NHL hits the jackpot with Hawks and Flyers

Here is an interesting article about the rosters of the Stanley Cup Finalists Chicago and Philadelphia being loaded with Canadian talent. Hockey is basically Canada's national game. Canadians are fanatics about their hockey up there and hockey is basically a niche sport in America.

Personally, I am so glad that I don't have to watch a team loaded with players names that I cant pronounce. Ironically, there are also three players from Wisconsin on the Blackhawks roster this season.

Somebody in the Bettman administration must be saying their prayers at night.

The Windy City and the City of Brotherly Love, head-to-head, a matchup that Major League Baseball, the NBA or the NFL would embrace any time.

And the little NHL’s got it.

Sure, it’s too bad that Canada will go another year without a Cup champion, but my goodness, the Chicago Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers are just loaded with Canadian-born talent.

In a year in which Canada won Olympic gold in Vancouver, hoping one of six NHL franchises in the Great White North could win Lord Stanley’s chalice was probably getting a bit greedy.

But if the Leafs, Senators, Canadiens, Oilers, Flames and Canucks couldn’t make it, the Flyers and Hawks aren’t bad second choices, by gosh.

Philly, the NHL’s 18th-best team after the regular season, dressed 14 Canadians in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference final against Montreal on Monday night, the contest that ended the Habs’ equally unlikely charge through the post-season.

Joel Quenneville’s Blackhawks, meanwhile, have 2010 Canadian Olympians Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Jonathan Toews on the roster, and dressed 12 other Canadians in clinching the Western Conference crown in a four-game sweep.

So, if the two rosters don’t change between now and Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final on Saturday, 29 of the 40 players dressed will trace their birthplaces to one of our 10 provinces. [Read the whole article]