Yeeeah, that seems a really unnecessarily long article that can be boiled down to two factors:
1) Canadian economy was shit when league was no limits, free-spending, and intro'd the hard cap when the Canadian economy surpassed America.
and
2) Canadians are so hockey mad that it doesn't matter if the team is good or sucks, we fill the arenas anyway, thus limiting the incentive to field a quality team.
But Nate Silver gets paid by the spreadsheet, so whatever.
And yeah, when I was younger, I was angsty about the lack of a Canadian team winning the Cup. But it's our sport, we've won two of the last three Olympic golds. It doesn't matter who pays their cheques, the top players in the world all don the red and white when it comes to picking sides. Except Brett Hull.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
I'd still like to see the Leafs become Cup contenders tho
