There’s something you should know about how the National Hockey League regards Canada: It has grandfather rights, it’s necessary and it’s secondary…and I say this at the risk of sounding anti-American, which I’m decidedly not.
The NHL announced its 2024-25 schedule this month. On November 18, Vancouver sports fans will have to make a choice — the Grey Cup Game or a Canucks game. Forget about the thousands (okay, perhaps hundreds) of fans who are going to face this first-world dilemma, and consider the logistics.
These games are not only being played on the same day in the same city — they’re being played across the back lane from each other, at roughly the same time! The opening kick-off is at three o’clock. The opening face-off is at five o’clock. If the Grey Cup goes into overtime, as well it could, it’s possible 80,000 fans will clash (as well they could) on the streets surrounding B.C. Place Stadium and Rogers Arena, which are as close together as two downtown buildings can be.
It struck me as strange scheduling, to say the least, and since the Canadian Football League picked the date first, the NHL is the “culprit.” I couldn’t remember a major sporting event ever conflicting with the Grey Cup, while relatively certain it had happened when Toronto was the almost-permanent Grey Cup host.
After digging into Distant Replay history files, here’s what I found:
In the last 45 years, it has never happened. Not once. Since the NHL allowed Canadian teams outside Toronto and Montreal to join the club 53 years ago, only twice has there been a direct conflict between hockey and the Grey Cup Game, both times in Toronto.
In the 51 times conflicting games in host cities have been avoided, it was by having: (a) the local NHL team on the road — 29 times, (b) playing home games on either side of the Grey Cup — 6, (c) not having an NHL team — 12 (d) work stoppages — 3, or (e) not playing a Grey Cup Game — 1.
The NHL’s so conscious of a major conflict with American football that in the last 12 years (and certainly longer), the 40 hockey games scheduled for Super Bowl Sunday are early birds, with every one of them ending before the first football is kicked. They don’t want to lose the U.S. eyes of sports fans to the Super Bowl when they could be watching hockey, most importantly the TV eyes. Perhaps somebody should tell the NHL, again, that the Grey Cup is this country’s Super Bowl.
Besides creating chaos on the streets and sending single hotel room prices as high as $1,200 a night on that November weekend, the NHL’s arrogance — or indifference — extends beyond sports. On one of two Taylor Swift concert nights at BC Place Stadium, the NHL again has the Canucks playing next door. And if you don’t think hockey fans are Swifties, you should meet our family.
All this left me asking this question: Why would the NHL play with its fans like this by pitting one of its hockey games against the Grey Cup (or Taylor Swift)…not on television, but across the street?
The answer?
They’re only Canadians.
