Hey Canada, Let's Work A Trade

Taking a vacation in Canada is always fun for me.  The scenery is beautiful, the people usually friendly, and, oh yeah, Americans get reminded in every media outlet what the National Sport is.  Hockey, hockey and, yes, more hockey.  Every newscast has hockey news.  Every newspaper’s sports sections have more news about chasing the elusive black puck than any other sport.  There is no such thing as overload on the subject. And the biggest topic in Canada about their sport, what cities that currently don’t have an NHL team that deserves one?  Does Winnipeg deserve a second chance?  Hamilton?  Quebec City?  A second team in Toronto?  All the pros and cons are there.  After reading many of these articles I have come up with an idea. All these cities should have a team.  It’s time to do some horsetrading with our neighbors to the north.  It’s time to work a trade.

Ok, what does the US have to offer Canada that they would want?  Pam Anderson is already born Canadian so we can’t trade her.  I doubt if they want that old Saturn plant in Tennessee.  Oh, how about some NHL franchises? The US has some teams in some gawd awful places for the sport. Two teams in Florida (who BTW have both won Stanley Cups causing Lord Stanley to roll over in his grave so much, he thought he was on a BBQ rotisserie), one in Atlanta, another in Nashville, one in Phoenix, and still another in North Carolina.  Hockey in Dallas?  Maybe we could trade them some of these franchises.  Send them to where people would love and appreciate them and make those teams the big deal in their markets. No more jokes about there are 250,000 Canadians in LA and the reason they live there is because they all hate hockey.  A trade matches a need in one country with an oversupply in another. So, we offer Canada back their sport and make the US look like really good guys. But what could Canada offer us?

Canada could send the US the Raptors.  We have a shiny new arena in KC that would welcome them with open arms (as long as they change the stupid name).  That’s one item.  We’ll let the keep the Blue Jays, they do have fans across the country. How about sending us some scenery?  Trade us a few mountains we could plop down in Western Kansas or Central Florida.  There are plenty of them up there. They wont miss four or five. Shoot, everyone up there will be too busy watching their local NHL team to notice.  Some CFL rules might be nice.  Want to encourage scoring in the NFL, allow recievers to all go in motion at once and let them step towards the line of scrimmage. Keep in mind the CFL allowed that long before the Arena League.  Then again, maybe sending Canada these teams is addition by subtraction.   Just a thought.  If all us fails, Canada could send every household in the affected cities a nice package with an assortment of Canadian beers, some smokedl, and one of the thousands of left over Olympic t-shirts that that haven’t sold yet.  There’s a deal that might work for everyone.

Now I realize that the NHL TV package needs all those Southern US cities where no one watches the sport. After spending time across the border, I get the feeling that the sport needs to be in more places in Canada.  The money thing is about even once again and not the punative 1.30 Canadian to the Dollar anymore.  The NHL is a sport that simply needs to abandon their Southern strategy and bring teams back to Canada where they would be appreciated.  It would be the right thing to do, eh.