The Blues Need to Win the Stanley Cup and Here's Why
The Blues Need to Win the Stanley Cup and Here's Why
The St. Louis Blues have been to the Stanley Cup Finals on three separate occasions, in 1968, 1969, and 1970, and have been the runner-up each time. Last time, the Blues faced Bobby Orr's Boston Bruins team where they lost the series 4-0 and were subjected to the infamous Orr dive after the overtime-winning goal. Last night, the Blues got a taste of what losing really feels like when they got demolished by the Bruins 7-2 at their first Stanley Cup Final game in the Enterprise Center. In this iconic rematch between the Bruins and Blues, it is difficult to determine who the favorite is in the series. They are evenly matched in terms of players: Boston has David Pastrnak, St. Louis has Vladimir Tarasenko. Boston has Zdeno Chara; St. Louis has Alex Pietrangelo. They should be
equally matched, yet last night Boston proved that sometimes experience can go a long way when it comes to getting significant wins. Blues fan shouldn't start to panic...yet. It was one bad game, but the Blues are going to have to do a lot more to beat the Bruins in the series.
At the beginning of January, St. Louis was literally in dead last. Out of thirty-one teams, they were ranked 31st, sitting with 34 points with a 15-18-4 record. They shouldn't even be in the playoffs, let alone the Cup Final. Yet here they are. After interim head coach Craig Berube took over, St. Louis game has changed drastically and obviously for the better. So it would only make sense for them to complete this Cinderella story and win the Stanley Cup. The Blues need to beat Boston, not just for the sake of delivering a Stanley Cup to St. Louis, but for the growth of the NHL and hockey as a sport.
Hockey is no longer a sport strictly bound to Canada and the Eastern U.S. The sport has gone global; there are more American, Russian, and Northern European players than Canadians in the NHL. The league itself has expanded and for the better. The addition of the Vegas Golden Knights last year and the announcement of the new Seattle-based team are signs that hockey is getting more popular in America. The NHL is now taking trips to places like China and Finland to play for an international fan base they didn't think was possible. Now with a St. Louis Blues team that has defied all the odds to get to the Cup, a win in the Midwest would open new doors and opportunities for the league.
Look at it this way: the NHL was once only made up of six teams that would play each other five or six times a year and eventually would have to see each other in playoffs. Back in the days of the Original Six, there was no serious competition. Expansions into the southern half of the United States and the West Coast has benefitted the NHL seriously. If you look at the winners and runner-ups from the last five Stanley Cups, there have been at least one team from California (LA Kings 2014, SJ Sharks 2016) featured in the Final series. Since the 2014 Stanley Cup, the revenue for the NHL has increased from $3.86 billion to $4.98 billion and much of that has to do with the teams making the playoffs. The more expansion teams make playoffs and sign elite players, the more attention they gather from fans and media. A Stanley Cup win puts a team on the NHL's map, and what I mean by that is the team is no longer seen as just a business venture they hope works out. A Cup win guarantees an increase in attention and ultimately a jump in financials like ticket sales, merchandise sales, and community outreach.
The Blues are not in the same position as a team like San Jose. San Jose has watched as both the Anaheim Ducks (2007) and LA Kings (2012, 2014) have won cups in the last twenty years, leaving them the last team in their respected region without a Cup. St. Louis are competing in a tough Central Division that was once dominated by the Chicago Blackhawks but is now burst wide open with teams like Dallas, Winnipeg, and Nashville becoming legit contenders for the Cup. But Dallas already has a Cup (1999), Nashville lost in the 2017 Final, and Winnipeg is still a relatively newcomer since they relocated from Atlanta in 2010. St. Louis is a great region for expansion, which is why they need to win the Cup. A Blues win would solidify the idea that the NHL can find a foothold in the Southwest and Midwest. While there might be one Texas hockey team in Dallas, a state of that size can easily support another, whether that be in a city like Houston, Austin, or San Antonio. But the league probably won't consider expanding into this region unless they are certain they can profit it off a team's success. Take the Golden Knights for example. The NHL took a huge gamble bringing a hockey team to another desert location. The Arizona Coyotes have been mediocre and haven't made the playoffs in almost five years. Vegas blew everyone away when they made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final and even though they lost to Washington, the fact that the Knights made it that far was almost unreal. It also proved that a team's success and results drive the revenue stream. St. Louis needs to win the Cup to show the rest of the Southwest and Midwest that hockey is a sport worth watching and investing time and money into. If the league sees that the Blues are a real championship-caliber team and that people want to watch, there may be more chances to implement another Missouri-based team, perhaps in Kansas City. The Blues need to win the Stanley Cup if the NHL is going to truly expand beyond the realm of the Original Six.
The St. Louis Blues have been to the Stanley Cup Finals on three separate occasions, in 1968, 1969, and 1970, and have been the runner-up each time. Last time, the Blues faced Bobby Orr's Boston Bruins team where they lost the series 4-0 and were subjected to the infamous Orr dive after the overtime-winning goal. Last night, the Blues got a taste of what losing really feels like when they got demolished by the Bruins 7-2 at their first Stanley Cup Final game in the Enterprise Center. In this iconic rematch between the Bruins and Blues, it is difficult to determine who the favorite is in the series. They are evenly matched in terms of players: Boston has David Pastrnak, St. Louis has Vladimir Tarasenko. Boston has Zdeno Chara; St. Louis has Alex Pietrangelo. They should be At the beginning of January, St. Louis was literally in dead last. Out of thirty-one teams, they were ranked 31st, sitting with 34 points with a 15-18-4 record. They shouldn't even be in the playoffs, let alone the Cup Final. Yet here they are. After interim head coach Craig Berube took over, St. Louis game has changed drastically and obviously for the better. So it would only make sense for them to complete this Cinderella story and win the Stanley Cup. The Blues need to beat Boston, not just for the sake of delivering a Stanley Cup to St. Louis, but for the growth of the NHL and hockey as a sport.
Hockey is no longer a sport strictly bound to Canada and the Eastern U.S. The sport has gone global; there are more American, Russian, and Northern European players than Canadians in the NHL. The league itself has expanded and for the better. The addition of the Vegas Golden Knights last year and the announcement of the new Seattle-based team are signs that hockey is getting more popular in America. The NHL is now taking trips to places like China and Finland to play for an international fan base they didn't think was possible. Now with a St. Louis Blues team that has defied all the odds to get to the Cup, a win in the Midwest would open new doors and opportunities for the league.
Look at it this way: the NHL was once only made up of six teams that would play each other five or six times a year and eventually would have to see each other in playoffs. Back in the days of the Original Six, there was no serious competition. Expansions into the southern half of the United States and the West Coast has benefitted the NHL seriously. If you look at the winners and runner-ups from the last five Stanley Cups, there have been at least one team from California (LA Kings 2014, SJ Sharks 2016) featured in the Final series. Since the 2014 Stanley Cup, the revenue for the NHL has increased from $3.86 billion to $4.98 billion and much of that has to do with the teams making the playoffs. The more expansion teams make playoffs and sign elite players, the more attention they gather from fans and media. A Stanley Cup win puts a team on the NHL's map, and what I mean by that is the team is no longer seen as just a business venture they hope works out. A Cup win guarantees an increase in attention and ultimately a jump in financials like ticket sales, merchandise sales, and community outreach.
The Blues are not in the same position as a team like San Jose. San Jose has watched as both the Anaheim Ducks (2007) and LA Kings (2012, 2014) have won cups in the last twenty years, leaving them the last team in their respected region without a Cup. St. Louis are competing in a tough Central Division that was once dominated by the Chicago Blackhawks but is now burst wide open with teams like Dallas, Winnipeg, and Nashville becoming legit contenders for the Cup. But Dallas already has a Cup (1999), Nashville lost in the 2017 Final, and Winnipeg is still a relatively newcomer since they relocated from Atlanta in 2010. St. Louis is a great region for expansion, which is why they need to win the Cup. A Blues win would solidify the idea that the NHL can find a foothold in the Southwest and Midwest. While there might be one Texas hockey team in Dallas, a state of that size can easily support another, whether that be in a city like Houston, Austin, or San Antonio. But the league probably won't consider expanding into this region unless they are certain they can profit it off a team's success. Take the Golden Knights for example. The NHL took a huge gamble bringing a hockey team to another desert location. The Arizona Coyotes have been mediocre and haven't made the playoffs in almost five years. Vegas blew everyone away when they made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final and even though they lost to Washington, the fact that the Knights made it that far was almost unreal. It also proved that a team's success and results drive the revenue stream. St. Louis needs to win the Cup to show the rest of the Southwest and Midwest that hockey is a sport worth watching and investing time and money into. If the league sees that the Blues are a real championship-caliber team and that people want to watch, there may be more chances to implement another Missouri-based team, perhaps in Kansas City. The Blues need to win the Stanley Cup if the NHL is going to truly expand beyond the realm of the Original Six.
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