The NHL is a fairly big league. There are 32 teams split into two conferences of 16, each with two divisions of 8. That means there are a lot of teams to choose from when you’re trying to figure out a favourite team. Most people go local, meaning they root for a team located around where they’re from. That’s not the case for me.
The team I choose to root for is the Seattle Kraken. Now, I’m from Canada, about an hour and a half away from Toronto, so this choice of team has nothing to do with location. It has everything to do with the name. I would say my second favourite team right now is probably the Buffalo Sabres, which are actually closer to where I live than the Toronto Maple Leafs, the closest Canadian team. Then maybe the Colorado Avalanche or the Anaheim Ducks.
The thing about hockey is that no matter how many teams you like, there will always be teams that you dislike. For me, there are three teams that I dislike more than any of the other NHL teams. I wanted to take some time and explain why I dislike those three teams. I get that some people might not want more negativity thrown out there, but like most of my posts this is just something I feel I need to write. For my own sake.
The Edmonton Oilers
I don’t have much to go on for my dislike of the Edmonton Oilers. This one is just a gut reaction whenever I think about the team. They have a lot of players that I like, but that is not enough to get me to actually like the team. I like Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Stuart Skinner, and even Connor McDavid, to an extent. But then there’s also Evander Kane, a player that I outright hate.
The players aren’t really the issue with my dislike for Edmonton. Yes, I hate Evander Kane. Yes, I think Connor McDavid might not be the best player in the league because his effort is only there for a small amount of the game. I can’t deny his talent, though. These players are not my issue.
The issue I have with Edmonton is the same issue I have with Toronto, except that I don’t live near Edmonton. I grew up a Toronto fan until I fell off hockey when I went to university. That meant the oversaturation of the media in Canada with Toronto Maple Leafs coverage never really bothered me in the same way it does other people. However, as a fan of Seattle now, when I am trying to watch a feed of a Seattle game, it typically comes from a western Canada market. Those Sportsnet feeds tend to focus all their attention on Toronto and Edmonton. The Toronto stuff has simply become a part of my life living near Toronto. I have no relevance to Edmonton, Edmonton has no relevance to me, so I don’t need to hear about the Edmonton Oilers every five minutes. This is what bothers me.
Add to that the fact that everyone thinks Connor McDavid is the greatest player to ever live, aside from Wayne Gretzky, and you have the same team being brought up in almost every hockey situation. It’s just the amount of hearing about Edmonton. That makes me hate Edmonton. if they weren’t talked about during every hockey broadcast as if they were the most important team in the world, aside from Toronto, I probably wouldn’t care. But they are, and I do, and I don’t like them. That’s that.
The Vegas Golden Knights
I have seen a lot of people complaining about the Vegas Golden Knights winning the Stanley Cup simply because the Vegas Golden Knights were brought into the NHL only six years ago. I have no problem with that. My team is the Seattle Kraken. They came in two years ago. If I had a problem with a new team winning the cup, I wouldn’t be rooting for a new team.
My issue with the Vegas Golden Knights is how they treat their players. Don’t get me wrong, it was a winning formula, but that doesn’t mean they don’t treat their players poorly. The team has no loyalty to anyone that is a part of the team. They will get rid of a good player, a fan favorite, if that means they can get a different good player who might be a bigger name. They are a team who has been around for six years and currently only has five players from that first season.
The misfits, as they were called, as they are still called, are mostly not even there anymore. As soon as the team won the Stanley Cup, they traded Reilly Smith, one of the original misfits. There was that whole debacle with Marc-André Fleury, including his agent sending out a picture of the goaltender with a sword in his back, which led to Marc-André Fleury being traded for basically nothing. And it’s not just the misfits that get this treatment. As soon as Max Pacioretty got injured, he was shipped off for nothing to Carolina. The upper management is ruthless and has created an atmosphere where no one feels safe signing a contract in Vegas. (I’ve actually heard from someone who knows Logan Thompson that no one really feel safe in Vegas because of how they are so willing to just get rid of players quickly.) For a business that acts like a player’s loyalty to a team is important above almost anything else, it would be nice to see reciprocation. Vegas doesn’t have that reciprocation.
I do feel it’s important to mention that, although I hate Vegas for how they treat the players, I appreciate the showmanship that they’re bringing into the league. Their pre-shows are setting a standard that most NHL teams should strive to achieve. The All-Star game and skills competition that was held in Vegas was far more entertaining than most that I’ve seen. And that castle that they have at the top of their arena is a special something that you don’t really get at other arenas. I appreciate that stuff, but I hate how the team is run, which makes me hate the team.
The Boston Bruins
Oh, look at this guy, a former Leafs fan who hates the Boston Bruins. Well, guess what? When the Leafs fans started hitting the Bruins was 2011. I stopped watching the Leafs in 2009. Take that!
My hate for the Boston Bruins started two years after that,
because of their fans during the playoffs. But to fully understand, we have to
go back a little further. We must go back to two weeks before the playoffs
began. That was when the Boston marathon took place in 2013, and if you
remember that event, you may also remember that there was a bombing. It was a big
tragedy that everyone knew about. Everyone probably still knows about it. The
people of Boston came together in the aftermath with the phrase, “Boston
strong.” They were telling people that even through the tragedy they were going
to stay strong, they were going to overcome, they were going to persevere. It
was a beautiful moment in the aftermath of a tragedy.
Two weeks later, we got the NHL playoffs. Boston won their first-round match up. Boston won their second-round match up. Boston won their third-round match up, and they made it to the Stanley Cup finals. The fans in the arena were shouting “Boston strong” through the entire playoff run. That is what made me hate the Boston Bruins.
I get that the city camr together after the tragedy of the bombing. This phrase showed how strong the city was, and how anybody who did something as horrific as that marathon bombing would not break the Boston people’s will. However, the phrase was not meant as a hockey cheer. It was not meant to say that your hockey team was going to be better than another hockey team. To bastardize the phrase in that way is to lessen the loss of the people who died in the bombing. I fucking hate that. It became a hockey chant. I fucking hate that Boston Bruins fans took such a meaningful phrase and a tragic moment and made it about a fucking Stanley Cup run. That they didn’t even win. They lost to Chicago in the finals.
I don’t hate the Boston Bruins because they beat another team in the playoffs or in the regular season. They’ve got good players. They’ve got Patrice Bergeron. They’ve got David Pastrňák. They’ve got Brad Marchand. They’ve got Charlie McAvoy. The team is good, or at least was until they lost half the players this off-season. But their fans ruined them. I hate the team because of their fans.
Those are my thoughts about the three teams that I dislike in the NHL. There are other teams that I’m not a fan of. And there are the teams that I like. But these three teams, for whatever reason, rub me the wrong way. Two of them, a little more obviously than the other one.
This post might’ve been a little too negative for some of the people who decide to open it up. I can understand that. A lot of it was just me ripping on teams, or their fans. I just wanted to write a little something about hockey. This is what came to mind. For those who did read it, I hope you enjoyed. Check out some of the other stuff I’ve written. I’ll see you next time.
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