Never said it's bad for the game revenue wise. But what I was talking about is percentage of fans per person. That's what usually personifies a hockey town.

Vancouver may have 90% of their population be Canucks fans, while San Jose may be under 5 to 10.
(just an example not accurate stats by any means)

Not that there are not Californian hockey fans, because clearly there are, you just can't compare an area like San Jose to buffalo or to Boston be because of the sheer population differences.

Also, if San Jose were to win the Stanley cup, they will probably have a one day parade and increased
Radio coverage over the summer.

If the Canucks win (or lose for that matter) the cup, they burn down the city.

But really, they would probably celebrate all summer. I'm not old enough for the last canadian team to win it, ( I was four) but we all know it would be a pretty big deal.

Actually, the Canucks making the final would be terrible ratings-wise. Canadian viewers don't count towards TV ratings unfortunately.

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Girgensons for captain. Team Keep Nick DesLauriers forever.

@TJLuckman550

Normally that's my rule, but I've made the California teams an exception simply because hockey seems to work pretty well there, and all of their teams are at the very least decent. It's also a big plus that they're not in the Eastern Conference.

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Girgensons for captain. Team Keep Nick DesLauriers forever.

@TJLuckman550

Their population certainly helps that.

Metropolitan Vancouver is about over 2,000,000. Population has nothing to do with it other than Canadian markets simply not counting towards TV ratings, which have become very important in the NHL.

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Girgensons for captain. Team Keep Nick DesLauriers forever.

@TJLuckman550

Yea I didn't mean to come from a money standpoint. I just think, just like us, that fanbase deserves a chance.

NSFW: Type in "Canucks" on youtube and this is what you get. Girls just love flashing up there, eh?

Totally moving there.

No gap in fanbases between an Original Six team that's been around since 1924 and an expansion team that has been around since 1991? This might be one of the most incorrect things I've ever see you write. Your irrational and unfounded hatred of all Boston sports is showing through.

Don't have a problem with the assertion that the Boston fan base is above San Jose's. Have a problem with the assertion that "they don't even compare." With better ticket sales, and 10th place (1.25) TV ratings to Boston's 6th* (2.22), I think they compare pretty well even if Boston remains ahead.

*Boston was 5th with a 2.3 in 2011, but I couldn't find data for the entire NHL so I used 2010.

I'm sure I'll come up with something better in short order. I do spend most of my time writing fiction after all.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

It would be nice if you ever considered something that wasn't a statistic.

The Bruins are a part of Boston culture. Hockey has been big in New England culture forever because of the climate, and the Bruins. People up there live and die with the Bruins as much as they live and die with the Red Sox, Celtics, and Pats. (I'd put the Pats in 4th overall over the last 75+ years, since there was a long period of suck for them.) You can reasonably say that many of the Bruins fans today are 3rd and 4th generation fans.

San Jose doesn't have that. They have good attendance, good ratings, and good fans. But the Sharks aren't ingrained in the culture of central California the way the Bruins are in New England. Yes, they had the Seals there for 9 years, but they never drew, and it was 15 years between the Seals leaving and the Sharks being formed.

You can pull out numbers all you want, but you should really look at the larger overall picture if you want to make a statement like you did.

I'm definitely rooting for Vancouver in the finals no matter who wins the east.

All I said was that I personally don't think there is a wide gap between the fans in those cities taking extra care to present that statement as personal opinion and not fact. I'll have to talk to my friend Pat, our hockey inline commissioner, a Boston native and Bruins fan, what he thinks of the Boston fanbase and the garden compared to other arenas he's been to (around a dozen I think which may include the Shark Tank). I just don't see Boston as a top tier fanbase and based on conversations I've had with him, neither does he. Nor do I see San Jose as a bottom tier fanbase. Thus I said I don't think the gap is all that wide.


As a new fan, I don't have a wealth of experience watching hockey so I trend towards watching the numbers as the depth of my perceptions regarding the sport increases. I also write a statistics-based column on Black and Blue and Gold so people have come to expect seeing the numbers side of things from me. If they want another side there are plenty of other posters, columnists, tweeters, whatever that are plenty willing to offer game recaps, player analyses, fan analyses, personal experiences, etc. If you want a "what my eyes see" analysis, read them. Or better yet, be one of them, as you have in the past. I'm not going to change who I am because you think I should, or because it doesn't jive with what you want to read.

I think I've been fairly transparent in relaying how I look at the game and what I have to offer in terms of analysis. People know what they're getting from me. They know what I'm good at and what I'm not, and thus what they can believe with reasonable confidence and what they can take with a grain of salt or disregard entirely.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

That's a crock. Just because you write a stats column doesn't mean you must only focus on stats when thinking about something.

I don't think you should change your 'who you are'. Where did I ever say that? I just think that if you are only looking at the numbers, and not considering non-statistical things and/or factors, you're doing it a disservice.

Man, you guys are so sensitive about this stuff. It's not all that important. Life's too short.

My focus has not remained solely on stats when thinking about or writing something. There is a point within most of my BBG posts when I discuss what I think the stats mean in conjunction with what perceptions people gain from watching. However my method of considering other aspects is most often simply mentioning the incomplete picture that statistics provide and allowing those around me (who can offer a far greater depth of analysis) to expand upon those notions because if I try to do it, I find I'm too often talking out of my ass. I've turned down the opportunity to write a couple other BBG posts because I didn't feel like my words would mean a whole lot considering I only have 5-6 years experience watching hockey, and 3 playing it.



Sorry, the wording of your post, and some of your comments on twitter regarding my focus on statistics rang too closely to comments that have been made personally to me in the past with more malicious intent and I misinterpreted them.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

Imma let you finish Stuuu'u's' but Boston has one of the best fan bases OF ALL TIME

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Hold my beer and watch this...

When leaving work today, I stopped by this guy’s office and some folks were talking about the game last night and how they want the Canucks to win it all this year. Things got pretty heated to the point where one douche said that if I don't pull for the Canucks to win the cup, then I am a turncoat and should hand in my Canadian citizenship, pronto. I told him that if being Canadian means I need to cheer on Luongo, Torres & Co. then I'm going to start filing with the INS for my US papers, asap. He was seriously put out by this remark.

The rest of what this airbag had to say isn’t worth typing but if you could take the patriotic themes that Don Cherry displays for the troops on HNiC, times it by 10, you’d have an idea as to what he was rambling on about regarding what it means to be a Canadian soldier. Oh, and he never served in the forces, figured I’d mention that as well.

No disrespect to the armed forces, but can someone tell me what bringing up troops has to do with a hockey discussion? Did I miss something?

What a fuckstick.

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If it's a tight squeeze, spit on it! - NyI

He's a middling AHL player who had the good fortune of a drunk arbitrator. - The Squanto re: Tim Kennedy

I heard stuff like this a lot when I went to college at McGill. There were Expos fans around who told me that even though they hated the Blue Jays, they would still root for them in the World Series because at least they were a Canadian team. Similarly, I'd hear a lot of people defend (or at least not criticize) certain musicians or celebrities that were lame, but were also Canadian. Bryan Adams springs to mind. People who liked say, punk, would say things like "Yeah, Bryan Adams is cool. Good Canadian guy", when it was plainly apparent that in fact Bryan Adams was not cool, and they'd probably be raging on the guy if he wasn't Canadian.

Sounds like maybe you don't fall into this category Audsabres, but a very large portion of your country has a major inferiority complex about the States. I think that has to be kept in mind when discussing people who say you're not a "patriotic Canadian" because you don't root for Vancouver.

And you don't even have to mention the Bruins, the areas of Boston, Minnesota and Michigan are some of the best hockey fanbases in the country and probably a large reason why hockey exists here. Remember revenue sharing has saved a lot of southern and western teams in the past. But as Squanto said, hockey is in the blood of those areas.

As for what Aud said, that's terrible. I'm American and I have no reason to root for Boston to win the cup. That guy should have shut his trap.