With Edmonton’s loss to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final, the tired narrative continues: “Canada’s championship drought extended” to what is now 32 years. Stop it! Every NHL team has Canadian players. Every Canada franchise has players from the United States, Sweden, Finland, or wherever. This is pro hockey, not players representing a country.
For eight weeks of the NHL playoffs, the television networks north of the border not-so-subtly tried to tell Canadians who to root for. Rogers SportsNet, the ultimate rightsholder, shamelessly waved the red and white flag, with the implication that rooting against Connor McDavid and company was treasonous.
As if McDavid – who led Canada to victory over the United States in the 4 Nations Tournament – would somehow inject a comparable infusion of national pride had he been able to lead his squad to prevail over the Panthers.
Not even close. It bears repeating: the last Canadian team in the playoffs is not the same thing as ‘Team Canada’. This point of clarification was made splendidly in The Athletic last year, during Edmonton vs. Florida v1.0.
No one in Calgary roots for Edmonton (or vice versa)
Despite every bandwagon jumper in Vancouver, or Toronto, or Winnipeg that might have lent their temporary support to the Oilers, there was still the entire city of Calgary rooting against their provincial archrivals to the north.
The false ‘pro Canada’ analogy is hardly limited to the last two years. Leafs and Senators fans weren’t exactly rallying behind the Canadiens, either in the pandemic season of 2021 when the bleu blanc et rouge lost to Tampa, or in 1993 when the franchise captured – now infamously – the most recent Stanley Cup by a Canadian-based team.
Ditto for Toronto and Montreal fans who were more than ecstatic to see Anaheim oust Ottawa in 2007. Vancouver may have drawn its fair share of pro-Canuck supporters during its 2011 run, but support from the Martimes – who typically root for Boston-based teams – was scarce.
And suppose the tables were turned, and the Leafs somehow managed to end their Cup Final curse? How many people in either Ottawa or Montreal would suddenly don Maple Leafs sweaters?
(Crickets). That’s right, none.
No national rivalries exist in the playoffs
There is no ‘national rivalry’ among the NHL’s club teams when it comes to competing for the Stanley Cup. Finnish captain Aleksander Barkov gleefully raised the trophy over his head for a second straight year before it was passed off to teammates that included Russian goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and American super-pest Matthew Tkachuk.
And for good Canadian measure, Sam Bennett of Holland Landing, Ont. skated off with the Conn Smythe Trophy.
The day that a Canadian team finally hoists the Stanley Cup again will certainly be a historic one. However there won’t be coast-to-coast celebrations in the streets like those that occurred when Sidney Crosby scored the golden goal in 2010, or when Canada ended its Olympic drought in men’s hockey in 2002.
It won’t match the level of Canadian “where were you” moments as immortalized by Paul Henderson, Darryl Sittler or Mario Lemieux.
Quite simply, hockey fans aren’t as united in their support of the last Canadian team standing as the networks and their advertisers might want to believe.
