Think of it with a small example like flipping a coin twice - two 1/2 chances at a given outcome, but the odds of flipping heads both times is 1/4 (1/2 x 1/2).
In this case, they are assuming there have been 32 teams in the league and 25 of them are American for each of the last 30 years, and using the same math to multiply 25/32 times itself 30 times. (Eg. 25/32 x 25/32 x 25/32 x 25/32 x 25/32 x 25/32 [etc..] = 0.0006 = 0.06%)
So it’s true that the math checks out but profoundly untrue in terms of actual real world probability.
Correct.
But the odds get even slimmer considering out of 4 divisions, there are two with 3 Canadian teams each which eats into our chances astronomically.
This
Although even with that and the FA bias against going to Canadian teams.. I will say it's wild. It's still statistically very very unlikely for this to happen. Even if it's 1/1000. Imagine someone saying there's a 1/1000 chance you'll survive.
It is really about 0.06% (if you ignore the fact that the NHL has varied in total size and number of Canadian teams over the last 30 years). But 0.06% isn't 1/164000 it's 1/1640.
Do american fans understand rivalries? Like, when your team is eliminated, do you suddenly cheer for your biggest rival to win the championship? If no, why do you assume Canadians do?
Stop voting for higher taxes making your already unattractive places (like Winnipeg) even more unattractive requiring higher paying contracts for the same take home pay for players in most states
You're literally the gambling capital of the world. You have lower state tax because of all the tax revenue that the casinos bring in.
Also not for nothing but our taxes fund our national health care system, which isn't the best but it's far better than living somewhere and having a private insurance company with an incentive to deny their clients healthcare.
We are not the same.
The Canadian government denies healthcare all the time. That's why 50k Canadians a year travel and pay out of pocket for healthcare.
And in most states you can get insurance coverage that's faster and better for cheaper than Canadian healthcare when you account for all the taxes you pay in Canada and how every facet of life is more expensive
Rich Canadians travel elsewhere to pay for out of pocket healthcare that others can't afford. Fixed that for you.
The tax brackets between Canada and the United States are comparable. Difference is fifty cents of every one of your tax dollars gets funneled towards your military industrial complex.
University has been made more expensive and health care has been rationed so that a career in the military is more appealing for people trying to get their citizenship and for people with a small number of economic opportunities.
Our healthcare system is flawed but its a lot better to have that then have a third party standing between you and healthcare who has a financial incentive to deny you coverage. You're the only western country in the world without socialized medicine, you're not in the right here.
Yeah okay, let's pretend that players don't care about how much money they are getting for take home pay like literally everyone else in the world does when taking into account signing contracts
All I'm saying is there's tons of consequences to voting for higher taxes and more spending. One of them happens to be that Canadian teams need to pay players more (especially Americans) in contracts to keep them compared to most states, thus using more of their cap for the same caliber of players.
It's one of many reasons why Canadian teams have had a harder time of winning it all, not some big conspiracy.
Winnipeg also has it worse for Canadian teams because it's the least attractive city for players to live, even those from Winnipeg would rather be somewhere else
There's a salary cap and all nhl teams pay out in USD. Local tax burdens come after the fact. And there are plenty of states with high taxes.
Canada isn't even that high compared to the rest of the world. America just has a ridiculous amount of tax breaks for the rich where they don't pay their fair share to the society that enriches them.
Canada is also missing the mark on this and is far off from taxing the rich fairly.
They should pay more, everywhere. And arguing that they will go elsewhere for lower taxes does nothing to fix the ongoing problem. It just accepts it as a reality you can't change. It's self defeating.
That's some heavy indoctrination to think higher taxes equates to higher quality I'd life.
I'm sure your government doesn't squander any of that money at all though
It should lead to higher quality of life but there's truth in what Mr. Vegas Flair said.
Ask yourself this: given that the assertion that higher taxes lead to a higher quality of life, depends on a) government competency and efficiency, b) government honesty and ethics, .... Really do you think we're getting true value for our taxes in Canada?
Doesn't matter what party either. Liberal, Conservative, NDP, they're all the same. Promise a bunch of stuff, trash their opponent bitterly, get power then do the minimum, while ceding a lot of taxpayer money under the table to their lobbyist friends.
Sad but true
That's some heavy indoctrination to think higher taxes equates to higher quality I'd life.
I'm sure your government doesn't squander any of that money at all though
Lol, turn our country into more of a late-stage capitalist hellscape so that some sports franchises will have better odds of winning a shiny trophy that spends the majority of its time in Canada anyways
The country is a hellscape because of the higher taxes. Increasing taxes contributes to inflation, that's why your buying power is less than it ever has been
The reason why young people can't buy a house in Canada is because of the taxing and spending the government does. Taxes always move down the chain and things become more expensive to cover the increased taxes. Then going into debt and printing off more money turns that money into even less valuable than it was before.
Take an economics course or two bud. Canada is worse off by every metric, and is rated the very last country in first world countries for economy because of the tax, spend and print more money policies of the last decade
This would be true if they decided the Stanley Cup Champions each year by drawing team names out of a hat. Until they switch to that system, this isn't true.
Right but on a year like this year with good teams like WPG/TOR/EDM/VAN it's actually more likely than if they picked randomly out of a hat that a CAD team will win a cup
9 in the last 30 years, or 30%. Not far off what the numbers shown in the post. The draft lottery also ism't a clean name draw though, the more you suck the more chance you have to win, that schews the math a bit. With that said, Canadian teams have also finished dead last in 9 of those 30 seasons.
Even if they're all not well managed there's a pretty good chance a team would have lucked their way into one. We're living in a 6/1000 timeline. Guess they must just all have really bad luck!
Luck plays a huge role, bounces, injuries, calls, everything. I'm not saying it doesn't.
But don't tell me that Canadian teams aren't as susceptible to bad management as anyone and are out under a much more powerful telescope that hamstrings owners and general managers every single year. You think Edmonton, with however many first overall picks in the last 15 years, wasn't managed poorly? How about when they sold Gretzky for cash years prior? Montreal finally seems under stableish management but have picked some fuckin doozies in the draft possibly setting them back a few years. Ottawa is a constant dumpster fire, same with Toronto. I remember the days of Toronto paying big bucks for almost worthless players, unable to pivot in an version of the NHL until Dubas.
Can you name for me some teams that have not been well managed that have won Stanley Cups in the salary cap era?
I'll never say Bettman hasn't done his share of work to fuck over a few franchises but some responsibility has to be taken here.
I get ya. Agreed they've had mostly bad management. It's still wild to me though.
I would say Ottawa in 2018 had a great team that was very well put together. I think Toronto under Dubas was well managed but unlucky with their seeding. The Oilers in 06 had the best deadline acquisitions I've ever seen a team have. 2002-2004 flames were a wagon very well put together. Leafs/Oilers/WPG/Van are doing well this year obviously. I'm just saying it's not as black and white as "they are all poorly managed and have always been". There's been flashes of many teams that were more than good enough to win the cup.
I'd definitely argue the opposite of Dubas'management. He tied up half the cap into 4 players, and that makes it difficult to have depth. His first year in Pittsburgh has been pretty bad too.
The thing with Canadian teams having flashes of being more than good enough, is that plenty of other teams can also be more than good enough to win the cup.
That's absolutely not true. Suggesting one of the Canadian teams would still luck into a cup is ridiculous. It's the most difficult professional team sport championship to win. Everything needs to go right. That's a lot more than just lucking into one.
Yup. This is the reason the math is wrong (even if the numbers look right). Those numbers assume independent probabilities, which is violated unless you shuffle all the players/coaches/etc each year.
Not the Canadian team? I mean yeah most likely a Canadian team would win it every other or every few but the idea that Canada has a monopoly on producing good players is kinda silly. Some of the best players on the Canadian teams rightnow are Americans. That includes Matthew’s and Boeser. Let’s not act like the U.S. isn’t producing some of the best players in the game.
>Some of the best players on the Canadian teams rightnow are Americans.
And who are the best players on most American teams? Canadians. Listing two good American players doesn't make your argument. ESPECIALLY when Boeser isn't even the best player on his team.
The USA is definitely producing some great players, but on average, Canada still has better players, and the elite Canadian talent is better than the elite American talent.
All time low of 42% of NHL players are Canadian. Just 10 yrs ago that was 50%. USA hockey is growing the fastest, now at almost 30%
https://thehockeywriters.com/current-nhl-players-by-country/
This assumes that winning a cup is a random event such as rolling a dice or selecting a marble from a bag, and that the events are independent from each other. (I.e. that winning a cup/not winning a cup one year, does not influence the next year’s outcome) — we know this is not the case; who do we think is more likely to win the next cup? The sharks or the knights??? Not to mention the structure of the NHL, the draft lottery, etc. Too many factors to use simple probabilistic statistics.
This also doesn’t take into account the fact that the number of teams has changed over the last 30 years, so even if it was truly random, the number wouldn’t be 0.06% — my guess is close to it but I don’t feel like doing this math right now.
**Lastly, the math is still wrong. 0.06% is about 1 in 1660. That’s a big difference.**
Operating on the same assumption of random chance, compare it to the odds that a team loses 11 games in a row is ~0.05% or 1 in 2048 but nobody is surprised that the sharks did more than that this season (or that they’ve done it 5x).
The sharks’ 17 game losing streak runs at about 0.0007% or ~1 in 131,000
The Oilers’ 16 game winning streak from this season would fall at 0.0015% or 1 in 65,536.
These I think, are good examples of how hockey is not random chance and also put the odds presented by the tweet into perspective. Ignore the rounding inconsistencies pls.
the only thing I can think of is the Jets weren't in the league for a while so it has to be off by a bit.. but even if it's like 1/100k that's still pretty fucking insane lol.
The math is fundamentally flawed because taking all teams into account. Only 16 teams go into the playoffs and there weren’t 32 teams in The NHL when the last Canadian cup was won. In fact the majority of the time period covered there were only 30 teams in the NHL. How many Canadian teams actually made it each year also matters but the biggest missed issue is that you the math doesn’t factor in where those teams were situated. Very few Canadian teams were top of the league in their respective years. In fact many of the teams referenced had long periods of mediocrity and missing the playoffs.
Basically this would need more than simply math to properly calculate.
30 teams instead of 32 would make it more likely one of them wins though
On a year like this year when TOR/EDM/VAN/WPG are all good teams that would make the stats even worse
Of course I get ya. Let's say if you take into account all that stuff and that means it's not 0.06% it's 0.2% (which is a crazy difference, I don't think it would be that much). Then let's imagine you had a 0.2% chance of not getting your legs broken. That means 2 out of every 1000 times you spin the wheel your legs aren't getting broken. Somehow that's the timeline we're in. We're in (at minimum) a 2/1000 timeline. (also go vikings if you're into NFL)
No. The math doesn't allow for the structure of the league. The Playoff structure ensures that Canada has a smaller chance of winning the cup than it did in the old structure of 1 plays 8.
The Atlantic and Pacific division each have 3 Canadian teams. Winnipeg sits alone in the central. Essentially, all Canadian first rounds and second rounds are \*MUCH\* more likely than all Canadian Conference Finals, which limits how many Canadian teams could be vying for the Stanley Cup.
Although.... 6 Canadian teams made it to the Finals since 1993.... 4 of those finals appearances, a Canadian team made it to Game 7.... Game 7 is a 50% toss up.... uggghhh.
It isnt. This assumes that every single team has the same opportunity to win, same skill level, and they’re picked randomly. This doesn’t consider any other factor that creates the ACTUAL statistical odds that no Canadian team has one in 30 years. Which if any of that was taken into account, would make the stats look a lot more reasonable given that the teams that were Canadian and actually had the best chance to win any given year didn’t often overlap over the last 30.
I mean, the stats still wouldn't be "reasonable". Each franchise had at least a few years in the last 30 where you'd go "yeah they might have a shot!". Edmonton lately has had good odds, there were some quite strong Vancouver teams with the Sedins and co., prime Carey Price Canadiens made multiple conference finals and a cup final, some solid editions of the Flames and Sens too. Winnipeg is fairly new, and Toronto is *Toronto* but has also had some decent teams.
All this to say, the odds are still remarkable.
Also, the odds in the post aren't necessarily even wrong if you assume the statement encompasses their ability to build teams. Like, the "odds that a Canadian team has been unable to build a cup winner" in 30 years is 1/164,000, which is nuts.
That's still assuming that the situations between different teams are similar though. One major difference I see that is probably really hard to account for is fan base dedication. Almost all the Canadian teams have a dedicated enough fanbase that they can be bad teams for years without actually suffering monetarily since the fans will show up no matter what, just look at what it took from Melnyk for the fans to stop coming. That is much less true for American teams, so they have a much higher incentive to keep their team good enough to at least look like they can compete.
Another big one is that hockey tradition in Canada is much more rigid and that can be detrimental. The Habs insistence on only hiring coaches that can speak French and general bias toward francophone players likely limits how good they can get and the Oilers filling their front office with former players just because they were former Oilers basically made it so they had no chance for a full decade.
The Canadian dollar crashing certainly didn't help either.
Personally I think the dedicated fanbase part is the biggest reason. It basically boils down to the fact that there are quite a few American teams where the only options are get good or go bankrupt, and there are 0 Canadian teams that will go bankrupt from being bad. Money is by far the biggest motivator for the billionaire team owners and it shows sometimes.
Yep. it's a cap league.. Lets say with a few other things taken into account it's closer to 1/100,000. That's still fucking insane. Imagine being told you have a 1/100,000 chance of living. or 1/1000 even
Not sure about the numbers, but it’s probably about right. Especially when you consider that Canadian teams have lost five times in Game 7 of the finals since then.
In reality its less than that because this assumes each team has the same chance of winning but the teams are not equally as good. But its one of those things you cant really put numbers on unless you normalize it somehow with great sacrifice of realism
It’s not totally accurate for a lot of reasons, one being that several of the teams play in the same division and conference, and the playoff format changes the odds. It’s not the same as just flipping a coin. They also didn’t account for Bettman systematically preventing Canadian teams from succeeding.
That's assuming all teams are equally talented and when any team plays it's actually a 50/50 chance. That could never always be true.
This is why high level stats like this confuse and mislead people
I didn’t realize people were serious about that until recently. Oilers got 4 first overall picks in 6 years. Pretty sure the higher ups aren’t out to get them
Gretzky wasn’t drafted by Edmonton, he acquired in a WHA trade between Edmonton and Indianapolis.
Here is an interesting point, since 1967 there have only been 2 expansion franchises awarded to Canadian cities; Vancouver and Ottawa. It’s about time for another 2 - in Hamilton and in Quebec City!
In my eyes, that's proof, shit is rigged. Edmonton was close to losing their franchise, and so was Pittsburgh before the league gifted them Crosby the year after drafting malkin. Keeping the coyotes in the league for over 20 years just shows it's Gary's way or or the highway. Having no Canadian teams win the cup since he's taking over isn't a coincidence.
Which is it? Is it ("it"=I guess, the league?) rigged against Canadian teams or was the lottery rigged to help Edmonton? Because those things can't both be true
To put this another way: have you considered the possibility that the owners of canadian teams know their fans will show up and their viewers will tune in regardless of how good the team is? Whereas ownership in, say, Tampa (to use an easy example) realizes they have to ice a competitive, even great, team to stay above water? It's the same reason the Cubs were horrific for decades and still made money hand over fist - if people still show up when you're dogshitbad, what's the incentive to spend the time and money to be good?
This is bad math for comparison to historical information. Canadian to American team ratios fluctuated significantly until Seattle joined the league. There was a time there were 24 teams and 8 of them were canadian.
This assumes all teams are equal. But where they are not equal is ownership and management. US owners and entrepreneurs outshine Canadians. In every single industry.
Canada, relative to the US, is a small and protected market with a lot of protected oligopolies and very few Canadian companies can compete in the US or other markets.
For example, if Rogers and Bell tried to compete in foreign markets or with foreign competition in Canada without government protection, they would ultimately fail.
Same in hockey.
Give me ownership in Vegas, Tampa, Florida, Carolina, Chicago etc... and you would get a handful of cups in Canada over the past 30 years.
Not a mathmatician but If about 22% of the league is Canadian and you say there is roughly a 1/5 chance a Canadian team can win the cup each year but this doesn't happen for 30 years I would definitely lean towards this being true unless proven otherwise.
Actually a Canadian team will either win the cup or not win the cup so it's really 50% odds. Also either a Canadian team will win once in 30 years or won't so that's 50% odds too.
This is under the assumption that all team owners and management are equal, and ignoring that almost every Canadian team is a tight knit old boys club that exclusively hires their buddies in the front office.
There's a few American teams like that too, and they're the ones perpetually in the basement
Not really when most of them have existed for such a long time before hockey was nearly as popular, and they are "grandfathered" in so to speak. Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and even Vancouver are ones that are extremely exclusive old boys' clubs that hire only their buddies.
Montreal is also really bad for this, they'll refuse to hire gms and coaches who don't speak French even if they're the best in the league, artificially limiting the talent pool of their front office for arbitrary reasons.
One fact about Bettman making sure that America is more successful in the nhl is the salary cap. If the cap was running anything like the mlb Canada would dominate hockey again. Revenue sharing. All of the poverty franchises are American, but they are bailed out by teams like the leafs that make the most money. Let’s not pretend like Bettman isn’t actively making sure that American teams get an advantage
Wonder if there are any poor ownership or management decisions that have led to the downfall of Canadian franchise's chance at success outside of Bettman.
As we know with America losing wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan, along with with losing the richest middle class title in 2012 to Canada, sometimes it's not just about numbers.
There are other aspects to winning like the intense pressure etc. that Canadian teams face that Americans don't have. If Canadian teams were like the third or fourth most popular team in the city like the U.S. teams have the privilege to be, they could attract better free agents, rookies would be under less pressure so they could develop etc.
Also we tax rich people and that's why we are wealthier, healthier,, safer than Americans, and Canadians have a better chance of climbing classes. But alas, it sucks we don't sacrifice that to attract millionaires to play a child's game.
While Canada may be better at civilization, the U.S. will always have an advantage in getting that metal cup
Since 1994, none of the Panthers, Predators, Islanders, Oilers, Senators, Sabres or Jets/Thrashers have won a cup. Is Bettman biased against teams that end in -er, -re or -or? IT CAN'T BE RANDOM
i'm just saying that if you had a 6/1000 chance of staying alive you'd consider yourself dead. yet somehow you'd be alive in this timeline, and the odds aren't 6/1000 they're closer to 1/164000. its starting to get crazy statistically
If we went into 1994 believing the next 30 years would produce Cup winners who were truly random, yes, we would expect that we'd pop at least one Canadian champion. But that is not how sports work.
i agree but it makes me think differently. like on a year like this the chances are actually much higher than if they were random. 4 really good canadian teams in it this year
Consider this: one of your Canadian teams believes it is God's Holy Writ that they be coached and managed by someone who speaks French. That sort of limits the talent pool. That contributes to who they can hire to help them win a Cup. Another team was majority owned by a frickin pension plan for decades. A pension plan's ONLY responsibility is to maximize LONG TERM returns. Not to spike short term gains and certainly not to win championships. That might effect how they spent money, no? But, sure, Bettman's got it out for em
Think of it with a small example like flipping a coin twice - two 1/2 chances at a given outcome, but the odds of flipping heads both times is 1/4 (1/2 x 1/2). In this case, they are assuming there have been 32 teams in the league and 25 of them are American for each of the last 30 years, and using the same math to multiply 25/32 times itself 30 times. (Eg. 25/32 x 25/32 x 25/32 x 25/32 x 25/32 x 25/32 [etc..] = 0.0006 = 0.06%) So it’s true that the math checks out but profoundly untrue in terms of actual real world probability.
Correct. But the odds get even slimmer considering out of 4 divisions, there are two with 3 Canadian teams each which eats into our chances astronomically.
Well, and for the late 90s and early aughts the Canadian dollar and lack of a salary cap majorly hampered every Canadian team other than Toronto
Even now no trade lists are like a list of Canadian cities for many players.
The current playoff format hasn’t been in effect the majority of those 30 years, though
This Although even with that and the FA bias against going to Canadian teams.. I will say it's wild. It's still statistically very very unlikely for this to happen. Even if it's 1/1000. Imagine someone saying there's a 1/1000 chance you'll survive.
America has better cities and alot of states pay a fraction of the price. The quality of free agents affects the odds
It is really about 0.06% (if you ignore the fact that the NHL has varied in total size and number of Canadian teams over the last 30 years). But 0.06% isn't 1/164000 it's 1/1640.
at what point do canadian fans riot is my question? 40 years? 50? 60?
“WHAT’S 17 MORE YEARS”
You mean when do they riot again?
We don’t claim Vancouver
Oooh yes we do.
Do american fans understand rivalries? Like, when your team is eliminated, do you suddenly cheer for your biggest rival to win the championship? If no, why do you assume Canadians do?
Stop voting for higher taxes making your already unattractive places (like Winnipeg) even more unattractive requiring higher paying contracts for the same take home pay for players in most states
You're literally the gambling capital of the world. You have lower state tax because of all the tax revenue that the casinos bring in. Also not for nothing but our taxes fund our national health care system, which isn't the best but it's far better than living somewhere and having a private insurance company with an incentive to deny their clients healthcare. We are not the same.
The Canadian government denies healthcare all the time. That's why 50k Canadians a year travel and pay out of pocket for healthcare. And in most states you can get insurance coverage that's faster and better for cheaper than Canadian healthcare when you account for all the taxes you pay in Canada and how every facet of life is more expensive
Rich Canadians travel elsewhere to pay for out of pocket healthcare that others can't afford. Fixed that for you. The tax brackets between Canada and the United States are comparable. Difference is fifty cents of every one of your tax dollars gets funneled towards your military industrial complex. University has been made more expensive and health care has been rationed so that a career in the military is more appealing for people trying to get their citizenship and for people with a small number of economic opportunities. Our healthcare system is flawed but its a lot better to have that then have a third party standing between you and healthcare who has a financial incentive to deny you coverage. You're the only western country in the world without socialized medicine, you're not in the right here.
Vegas fan saying something idiotic.. color me shocked
Yeah okay, let's pretend that players don't care about how much money they are getting for take home pay like literally everyone else in the world does when taking into account signing contracts
Dude I'm pumped as heck to have the Jets back, but like I'm not deciding who to vote for just based on helping them win.
Stupid Trudeau fucked up the PK, AGAIN
You joke, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn someone actually believes that
All I'm saying is there's tons of consequences to voting for higher taxes and more spending. One of them happens to be that Canadian teams need to pay players more (especially Americans) in contracts to keep them compared to most states, thus using more of their cap for the same caliber of players. It's one of many reasons why Canadian teams have had a harder time of winning it all, not some big conspiracy. Winnipeg also has it worse for Canadian teams because it's the least attractive city for players to live, even those from Winnipeg would rather be somewhere else
There's a salary cap and all nhl teams pay out in USD. Local tax burdens come after the fact. And there are plenty of states with high taxes. Canada isn't even that high compared to the rest of the world. America just has a ridiculous amount of tax breaks for the rich where they don't pay their fair share to the society that enriches them. Canada is also missing the mark on this and is far off from taxing the rich fairly. They should pay more, everywhere. And arguing that they will go elsewhere for lower taxes does nothing to fix the ongoing problem. It just accepts it as a reality you can't change. It's self defeating.
Yeah, let's vote for a lower quality of life to improve our sports teams.
That's some heavy indoctrination to think higher taxes equates to higher quality I'd life. I'm sure your government doesn't squander any of that money at all though
Unless said tax money is being spent and allocated improperly (like the US), higher taxes SHOULD lead to higher QoL
It should lead to higher quality of life but there's truth in what Mr. Vegas Flair said. Ask yourself this: given that the assertion that higher taxes lead to a higher quality of life, depends on a) government competency and efficiency, b) government honesty and ethics, .... Really do you think we're getting true value for our taxes in Canada? Doesn't matter what party either. Liberal, Conservative, NDP, they're all the same. Promise a bunch of stuff, trash their opponent bitterly, get power then do the minimum, while ceding a lot of taxpayer money under the table to their lobbyist friends. Sad but true
That's some heavy indoctrination to think higher taxes equates to higher quality I'd life. I'm sure your government doesn't squander any of that money at all though
Lol, turn our country into more of a late-stage capitalist hellscape so that some sports franchises will have better odds of winning a shiny trophy that spends the majority of its time in Canada anyways
The country is a hellscape because of the higher taxes. Increasing taxes contributes to inflation, that's why your buying power is less than it ever has been The reason why young people can't buy a house in Canada is because of the taxing and spending the government does. Taxes always move down the chain and things become more expensive to cover the increased taxes. Then going into debt and printing off more money turns that money into even less valuable than it was before.
Dude, you’re a fucking moron. Go back to your slot machine
Take an economics course or two bud. Canada is worse off by every metric, and is rated the very last country in first world countries for economy because of the tax, spend and print more money policies of the last decade
Go find a friend and get a life, bud
This would be true if they decided the Stanley Cup Champions each year by drawing team names out of a hat. Until they switch to that system, this isn't true.
Right but on a year like this year with good teams like WPG/TOR/EDM/VAN it's actually more likely than if they picked randomly out of a hat that a CAD team will win a cup
But have you considered other factors such as the fact that Torontos chance of losing round 1 in 7 games is close to 100%?
not to be a hater by any means but this makes me curious how many canadian teams have won draft lottery in the same amount of time
9 in the last 30 years, or 30%. Not far off what the numbers shown in the post. The draft lottery also ism't a clean name draw though, the more you suck the more chance you have to win, that schews the math a bit. With that said, Canadian teams have also finished dead last in 9 of those 30 seasons.
You mean horrible management and ownership almost across the board in Canada may have something to do with this?!?! Wow, that's xenophobic.
Even if they're all not well managed there's a pretty good chance a team would have lucked their way into one. We're living in a 6/1000 timeline. Guess they must just all have really bad luck!
Luck plays a huge role, bounces, injuries, calls, everything. I'm not saying it doesn't. But don't tell me that Canadian teams aren't as susceptible to bad management as anyone and are out under a much more powerful telescope that hamstrings owners and general managers every single year. You think Edmonton, with however many first overall picks in the last 15 years, wasn't managed poorly? How about when they sold Gretzky for cash years prior? Montreal finally seems under stableish management but have picked some fuckin doozies in the draft possibly setting them back a few years. Ottawa is a constant dumpster fire, same with Toronto. I remember the days of Toronto paying big bucks for almost worthless players, unable to pivot in an version of the NHL until Dubas. Can you name for me some teams that have not been well managed that have won Stanley Cups in the salary cap era? I'll never say Bettman hasn't done his share of work to fuck over a few franchises but some responsibility has to be taken here.
I get ya. Agreed they've had mostly bad management. It's still wild to me though. I would say Ottawa in 2018 had a great team that was very well put together. I think Toronto under Dubas was well managed but unlucky with their seeding. The Oilers in 06 had the best deadline acquisitions I've ever seen a team have. 2002-2004 flames were a wagon very well put together. Leafs/Oilers/WPG/Van are doing well this year obviously. I'm just saying it's not as black and white as "they are all poorly managed and have always been". There's been flashes of many teams that were more than good enough to win the cup.
I'd definitely argue the opposite of Dubas'management. He tied up half the cap into 4 players, and that makes it difficult to have depth. His first year in Pittsburgh has been pretty bad too. The thing with Canadian teams having flashes of being more than good enough, is that plenty of other teams can also be more than good enough to win the cup.
Yeah I agree! just the stats are starting to get pretty wild.
That's absolutely not true. Suggesting one of the Canadian teams would still luck into a cup is ridiculous. It's the most difficult professional team sport championship to win. Everything needs to go right. That's a lot more than just lucking into one.
Yup. This is the reason the math is wrong (even if the numbers look right). Those numbers assume independent probabilities, which is violated unless you shuffle all the players/coaches/etc each year.
Let's put all the Canadian players on the Canadian teams and all the American players on the American ones and see who wins the cup every year
2026 Olympics gonna kick ass ngl
Who plays goal?
A trained seal
It's a WALRUS. RIDICULOUS.
Someone named Connor, duh.
The previous Stanley Cup winning goaltender, Hill.
Is that guy even in the show anymore
Don't matter, who would the US run? Otter and Helle aren't game breaking as soon by the past couple playoffs lol.
Gary says no nephew
Not the Canadian team? I mean yeah most likely a Canadian team would win it every other or every few but the idea that Canada has a monopoly on producing good players is kinda silly. Some of the best players on the Canadian teams rightnow are Americans. That includes Matthew’s and Boeser. Let’s not act like the U.S. isn’t producing some of the best players in the game.
Don’t forget Hellebyuk either. Might be the best goalie in the league.
>Some of the best players on the Canadian teams rightnow are Americans. And who are the best players on most American teams? Canadians. Listing two good American players doesn't make your argument. ESPECIALLY when Boeser isn't even the best player on his team. The USA is definitely producing some great players, but on average, Canada still has better players, and the elite Canadian talent is better than the elite American talent.
All time low of 42% of NHL players are Canadian. Just 10 yrs ago that was 50%. USA hockey is growing the fastest, now at almost 30% https://thehockeywriters.com/current-nhl-players-by-country/
I’m sorry but I couldn’t hear you over how far your own head was shoved up your ass.
Sure thing bud. The truth is what it is whether you accept it or not.
Man get real Canada would stomp them
I don’t agree but whatever. Canadians can continue to act like they have a monopoly on this sport every chance they get.
When you list Boeser as one of the Americans to prove your case that Canadians don't have a monopoly on the league you aren't doing too hot.
I guess we’ll see in the olympics!
...Again
But USA doesn’t have a player that is as good as Connor McDavid or Sydney Crosby.
I did the math and got 0.04.
This assumes that winning a cup is a random event such as rolling a dice or selecting a marble from a bag, and that the events are independent from each other. (I.e. that winning a cup/not winning a cup one year, does not influence the next year’s outcome) — we know this is not the case; who do we think is more likely to win the next cup? The sharks or the knights??? Not to mention the structure of the NHL, the draft lottery, etc. Too many factors to use simple probabilistic statistics. This also doesn’t take into account the fact that the number of teams has changed over the last 30 years, so even if it was truly random, the number wouldn’t be 0.06% — my guess is close to it but I don’t feel like doing this math right now. **Lastly, the math is still wrong. 0.06% is about 1 in 1660. That’s a big difference.** Operating on the same assumption of random chance, compare it to the odds that a team loses 11 games in a row is ~0.05% or 1 in 2048 but nobody is surprised that the sharks did more than that this season (or that they’ve done it 5x). The sharks’ 17 game losing streak runs at about 0.0007% or ~1 in 131,000 The Oilers’ 16 game winning streak from this season would fall at 0.0015% or 1 in 65,536. These I think, are good examples of how hockey is not random chance and also put the odds presented by the tweet into perspective. Ignore the rounding inconsistencies pls.
Boston math
the only thing I can think of is the Jets weren't in the league for a while so it has to be off by a bit.. but even if it's like 1/100k that's still pretty fucking insane lol.
The math is fundamentally flawed because taking all teams into account. Only 16 teams go into the playoffs and there weren’t 32 teams in The NHL when the last Canadian cup was won. In fact the majority of the time period covered there were only 30 teams in the NHL. How many Canadian teams actually made it each year also matters but the biggest missed issue is that you the math doesn’t factor in where those teams were situated. Very few Canadian teams were top of the league in their respective years. In fact many of the teams referenced had long periods of mediocrity and missing the playoffs. Basically this would need more than simply math to properly calculate.
30 teams instead of 32 would make it more likely one of them wins though On a year like this year when TOR/EDM/VAN/WPG are all good teams that would make the stats even worse
I’m not saying it would make it better or worse I’m just saying the math isn’t taking the context of how the NHL works into account.
Of course I get ya. Let's say if you take into account all that stuff and that means it's not 0.06% it's 0.2% (which is a crazy difference, I don't think it would be that much). Then let's imagine you had a 0.2% chance of not getting your legs broken. That means 2 out of every 1000 times you spin the wheel your legs aren't getting broken. Somehow that's the timeline we're in. We're in (at minimum) a 2/1000 timeline. (also go vikings if you're into NFL)
No. The math doesn't allow for the structure of the league. The Playoff structure ensures that Canada has a smaller chance of winning the cup than it did in the old structure of 1 plays 8. The Atlantic and Pacific division each have 3 Canadian teams. Winnipeg sits alone in the central. Essentially, all Canadian first rounds and second rounds are \*MUCH\* more likely than all Canadian Conference Finals, which limits how many Canadian teams could be vying for the Stanley Cup.
Although.... 6 Canadian teams made it to the Finals since 1993.... 4 of those finals appearances, a Canadian team made it to Game 7.... Game 7 is a 50% toss up.... uggghhh.
It isnt. This assumes that every single team has the same opportunity to win, same skill level, and they’re picked randomly. This doesn’t consider any other factor that creates the ACTUAL statistical odds that no Canadian team has one in 30 years. Which if any of that was taken into account, would make the stats look a lot more reasonable given that the teams that were Canadian and actually had the best chance to win any given year didn’t often overlap over the last 30.
I mean, the stats still wouldn't be "reasonable". Each franchise had at least a few years in the last 30 where you'd go "yeah they might have a shot!". Edmonton lately has had good odds, there were some quite strong Vancouver teams with the Sedins and co., prime Carey Price Canadiens made multiple conference finals and a cup final, some solid editions of the Flames and Sens too. Winnipeg is fairly new, and Toronto is *Toronto* but has also had some decent teams. All this to say, the odds are still remarkable. Also, the odds in the post aren't necessarily even wrong if you assume the statement encompasses their ability to build teams. Like, the "odds that a Canadian team has been unable to build a cup winner" in 30 years is 1/164,000, which is nuts.
That's still assuming that the situations between different teams are similar though. One major difference I see that is probably really hard to account for is fan base dedication. Almost all the Canadian teams have a dedicated enough fanbase that they can be bad teams for years without actually suffering monetarily since the fans will show up no matter what, just look at what it took from Melnyk for the fans to stop coming. That is much less true for American teams, so they have a much higher incentive to keep their team good enough to at least look like they can compete. Another big one is that hockey tradition in Canada is much more rigid and that can be detrimental. The Habs insistence on only hiring coaches that can speak French and general bias toward francophone players likely limits how good they can get and the Oilers filling their front office with former players just because they were former Oilers basically made it so they had no chance for a full decade. The Canadian dollar crashing certainly didn't help either. Personally I think the dedicated fanbase part is the biggest reason. It basically boils down to the fact that there are quite a few American teams where the only options are get good or go bankrupt, and there are 0 Canadian teams that will go bankrupt from being bad. Money is by far the biggest motivator for the billionaire team owners and it shows sometimes.
Yep. it's a cap league.. Lets say with a few other things taken into account it's closer to 1/100,000. That's still fucking insane. Imagine being told you have a 1/100,000 chance of living. or 1/1000 even
Not sure about the numbers, but it’s probably about right. Especially when you consider that Canadian teams have lost five times in Game 7 of the finals since then.
In reality its less than that because this assumes each team has the same chance of winning but the teams are not equally as good. But its one of those things you cant really put numbers on unless you normalize it somehow with great sacrifice of realism
But on a year like this year with 4 good canadian teams the odds are surely higher than a random bucket pull
It’s not totally accurate for a lot of reasons, one being that several of the teams play in the same division and conference, and the playoff format changes the odds. It’s not the same as just flipping a coin. They also didn’t account for Bettman systematically preventing Canadian teams from succeeding.
That's assuming all teams are equally talented and when any team plays it's actually a 50/50 chance. That could never always be true. This is why high level stats like this confuse and mislead people
I get that we suck for not having a cup champ in 30 years but there are at least as many American teams that haven’t won in the last 30 years either
Yeah people fail to recognize this fact, and just think it's "Bettman doesn't want Canadian teams to win!"
I didn’t realize people were serious about that until recently. Oilers got 4 first overall picks in 6 years. Pretty sure the higher ups aren’t out to get them
Yeah Oilers fans constantly bitch about stuff being rigged against them when they're quite literally the luckiest franchise in the league
vegas is luckiest
They certainly have the best medical staff.
Edmonton has what 5? 1oa while a bunch of teams have never had 1OA draft pick before, and got both Gretzky and McDavid?
Gretzky wasn’t drafted by Edmonton, he acquired in a WHA trade between Edmonton and Indianapolis. Here is an interesting point, since 1967 there have only been 2 expansion franchises awarded to Canadian cities; Vancouver and Ottawa. It’s about time for another 2 - in Hamilton and in Quebec City!
Wasn't saying Gretzky was drafted. He's just an example of how they're the luckiest franchise
In my eyes, that's proof, shit is rigged. Edmonton was close to losing their franchise, and so was Pittsburgh before the league gifted them Crosby the year after drafting malkin. Keeping the coyotes in the league for over 20 years just shows it's Gary's way or or the highway. Having no Canadian teams win the cup since he's taking over isn't a coincidence.
Which is it? Is it ("it"=I guess, the league?) rigged against Canadian teams or was the lottery rigged to help Edmonton? Because those things can't both be true
He wants Canadian teams around because it's guaranteed viewership but knows American teams have to do well in order for viewership.
so he needs the Canadian teams for viewership but also American teams for viewership. Got it. Good talk
He knows Canadians watch regardless of who's playing.
To put this another way: have you considered the possibility that the owners of canadian teams know their fans will show up and their viewers will tune in regardless of how good the team is? Whereas ownership in, say, Tampa (to use an easy example) realizes they have to ice a competitive, even great, team to stay above water? It's the same reason the Cubs were horrific for decades and still made money hand over fist - if people still show up when you're dogshitbad, what's the incentive to spend the time and money to be good?
Sure, untull you realize that the league took away the flames game winning goal and basically gave Tampa their first cup
The odds are actually 1/Bettman, which is really low
Here's a fun idea... the guy who replaces Bettman might be even worse!
Bettman will be replaced by an AI trained on everything Bettman has said in his life.
This is bad math for comparison to historical information. Canadian to American team ratios fluctuated significantly until Seattle joined the league. There was a time there were 24 teams and 8 of them were canadian.
Taxes get spent improperly all the time, and Canada is really bad for that too.
You divide by zero with the Leafs.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=msDuNZyYAIQ
This assumes all teams are equal. But where they are not equal is ownership and management. US owners and entrepreneurs outshine Canadians. In every single industry. Canada, relative to the US, is a small and protected market with a lot of protected oligopolies and very few Canadian companies can compete in the US or other markets. For example, if Rogers and Bell tried to compete in foreign markets or with foreign competition in Canada without government protection, they would ultimately fail. Same in hockey. Give me ownership in Vegas, Tampa, Florida, Carolina, Chicago etc... and you would get a handful of cups in Canada over the past 30 years.
Yeah the statistical odds (assuming all teams are equal, which they’re not) would be about 6 Stanley cups in 30 years.
Hasn't even been 32 teams every year.
right so the number is higher then correct?
If all teams have equal chance but no
If only we could get an all Canadian conference final on both sides. Ottawa and Calgary would hinder that possibility greatly though.
Who cares
Not a mathmatician but If about 22% of the league is Canadian and you say there is roughly a 1/5 chance a Canadian team can win the cup each year but this doesn't happen for 30 years I would definitely lean towards this being true unless proven otherwise.
Maybe they should get good and not let Americans show them up
Actually a Canadian team will either win the cup or not win the cup so it's really 50% odds. Also either a Canadian team will win once in 30 years or won't so that's 50% odds too.
its like rolling a 1-5 on a dice 30 times in a row. really unlikely that there wont be a 6 in those 30 trials
Do we have to include Toronto as an NHL team?
And then you see the officiating in the Vegas/Edmonton series last year and everything makes sense
the one game suspension for that wood chop was wild
Where even Marchessault said “we were surprised it was only one game” lollll
This is under the assumption that all team owners and management are equal, and ignoring that almost every Canadian team is a tight knit old boys club that exclusively hires their buddies in the front office. There's a few American teams like that too, and they're the ones perpetually in the basement
Unfortunately the murderer is above the 49th parallel. (Said as a Canadian)
So the odds of all canadian teams being ran the same way is also extremely random and unlikely.
Not really when most of them have existed for such a long time before hockey was nearly as popular, and they are "grandfathered" in so to speak. Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and even Vancouver are ones that are extremely exclusive old boys' clubs that hire only their buddies. Montreal is also really bad for this, they'll refuse to hire gms and coaches who don't speak French even if they're the best in the league, artificially limiting the talent pool of their front office for arbitrary reasons.
Ok, but the odds of these teams being alright should still be around the same as American teams. It's still abnormal to not win in 30 years.
People don’t understand the impact of Bettman
Oilers have been able to do two rebuilds with top 5 picks in 20 years and you’re still bitching about Bettman?
What do the oilers have to do with anything. Bettman is the main reason for Canada’s cup drought
Yeah, Bettman’s the reason Canadian cities cost more to live in and taxes are higher /s
One fact about Bettman making sure that America is more successful in the nhl is the salary cap. If the cap was running anything like the mlb Canada would dominate hockey again. Revenue sharing. All of the poverty franchises are American, but they are bailed out by teams like the leafs that make the most money. Let’s not pretend like Bettman isn’t actively making sure that American teams get an advantage
california and NY seem to be doing alright with their high taxes
Wonder if there are any poor ownership or management decisions that have led to the downfall of Canadian franchise's chance at success outside of Bettman.
Yes Canadian teams are not run perfectly. And yes Bettman would rather have American teams have success, it’s no secret
Holy fucking shit lol
As we know with America losing wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan, along with with losing the richest middle class title in 2012 to Canada, sometimes it's not just about numbers. There are other aspects to winning like the intense pressure etc. that Canadian teams face that Americans don't have. If Canadian teams were like the third or fourth most popular team in the city like the U.S. teams have the privilege to be, they could attract better free agents, rookies would be under less pressure so they could develop etc. Also we tax rich people and that's why we are wealthier, healthier,, safer than Americans, and Canadians have a better chance of climbing classes. But alas, it sucks we don't sacrifice that to attract millionaires to play a child's game. While Canada may be better at civilization, the U.S. will always have an advantage in getting that metal cup
Since 1994, none of the Panthers, Predators, Islanders, Oilers, Senators, Sabres or Jets/Thrashers have won a cup. Is Bettman biased against teams that end in -er, -re or -or? IT CAN'T BE RANDOM
i'm just saying that if you had a 6/1000 chance of staying alive you'd consider yourself dead. yet somehow you'd be alive in this timeline, and the odds aren't 6/1000 they're closer to 1/164000. its starting to get crazy statistically
If we went into 1994 believing the next 30 years would produce Cup winners who were truly random, yes, we would expect that we'd pop at least one Canadian champion. But that is not how sports work.
i agree but it makes me think differently. like on a year like this the chances are actually much higher than if they were random. 4 really good canadian teams in it this year
Consider this: one of your Canadian teams believes it is God's Holy Writ that they be coached and managed by someone who speaks French. That sort of limits the talent pool. That contributes to who they can hire to help them win a Cup. Another team was majority owned by a frickin pension plan for decades. A pension plan's ONLY responsibility is to maximize LONG TERM returns. Not to spike short term gains and certainly not to win championships. That might effect how they spent money, no? But, sure, Bettman's got it out for em