Hockey Playoffs
 

You are all going to hate me for this, but has anybody been watching the hockey playoffs? (i know i know sterotypical Canadian)

the Toronto Maple Leafs just rubbed out the New York Islanders to move onto the second round.

I wonder if anybody has any predictions for the final round of play. I am thinking Detroit vs Montreal fianl detroit in 6 games.

Sorry haven't been watching the hockey playoff. Hockey isn't that big down in the south.

I wouldn't expect it to be, and it is rare that any southern teams actually make it to the playoffs.

Didn't the Dallas Stars win a couple years ago?

yeah but other than that the furthest south it has gotten is Colorado

When was the last time a Canadian team won?

The Montreal Canadiens won their 24th cup in 1993. they are the most winningest team in history.

That was the last Canadian team to win?!?!? I figured hockey was Canada's sport.

It is; 50% of the players in the NHL are Canadian, the other 50% is the rest of the world! it is and always will be our sport! There are only 6 Canadian teams left in a 30 team league, so the odds are against Canadian teams to begin with.

You would figure if hockey is so popular there they would try to get more expansion teams unstead of southren cities getting them like the Atlanta Thrashers.

the problems that Canadian cities are to small to support NHL calibre teams. Every city has a hockey team or 2 or 3, for instance Ottawa has both the Senators which is their NHL team nad the 67's which is their OHL team. Because Canada's population is only 30 million, 1/10th of the US's, our cities are much smaller. 1/6th of Canadians lives in the Greater Toronto Area, cities like Edmonton which has a NHL team are only something like 300 000 to 500 000 people big.

So basically without the US the NHL would die? I think even with small cities any hockey team formed in Canada would sale out no mater the population.

you would think that but often the prices of tickets are expensive in order to cover players salarys as well as the exchange rate. A player for a Canadian team makes money in American $$ while a Canadian team makes thir money in Canadian $$ which is only worth abour 60 cents American. so they have to raise the price of tickets. For instance the price of a standing room seat(oxymoron??) at a Leafs game is about 28$ Canadian---to actually sit it hovers around 35$ Canadian. And even when the small maret teams do sell out they generally fall short of the money the need to keep the team.

That stinks. Guess the Canadians need to improve their econmy so their dollar comes closer to the American dollar. Tickets are not cheap here either because demand is usually high unless the team sucks.

20 years ago the Canadian $$ was worth 1.10 US---but it keeps slipping, which is good for tourism, but tends to be bad for people who actually live here. It might have something to do with the fact that our Dollar is named the looney!;)