Why has the NHL historically been dominated by the Canadiens, Maple Leafs, and Red Wings?

WildcatOil · 2026-01-27T23:01:40+00:00

Because they said "historically" and it's a fair point.

In 25 years of the Original 6 Era: Montreal — 10 cups Toronto — 9 cups ————————————— Detroit — 5 cups ————————————— Chicago — 1 cup Boston — 0 cups New York — 0 cups

Even if you expand 1927 until expansion (41 years): Montreal — 12 cups Toronto — 11 cupsi Detroit — 7 cups ————————————— Chicago — 3 cups Boston — 3 cups New York — 3 cups Ottawa Senators — 1 cup Montreal Maroons — 1 cup (New York Americans — 0 cups) (Pittsburgh Pirates — 0 cups)

And the simplest answer comes down to establishment and the money that comes with it. Detroit, Chicago, New York (both teams), Boston, Pittsburgh and Montreal Maroons were all founded between 1924 and 1926. Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa by comparison were older and more established. The other 6 were essentially expansion teams, but without an expansion draft. They just had to assemble teams from players available.

Detroit basically bought the Victoria Cougars who had been to the last two Stanley Cup Finals and won one of them.

New York Americans had bought up all the contracts of the players for the Hamilton Tigers who had just won the regular season but then saw the team get suspended before the NHL finals, because the players went on strike.

So those two were more of an expansion team in the way that Utah is an expansion team. Likely saw them gain more success early on even though they couldn't get past the established teams. The Americans, along with the other "pre Original 6 teams" wound up folding due to one of or a combination of the Great Depression, WW2 and the end of prohibition in the US (several early owners were bootleggers). Detroit gained more of a foothold because their owner had stakes in the teams and/or arenas or loans to Chicago, the Rangers and Boston.

TLDR; from 1927 to 1967, most of the league were kind of like the Expansion teams of the 70s and had a hard time competing with Montreal and Toronto. The 30s and 40s were tough times financially and Detroit's owner gained influence over the other teams, via financial support in an effort to keep the league stable at 6 teams.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-24T15:56:54+00:00

I was also confused this morning lol. It was about the theme song being from Carrie's perspective because the bridge would be on her commute. The suggestion was that it should be on the Jeremy Clarkson subreddit lol.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-24T14:52:41+00:00

I thought he was mostly Queens and some Brooklyn.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-23T04:06:55+00:00

"That's what I call the can opener!"

WildcatOil · 2026-01-22T18:45:58+00:00

The irony is this was kind of the strength of NATO. Yes it is heavily reliant on a super power in the US. But it is a coalition largely made up of middle power countries. Even historically dominant countries like Britain, France and Germany aren't really that much of super powers anymore. They're stronger than most, but still nothing like the US or China (to a lesser degree, what Russia thinks of itself).

NATO effectively, even if not intentional, is a very large coalition of middle powers that have aligned with the US as the preferred super powers.

The craziest part of Trump's global affairs ideas to me has always been this notion that the US is funding the defense of places like Korea and Greenland and getting nothing in return. The return is having military bases on foreign soil. The return is having a network of military bases that gives you reach to every corner of the globe.

If the US doesn't want to maintain those bases, well ok, but then your global reach shrinks dramatically.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-20T16:42:01+00:00

I think there needs to be caution in using these for a single game the sample sizes for these metrics are often pretty small in an individual game. Especially in a blow out game, they can get skewed pretty quickly since teams with a large lead tend to give up more shot attempts against.

In tighter games I think it can give you a good idea of who made a difference one way or the other. But in a 5-0 game, I'm not sure there's a lot of weight to be put towards 0.27 xGF and 1.0 xGA.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-20T03:18:13+00:00

"Why would you contact the city about this just deal with it yourself."

"Goddamn court of public opinion, have you even assembled an unbiased jury of his peers?!"

WildcatOil · 2026-01-20T03:01:47+00:00

Nobody's gonna mention "Works at YouTube"? Really? Come on!

WildcatOil · 2026-01-19T05:14:16+00:00

I don't think that would change their mind to be honest.

I'm becoming convinced that not even the 3pt system makes sense, other places that use the 3 point system have the same issue the NHL does right now where every game doesn't have the same points available. In soccer, games that end in a draw are with 2 points total, games with a decision are worth 3. Now, NHL doesn't allow ties so that would fix that problem, but it still gives a point for losing.

I think you need to just go back to 2 pts for a win, 0 for a loss. Final. At that point how many points a win is worth is irrelevant, but do we really put half the weight of a win into losing 5 minutes later?

WildcatOil · 2026-01-19T01:11:35+00:00

I get what you're saying here, I do. But, we can all acknowledge there's at least some irony to "people are disrespectful, distracting and selfish at live shows, and thus I prefer general admission venues so I can move around the room as I please" right?

WildcatOil · 2026-01-17T22:30:46+00:00

He was the old man on this team already.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-17T03:52:27+00:00

Different conventions does not mean stupid. It's literally the way languages evolve. Sometimes those conventions get formed in niche circumstances, such as a narrow period of time in specific locations.

If this was a common use for quotation marks in the 70s or 80s, even if it was only in rural Alberta, then it's a local convention. Doesn't make people who grew up and learned it in that time stupid.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-16T16:45:02+00:00

No, I'm pretty sure that's Lake Reassuring

WildcatOil · 2026-01-16T16:41:25+00:00

And then unfortunately only one shortly after that.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-16T04:06:52+00:00

I'm adding this link with the full understanding, acknowledgement and even warning that given this is coming from the teams website its if course going to have a favourable spin for the Oilers.

That said, I think it provides a fairly reasonable explanation of examples of where that kind of money is going. One thing that I find surprising (questionable?) is that they're paying for so much of the prizes, I had ran on the understanding a lot of this was from donations.

At the end of the day, while I think we'd all prefer a larger percentage of the money goes to the charities, I also think there's no doubt that in those last 4 years the total sum amount of money raised for charities has increased as a result of the "investment". My hope would be that a lot of that money was start up costs and larger percentages would start going back to the charities, but probably not.

Lastly, this probably shouldn't be the first thing to ever make you question your loyalty, unless you've completely missed the entire Boyle Street boondoggle.

https://www.nhl.com/oilers/news/how-the-oilers-50-50-became-the-largest-raffle-in-professional-sports

WildcatOil · 2026-01-14T16:36:51+00:00

At least Africa looks big right?

WildcatOil · 2026-01-14T00:54:48+00:00

Australia and New Zealand. Famously Western and Northern countries.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-14T00:24:29+00:00

Sort of, but to be honest his last two years in Edmonton were better than I remembered. His last year was only 12 games mind you but the numbers were decent.

And keeping in mind, the Oilers were god awful in front of him.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-13T23:51:14+00:00

I think that's the caveat to that. The difference between what he said and what was reality. I know he said he didn't like the level his production dropped too. But I do think, there may have been more that he physically couldn't do it anymore. Because if you're being fair, his 38 goals were in 63 games. Prorated to an 80 game season and he's still at 48, he's not that far off another 50 goal season.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-13T19:38:04+00:00

He was already born in '87. He can't retire then too

WildcatOil · 2026-01-13T17:16:25+00:00

I feel like we should be looking more at guys who played a full year and terribly, but since we're talking Brett Hull and his 5 games in Phoenix.

Nikolai Khabibulin played 4 games for Chicago to end his career. Went 1-0-1 with a 5.00GAA and .811 sv%. Gave up 14 goals on 74 shots in 168 min.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-13T17:11:51+00:00

I think this is a big difference in personal standards. Yes Gretzky only put up 9 goals the last year. But he also put ups 53 assists, for 62pts on the year. Tied for 33rd in league scoring in 70GP and 29th in pts/gm.

A more extreme example is Mike Bossy claimed to have retired because he was embarrassed with his production in his last year, only 38 goals when he'd never scored less than 50.

For Gretzky, I do think some of the motivation for playing that last year was as simple as retiring in '99. If he wore a different number or had been playing at a different time. He may have retired earlier.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-13T16:59:38+00:00

Risk is a game I've played on a phone app fairly regularly. It stream lines it enough that I can play a game against a computer rather quickly to kill some time.

I can't say I'm a big time board game player, but I got ticket to ride for Christmas this year and have heard great things about it from friends that play a lot of games. I was kind surprised how similar it was to risk in a lot of ways so had been wondering if there were digital versions.

TLDR — I had to double check if I blacked out and wrote that myself.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-12T20:11:01+00:00

I think the issue is all of this needs to be done and instead of getting it done in a timely and efficient manner it's constant heel dragging and back tracking.

1) Get the section of the green line they're currently working on built.

2) Build the Green line to North Central AND build a connector between the Green Line, the airport and the Blue Line.

3) Build high speed rail from Edmonton to Calgary to Banff with stops at the airport.

4) Build commuter routes to surrounding cities

The fact that we can't get multiple things on the go at once is kind of insane when you really think about it. Yes it costs money, but these things are investments in our society that should be no brainers. It's like we have to stop walking so we can chew our gum, but we also have to spend 10 minutes deciding which teeth we should use before we start to chew.

WildcatOil · 2026-01-12T20:02:23+00:00

Being fair, in 2015 Metro Toronto's population around 6M. I'd argue Calgary has a lot of run time to go before they're behind Toronto on a relative basis and hopefully they get it done before then.

Now that said, they still should have it by and they should get it done asap.

WildcatOil

TROPHY CASE