By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist
It was a proud and strident headline, signaling a common local sentiment.
“THE CUP IS COMING HOME,” screamed the front page of the Montreal Gazette on the morning of Thursday, June 10, 1993, just hours after his hometown Canadiens clinched the Stanley Cup and ensured it would rest on ground. Canadian for the next year.
Since then, however, that has not happened again. Zero wins north of the border in nearly three decades. Even now, as the Canadiens battle the Tampa Bay Lightning for the right to wrest Lord Stanley’s prized chalice from American hands for the first time in 28 years, it could be hope lost.
Yes, there will be a couple of Stanley Cup Finals games in Canada on Friday and Monday, which has added significance given that a Canadian team hasn’t hosted a Stanley Cup Finals game since 2011. But Montreal he is already in a 0-2 hole. against the defending champions. Sure, the Cup is coming home, but it might just be for a drive-by visit.
Canada feels and acts like hockey’s hometown, but recent results haven’t supported that cultural reality. Time and time again, Canada’s seven NHL franchises have come up short, either long before the NHL playoffs began or quickly once they began.
It is, frankly, a strange paradox. The place that loves hockey like no other, that produces far more NHL players than any other, that lives and breathes the game, can’t get one of its teams over the line. Or, above all, particularly close to him.
There are a number of reasons for this, one of the most popular being that hockey is so entrenched and passionately followed in Canada that organizations are sometimes stymied from undertaking the necessary rebuilds. That’s a level of pressure that most US-based teams don’t have to deal with on the same scale.
You’d think this now endless drought might be enough for a general awakening of national pride and a rallying cry behind Canadians hoping they can “do it for Canada.”
However, that’s not really how things work up there. Being so dominant for much of hockey’s early history ensured that the Canadiens would never be loved and barely tolerated by their national rivals.
“With the NHL’s best 23 Cups in 103 years, and thus a long history of looking over its shoulder at all corners, envy and exasperation could supersede any sentiment that other markets root for Montreal as’ Team Canada,'” wrote Lance Hornby of The Gazette. . “That’s too much to rewire a vast support network that goes back in some cases to cultural and language differences.”
Naturally, there will be a lot of support within Quebec. Tickets at the Bell Center are restricted to a capacity of 3,500, with the cheapest ones changing hands in the secondary market for around $1,000. Pandemic-appropriate watch parties have been organized throughout the region.
However, if the habitants — the Habs — must find a path to the championship, it would surpass even the spectacular story that has been required to get that far.
A fourth-place finish in the North Division got them into the postseason before coming back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Toronto Maple Leafs and then swept the Winnipeg Jets. The Vegas Golden Knights were expected to be too strong, but the Canadiens have been riding the wave, bolstered by the offensive excellence of Nick Suzuki and Tyler Toffoli, each with 14 postseason points, and roadblock goaltender Carey Price.
Regardless, after losing the first two to Tampa, the Canadiens were looking grim at +900, according to FOX Bet, to win the series before Friday night.
“Unfortunately, I think there will be a lot more people outside the building than inside, which will be a little different, but we know they are there,” Montreal veteran Eric Staal told reporters. “We know the support is there. And we know everyone is as excited as we are to be in this position.”
“The series is a long way from over.”
Those might just be optimistic words, as the Lightning looks like a modern day hockey juggernaut hoping to claim another award.
Or Staal could be right, and from the perspective of wanting this series to become a gripping show, let’s hope it does. If not… well, the drought continues, for another year at least, with one more dose of disappointment.
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.
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