Quote:
Originally Posted by JHikka
There's more Canadian players on Vegas than Winnipeg, though. 
This whole Canada's Team nonsense needs to stop yesterday.
Leafs have the record for longest drought between Stanley Cup Finals (50 years) but the Rangers still have the drought for the longest time between Cup wins (53 years, between 1940 and 1994). Chicago went 47 years between 1961 and 2010. |
True. However, this just reminded me of the 50 mile territorial rule I heard about many years ago on the radio. I just looked it up again. It's funny how this is almost never mentioned by hockey media, at least in the media I've always consumed.
"Original 6" started in 1942 and ended in 1967. During almost this whole time:
Quote:
The league had a rule that gave each team exclusive rights to negotiate contracts with promising local players within 50 miles of its home ice. If a player was not within the 50-mile limit, that player was free to field offers from any team.[3] Once a player agreed to an NHL sponsorship-level contract, the NHL club could assign him to its sponsored junior squad – its "sponsorship list".
Since Toronto and Montreal's metropolitan areas contained abundant hockey prospects, this put them at a major recruiting advantage over Boston, New York, and Chicago, which had very few such prospects in their territories. Detroit had Southwestern Ontario as part of its territory; it thus did not have the major advantage of the Canadian teams but were better positioned than the other American ones.[4]
This phenomenon had the impact of limiting player movement, and as a result the Original Six rosters were very static.
|