It seems like the NHL bandwagon effect is more pronounced this year than in the past.
Of course, whenever a Canadian team is still in contention by the time June rolls around, some hockey fans from across the country will jump on board regardless of their primary allegiances.
Whether more people are rallying behind Edmonton this year than in past years, we're certainly hearing a lot more about it in 2025.
The mythology goes that we are a hockey nation, that the sport is deeply ingrained in our identity as Canadians. The Stanley Cup is ours and it's time to wrestle it back from the Americans after 31 long seasons.
As someone who is a casual fan at best, I've never really felt that supposedly inextricable part of my identity, even though I watched live as Paul Henderson scored the goal that won the '72 Summit Series with the Soviets.
There is no question that there was a time when this game was ours, but you have to go so far back now for that to be true that it leaves me wondering, when are going to face facts and admit it's over?
When Governor General Lord Stanley of Preston commissioned the Cup (more like a bowl actually) in 1892 it was the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup. It was truly Canadian, designated as the award for the best amateur hockey club in the land (which was basically Ontario and Quebec at the time with the teams competing for it coming from Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto primarily.
That era saw the Cup shift toward professional competitors and lasted until 1913 after which interleague play began and brought in contestants from western Canada and the first American team from Seattle, Washington.
The Seattle Metropolitans became the first non-Canadian team to hoist the trophy in 1917.
In 1927, following the dissolution of other leagues, the Stanley Cup became the de facto trophy of the NHL. An interesting side note here is that the famed "Original Six" were not the original six. In 1926-27, there were seven teams, the Ottawa Senators, Montreal Maroons, Pittsburgh Pirates, Boston Bruins, New York Americans, Toronto St. Patricks and Montreal Canadiens.
It wasn't until 1942 that the league settled into the 25-year period with the six teams now referred to as the "Original Six." It was also 1942 when the Stanley Cup became the official trophy of the NHL. Despite being outnumbered 4-2, the Canadian teams dominated that era, winning 19 of 25 Cups before the first expansion of the league in 1967.
Since then, American teams have gone 41-17.
Of course, we always fell back on the fact that while the majority of teams were American, the majority of players on those teams were Canadian.
Even that isn't true anymore. Up until 1980, more than 75 per cent of NHL players were Canucks, but it has steadily declined since then. This season, it was just 41.1 per cent.
It is true of the Oilers with 20 men on their roster of 32 this season claiming citizenship.
So, let's say we all jump on the Edmonton bandwagon and they go on to bring the Cup home. What does the sense of vicarious pride do for us?
Does it stop the tariffs? Does it make Donald Trump a humble person?
Does it build homes, fix the health care system and create jobs?
It's a great sport, but it's not ours anymore, and it is certainly not a surrogate for solving the real-world problems we are facing.
