In 2004, the Tampa Bay Lightning (or as I used to call them, the Little Zipsters?long story) won the Stanley Cup. Now, a lot of people were a little upset that Tampa Bay got to bring home the cup because Tampa is not what diehard fans consider a “hockey town.” As near as I can tell, the following three paragpraphs outline the requisite criteria to be considered a hockey town.
A hockey town must have cold weather and, at the very least, receive snow in the winter time.
If not an actual Canadian city, a hockey town should at least be filled with predominately pale looking people.
A hockey town should be filled with many blue collar people who cannot afford tickets to the hockey game and who, instead, meet at bars to talk about the days when hockey was reasonably priced enough for them.
Tampa Bay meets none of the above three criteria. Tampa Bay is a service-based community with few factories. And though we have a lot of red necks, we have few blue collars.
It never snows here.
Oh, and though we have a lot of white people, we also have a shitload of people who I'll just define (at the risk of coming off like a borderline racist) as “other.”
So, after Tampa Bay won the Stanley Cup, many fans from all across the country were genuinely upset that the second largest city in Florida would have the audacity to win a Canadian trophy.
And then hockey went on strike and locked out for an entire year. Quite frankly, I blame Martin St. Louis.
Anyway, after hockey finished fucking over its fan base, two years after the Lightning won the cup, the Stanley Cup then wound up going to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Folks, I don't even know where the Carolina Hurricanes play, but I can guarantee you that it is not a hockey town. In fact, I'm gonna go out on a rather sturdy limb and say that not one city in North or South Carolina could be defined as a hockey town.
So, when Carolina won the Cup, I'm sure that the few remaining diehard hockey fans came to the conclusion that the Cup went to a lot of fans who could not appreciate its awesomeness. Fortunately for Carolina fans, few people can even watch hockey in America anymore so the trash talking from the core hockey fans was probably pretty muted. Of course, this is all conjecture, I stopped watching hockey after the strike.
Fast forward to yesterday (I know that sounds stupid, but trust me it makes sense) when the 2007 Stanley Cup would be handed to the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.
Anaheim is not cold, is not blue collar and is not filled with predominately white people so it is not a hockey town. Also, Anaheim is a suburb of Los Angeles, so some could argue that it's not really a city. Furthermore, the Anaheim Ducks were named after a movie. And to add insult to injury, that movie was a Disney flick that featured Emilio Estevez.
To further add a spit in the face and a major shit burger to that insult which was just previously added to injury, most of America did not even care to watch one game of the Stanley Cup Finals.
So basically, if you're a hockey fan, you now have a strike year, a Tampa Bay year, a Carolina year and an Anaheim year to coincide with two years of Versus (that's the station that broadcasts hockey games, in case you didn't know) and the ridiculous aging of hockey's Dick Vitale (Barry Melrose).
So, to all you diehard hockey fans, I offer my condolences on another miserable year. And to all of you diehard hockey fans located in Anaheim, I say, “How's the new baby, Dave?”