STANLEY CUP DROUGHT
Law of averages. The loonie. The pressure of a hockey- mad country. No matter the reasons, Canada’s Stanley Cup drought has hit two decades and fans won’t be happy until it ends
SIX- PART SERIES LOOKS AT CANADA’S MEDIOCRE NHL TEAMS
Almost 25,000 NHL games have gone by since the Montreal Canadiens enjoyed their magical playoff run in 1993, blessed to have Patrick Roy in net as they won 10 overtime games that spring, eventually trumping Wayne Gretzky’s Los Angeles Kings in five games in the Stanley Cup final.
It sickens Canadian flag wavers that teams like Tampa Bay and Carolina have won Cups over the last decade while their favourites have gone without.
“It hasn’t been a complete black hole,” said former Calgary Flames general manager Craig Button, now a scouting guru and TV broadcaster. “Canadian teams have made it to the final and lost in the seventh game.” Several times, actually. The Vancouver Canucks ( 1994, 2011), Edmonton Oilers ( 2006) and Calgary Flames ( 2004) each went the limit in their respective finals during the last two decades. The only Canadian team that didn’t was the Ottawa Senators, who were dispatched by the Anaheim Ducks in five games in 2007.
Last spring, the Canadiens were Canada’s singular playoff hope, teasing us by reaching the Final Four, only to lose to the New York Rangers in six games. The other six Canadian precincts — Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto and Ottawa — weren’t any better than five points from the playoffs.
“Canadian hockey fans should take a deep breath,” said one longtime western- based player agent. “To me, a successful season should be making the final four teams, not necessarily the Stanley Cup. Reaching the conference final is a good goal to have every year.” But it’s not the ultimate goal. So why haven’t Canadian teams been able to get over that hump?
There’s no definitive answer, but some of the possibilities could be:
• Law of averages. When the Canadiens won in 1993, there were eight Canadian teams in a 24- team league, meaning a 33 per cent chance the Cup would come north of the border. In today’s 30- team NHL there are seven in Canada ( 23.3 per cent), one more than there was during an 11- year span from 2000- 01 until 201112 when Canada’s odds of winning the Cup were 20 per cent.
• Players would rather play where there is no suffocating pressure to win, where you aren’t asked the same questions by 20 and 30 media people every day, where they can go eat at a restaurant without somebody wanting an autograph or a photo;
• Players would rather play where it’s warm, where you get a better tax break ( such as in Texas and Florida), or where their wives want to be. That’s often not Winnipeg, Edmonton or Ottawa;
• Canadian teams, adhering to their fan base’s desires to stay competitive, tend to avoid the massive
rebuild. The Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks have won three Stanley Cups combined over the last six years, both teams having benefitted from lean years before drafting the likes of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. The Oilers have endured a similar fate with the high draft picks — three straight firstoverall selections from 2010- 12 — but haven’t seen the same return ... yet;
• Canadian teams make truckloads of money with their full houses and revenue streams, but nowadays can’t just go out and buy the best free agent( s) available every July 1 because of the salary cap that has been in place since 2005;
• Before the loonie grew stronger, Canadian teams through the 1990s were at a major disadvantage having to pay players in U. S. dollars. Teams like Edmonton and Calgary were small market all the way, merely trying to survive, needing hand- outs from the league.
“The NHL is the biggest show in town and I definitely feel there’s prolonged stress — it adds another layer onto an already challenging environment,” said University of Alberta sports psychologist John Dunn, who got a first- hand look at the fishbowl in which Canadian players live during his two years working for the Oilers. “There’s nowhere to hide for players.
“I ran into Sam Gagner at my ( grocery store) and in two minutes, two or three people asked for his autograph. The constant of being under an evaluative process ... every move they make, every breath they take is there for all to see. In the long term, that can grind you down a bit. It probably has a detrimental effect in energy level and motivational level.”
That said, pressure isn’t a catchall. To win in a Canadian city you need talent, too.
The Canadian teams haven’t necessarily been blessed with a group of elite players or depth in the last decade or two for deep playoff runs.
“Maybe some have used ( the pressure of playing in Canada) as a crutch,” said Dunn. “It has some validity, but I also believe if you brought L. A. or Chicago to Edmonton or Toronto or Montreal, with all their resources, they’ve still got a very good chance of winning the Stanley Cup.”
“It’s baloney that people say you can’t win if you’re playing in a Canadian city,” said Murray Smith, another sports psychologist who was once employed by the Oilers. “There’s no pressure except for what the performer puts on himself.
“Performers do listen too much, but it’s an individual thing, not a team thing. It didn’t hurt Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier playing ( in Edmonton). You have to play somewhere.”
Trying to survive financially has certainly been a bigger goal than winning on the ice for some Canadian teams.
“Outside of the law of averages, the economics and business of the game changed, and it was a radical shift,” said Button. “Was there ever a time when a top team had to sell off players like the Oilers did, selling Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier, in the prime of their careers? That’s in any sport.” Messier agrees. “It was a bit of an unfair playing field there for a while with the dollar and the money lower teams could spend ... maybe not for Toronto and Montreal, but Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec, at that time,” said Messier.
“Look at those years when Edmonton still had a good team ( in the late ’ 90s) but couldn’t get the extra piece at the trade deadline.
“Twenty- one years and no Stanley Cups is a long time, but really, you shouldn’t be going back that far to talk about no championships. Maybe only since 2006 or just before that ( salary cap) with the playing field much more level.”
Button says there was a distinct uphill battle for Canadian squads in the ’ 90s, though.
“The difference in the dollar ( Canadian vs. U. S.) in the ’ 90s was huge. If you were a Canadian team outside of Toronto, you were at a $ 15- million disadvantage before one cheque had been written,” said Button.
“As the game evolved ( businesswise), it was a great opportunity for the players to make money, too ( as free agents, moving from Canadian to American teams). They were saying, ‘ You mean I can make that there?’ I’ll never fault the players for that. There were new markets ( Tampa, Florida, Anaheim) needing players, creating a demand, and with escalating salaries and the difference in the dollar, Canadian teams paid a helluva price.”
St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock, a witness to the Oilers’ glory days while growing up in Edmonton, debunks the theory that players can be overwhelmed by playing in hockey- mad Canada.
“I think the pressure is equal on the players, coaches and management,” said Hitchcock, who believes Canadian fans, while rabid, are actually patient.
Look at Maple Leafs Nation: no Stanley Cups since 1967 — but there’s always next year.
“Fans are willing to go through growth in Canada,” Hitchcock said. “In the United States, where we play, the focus is very much on winning and winning now.
“And it’s really hard to win in the playoffs now because so many teams are dead even. But one thing you have to have ... your best players in the key positions absolutely have to be on top of their game. Your impact players have to be prepared to make an impact.”