The original Ottawa Senators were from The newest version of the Ottawa Senators shares only the team name with the old version and new records or Stanley Cups is deemed by either the team or the NHL to have carried over.
Winnipeg renamed them to the Jets. There is no affiliation between the two Jets teams. The dates below reflect when they entered the NHL. The Winnipeg Jets were also relocated in , after being sold to a group in Phoenix and renamed the Phoenix Coyotes Arizona Coyotes since ; this left six franchises operating in Canada. In the summer of , the league announced that it would expand to four more American cities. In , the Atlanta Thrashers relocated to Winnipeg, and the Jets name was reinstated.
In , NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced that a new franchise in Las Vegas, the Golden Knights, would join the league for the —18 season, bringing the total number of clubs to By , Canadian teams were increasingly pressured to compete financially with American markets, and Toronto was the only Canadian team that consistently played to sell-out crowds.
In , Rod Bryden, owner of the Ottawa Senators , announced that unless the federal government was willing to offer financial support, the Senators would be the next Canadian team sold to the US.
In January , the federal government announced that it would consider offering annual aid to Canadian NHL hockey teams until However, widespread criticism of the proposal was so severe that it brought about an immediate retraction. The Senators remained in Ottawa, and since attendance has remained steady for most Canadian franchises.
Overall, Canadian franchises have proven to be more financially viable than a number of American teams. Believing that Canada could support another NHL franchise, ambitious Canadian businessman Jim Balsillie , founder of the wireless technological firm Research In Motion , did his best to bring another franchise north of the border.
Balsillie made several bids to move American teams to Hamilton in southern Ontario , trying to purchase Pittsburgh in and Nashville in Baum rejected the bid. According to the Winnipeg Free Press , 5, season tickets sold out in 17 minutes. It was the first time a major North American sports league had lost an entire season due to a labour dispute. It also resulted in cancellation of the Stanley Cup playoffs; for the second time in its history, the cup was not awarded the first was in due to the influenza epidemic.
When the collective bargaining agreement expired in , teams and players once again found themselves arguing about money. An astute Canadian observer—hell, anyone with two neurons to rub together under their toque—might point out that player distribution in the NHL is more or less random, and that the best player on most American-based teams carries a Tragically Hip LP in lieu of a passport.
But the best players on the Flames, Leafs, and Jets are American. And the Canucks had three Americans J. Miller, Brock Boeser, and Hughes, a defenseman produce more points per game than their highest-scoring Canadian player last season.
The talent transfer goes both ways. That gives the U. But in that time, the U. The two teams had an even goal differential in those games. The NHL skipped the Olympics, and because of an unusual eight-team format in the World Cup of Hockey, it relegated all and-under players from North America to a de facto junior team to make up the numbers.
Team North America, with its striking black-and-orange color scheme and no-holds-barred firewagon style of play, was the darling of the tournament and will go down in hockey history as a universally beloved curiosity.
Nor have Hellebuyck or Hughes. By chance, the NHL has shielded Canada from having to acknowledge its status as a hockey empire in decline.
Such acknowledgement, if and when it comes, will likely be painful. Canada is the arrogant, exceptionalist power in a sport where its two main rivals are the U. Yearn for old-school hockey? Shea Weber, a. Think life is about squeezing the most from whatever you got? Meet Brendan Gallagher, who was five-foot-two playing midget hockey in Western Canada. Speaking of overcoming the odds, how about a goal-scorer who has been hearing Hobbit jokes his whole life; Cole Caufield probably just laughs along with them because who really cares as long as you keep filling the net?
In that case, how could you not be hoping for Carey Price to get his Cup after turning in MVP-level play for years that was never offensively supported?
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