With the Winnipeg Jets Now 7 wins away from A Stanley Cup, fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs should be rooting against them.
The notion that fans of Canadian NHL teams should root for the last team in Canada standing is ridiculous. A Canadian team hasn’t hoisted Lord Stanley since 1993.
And, in case anyone was wondering, the Leafs will be the team to end the drought.
By using this sort of logic, The Vegas Golden Knights should be “Canada’s team”. Mainly because they lead the final four teams with 18 Canadian born players on their roster. The Jets, by comparison, have 11.
If you find this logic silly, then you should find the media expecting you to cheer for the Jets because they are based out Canada equally silly.
Reasons To Not Root For The Winnipeg Jets
Anytime Auston Mathews and Patrik Laine do something special, ( almost happens nightly), fans from each team start to say why each player is better than the other. Can you imagine what Jets fans will be like if Laine lifts the cup before Mathews?
The “Laine’s better” chants that filled Bell MTS Place last season will be even more deafening.
Everyone with hockey knowledge knows that a franchise centre is more valuable than a goal-scoring winger. See Crosby’s 3 rings to Ovechkin’s 0. That will be brushed aside if Laine gets a ring first.
There’s this popular belief that the Vegas Golden Knights winning the Stanley Cup is a bad thing for the league. I don’t understand how that could be. This is a team of players cast aside. All because their former teams didn’t believe they were a piece that could help them win. With them winning, it may finally lead some General Managers to think differently.
Or, they continue to be stuck in their ways.
Maybe these “hockey men” need a wake-up call as to how they evaluate players. And, more so, how they put a team together.
The expansion Knights winning the cup just might do that.
Cheer For The Story Lines
The thought that hockey fans not only should cheer for a team just because they are located in the same country you live, but it is unpatriotic if you don’t is ludicrous.
When the Leafs were eliminated in game 7, your focus should have shifted to cheering for great storylines.
After all the unnecessary criticism Alex Ovechkin has faced for Washington’s playoff failures, wouldn’t it be great to see him finally win it all? Ovechkin is almost a PPG player in his playoff career. But, because he hadn’t gotten out of the second round until this season, he’s viewed as a choker.
A Cup win would change the public perception of him.
It would be an incredible story if the Cinderella Golden Knights won it all. The team everyone thought would finish dead last went on to win the Pacific Division wire to wire.
The Knights season is going to have a movie made about them if they win the Cup. Possibly even if they don’t, their season has been that remarkable to this point. Witnessing an expansion team win it all would be one of those moments you would be glad you got to see.
Yes, Winnipeg winning would be a story. Mainly because it would mean the end of the Canadian team Cup drought.
But, let’s be honest. The Toronto Maple Leafs are the only team in Canada that matters.
Conclusion
It sucks watching playoff hockey with the Leafs no longer apart of it. But, there are still plenty of intriguing storylines. Don’t let yourself get sucked into believing you have to cheer for Winnipeg just because they are the last Canadian team playing.
Being a suffering Leafs fan means you also don’t want good things to happen for other Canadian Cities. If the roles were reversed there is a zero percent chance that Jets fans would be cheering for the Leafs.
The Toronto Maple Leafs and their fans are hated. Embrace that. And, by doing so, cheer for one of the other 3 teams still playing.
Next: Kyle Dubas and Hidden Talent
Just not the Winnipeg Jets.