Quote:
Originally Posted by freeweed
The "Original Six" era lasted a whopping 25 years. You have to be over 50 years old now to even remember this era. It's now been 47 years since that era. Nearly twice as long as the era itself even existed. The majority of hockey fans today were not even alive to witness it. "Original Six" is basically irrelevant and the only reason people even care about it is the 60+ year old broadcasters on CBC who incessantly talk about "the good old days".
|
Irrelevant? Not really... they're generally the teams that perform the best for the league on a marketing/value standpoint, i.e. on the following metrics: most fans, highest franchise values, biggest crowds drawn, most Stanley Cups won, largest players payroll, best team name recognition for marketing purposes, etc.
You can dismiss the fact that the Yankees and Red Sox are >100 years old while, say, the Kansas City Royals aren't, as an "irrelevant" fact by itself, sure, but you can't deny that the former two are among the very top baseball teams by a number of metrics -- it's not JUST their age.
So, yes, "big" teams like the Leafs and Wings helped boost the Western Conference's average metrics. And also helped the chances of having more "big" teams in the playoffs...
Quote:
|
Also, I feel the need to point out the irony here: it was the Eastern teams (and their fanbases) who most strongly lobbied for the current conference and division alignments. People whined too much about watching hockey games that started at 9pm, and hence we have timezone-based alignments. Detroit spent literally decades trying to "move East", and the other "Original Six" teams lobbied heavily for this as well, to have them as a regular season opponent. Basically, it's entirely the fault of fans and ownership in the "Original Six" markets; they got what they wanted.
|
... Does make perfect sense from their point of view. They want to have as many of the "best" teams (as defined above) as the most regular opponents possible. (Exact same way the investors behind the NY Yankees would certainly much rather have their team face the Boston Red Sox all the time than have their team face the Kansas City Royals all the time... from a strictly financial perspective...)
Makes the playoffs less interesting, from my POV, but it does make financial sense for the Eastern team owners.
Prev
Linear Mode
