Ottawa all made the playoffs. Shocker! One year after more than half of the Canadian teams make the playoffs, the next we have zero participants. Where is the balance, the moderation? These same five teams were supposed to make the playoffs once again and maybe even go further, and for the likes of a great team like Montreal, at the beginning of the season, they were said to win it all. Edmonton should have been able to qualify, but their star player Conor McDavid went out injured, just like Carey Price for Montreal; and well Toronto, they are just in a total rebuild. It is quite disappointing for many Canadian hockey fans to know that there won’t be any playoff hockey in Canada this year, we’ll just have to wait for next year; so let’s turn our attention to the World Cup of Hockey and hopefully, Canada as a nation can bring home the gold there and make all of us Canadians happy again!
Written By: Brandon Brini
April 2016
