Hello Sports Friends,

Well March Madness will be concluding in a few weeks and my brackets weren't the best this year I picked too many upsets. Also baseball will be starting soon and I'm excited about that until summer when football arrives. April also brings the NBA and Stanley Cup playoffs and I've been wondering which Canadian or Original Six team is going to come along to create some interest in the hockey playoffs that is as much interest as the casual fan has.

Now there are 30 teams in the National Hockey League but with all due respect to the other great and not so great teams there are only 10 teams which fall into the category of Canadian or Original Six. First the Canadian teams which include two Original Six teams the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens as well as the Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, Vancouver Canucks and Ottawa Senators. The Other Original Six teams which were the original six NHL clubs until expansion occured in 1967 include American city teams such as the Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks along with Toronto and Montreal listed above.

So what makes these 10 teams more interesting or special than the other 20 teams in the NHL?  History and tradition and the love of the game which is mostly strongest in the Canadian and Original Six cities. Now I know there are great passionate fans in cities like Buffalo, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Minnesota,  Colorado,  Dallas and other cities. You can make your arguements but the hockey playoffs and games are most interesting when a Canadian or Original Six team is involved. Take the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals between the Original Six team the New York Rangers and the Canadian team the Vancouver Canucks. Now add the backdrop that the Rangers and captain Mark Messier who had previously won five Stanley Cups in Edmonton with Wayne Gretzky in the 80s were trying to win the Rangers first Stanley Cup sice 1940, 54 years at the time and the final series went the full seven games with the final game being decided by one goal and you had a lot of passion. I heard there were riots in Vancouver and celebration in New York and that is what makes great rivalry and passion and interest for the game. Also incidentally that series reached tv ratings that the NHL: hasn't seen before or since. The only other hockey ratings bonanza I can think of is the Miracle on Ice USA beats the Soviets game in the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Otherwise you hear about 1.1 and 0.7 type ratings for NHL hockey games even the playoff ones except in Canada of course which doesn't count with the US media so I always hope we'll have a Canadian or Original Six team to create some interest if not ratings because that is where the game is most passionate with all due respect to the other great teams and hockey cities. It was fun the last two hockey seasons to see Canadian teams in the finals, Edmonton in 2006 and Calgary and 2004. We won't mention much about the lockout in between which hurt the game of hockey even more. But even though Edmonton lost to the Carolina Hurricanes and Calgary lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning both in the seventh game of the finals and both were on the road,  but still it was more exciting because you had cities and a country Canada where the passion of hockey mattered the most. It was better viewing than Colorado vs Florida or Anaheim vs New Jersey which were a couple of the less exciting Stanley Cup  matchups as far as the overall interest of the fans in recent years.

So I'm wondering who is this years Edmonton, Calgary or New York Rangers team to get me excited about the playoffs? None of the Canadian teams look really strong to make either the playoffs or a deep run to the finals and for the Original Six teams only the Detroit Red Wings from Hockeytown, Detroit a great American hockey city located ten miles from the Canadian border is in a strong postion to get into the playoffs and make a playoff run.

Now I have nothing against these other non Canadian and Original Six teams.In fact I root for my local area team the Dallas Stars where interest is surprisingly high in southern and sunny Texas, but I also like to watch the games where the interest is the highest. That is what I think attracts the casual fans with all due repect to the non traditional and Sun Belt market teams. So lets enjoy the games and hope there are some interesting teams and stories to follow which will make hockey a more interesting and enjoyable game to the general public and no I'm not asking for baseball, football and basketball type ratings. Please stop comparing hockey to those games, especially the ratings obsessed media who doesn't want to see small market Canadian teams. What do you want to see Anaheim vs New Jersey? Yawn, and I'm not talking just about the players on the ice but the lack of passion in the cities where interest isn't the highest. So enough rambling for today and have great and productive days and let me know what you think as always. Best wishes. fenfan67