Outro

To finish off this blog, I'd like to talk about the history of the NHL. This league started back in 1917, almost a hundred years ago after the NHA became very popular in Canada. Toronto won the very first Stanley Cup and the year later, Montreal won by default after many players became ill with the Spanish flu from the soldiers who came back from war and what not. The league first started in Canada and in 1920, the Boston Bruins joined the league as the first American team. Later on the original six was born. With the addition of the Chicago Blackhawks, the Detroit Red Wings and the New York Rangers to the prior Montreal Canadians and Toronto Maple leafs. The league was booming and becoming very popular, increasing the popularity of the sport as well. 

Soon, many more teams were added to make up 30 teams. Now, the sport is considered to be one of the biggest in the world. from what started as a pass time in Windsor, Nova Scotia to a professional sport played world wide. There are tons of other leagues like the KHL in Russia that players from the NHL went to during the lock out to small junior B leagues across the world. The sport we know and love in Canada is one that will forever be played. 

I personally fell in love with the sport at a very young age, watching games with my grandpa or playing in the driveway with my dad. I started playing when I was five and never want to stop, the feeling of gliding on the ice is something I'll never forget. 

To conclude this blog, I hope that you all enjoyed my blog over the past semester and I want to say thank you to the people that read it even if they didn't know or like the topic. 

''Cap Hell''

Since the NHL has enforced the salary cap, high value teams like Chicago have been at risk of exceeding the cap. For those who don't know what a salary cap is, it's basically a set price that you can't go over, like a budget. Chicagos salary cap is 70,750,000 U.S dollars which is a huge amount of money to any other person.

Star players Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, both on the same team, both make the same amount, and are both the most payed players in the league. Making   10.5 million a year on an 8 year contract, the two players are making the most in the league and not to mention, these contracts after the 8 years, the players are going to make 84 million US dollars.

Chicago's salary cap for the upcoming seasons

This brings up the topic of having to drop other players to be able to keep these stars. Names like Patrick Sharp or Brian Bickle have been brought up by coaching staff and the general manager. I believe that the players are making a lot of many and I would even go to say that its too much. On the contrary, losing key players like Sharp or Bickle could really hurt the Blackhawks in the long run. I think that the gm's have a big decision on their hands, but, the outcome is simple. They're going to keep the stars and have to drop a few other players, ruining team chemistry and possibly making certain players not so happy.

To be able to be under the cap, they would have to drop a player making 8 million a year and then some. The combination of players is endless and the amount of players they could sing is even bigger. The team must make a decision before they exceed the cap and are forced to get rid of players. Better late then sorry. 

Stanley Cup Parade

Each and every year after winning the Stanley Cup, the winning team brings the cup back to their city for a parade and celebratory ceremony. This year, Chicago held the ceremony at Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears football team. The stadium was packed to the roof with fans of the team that came out to support their citys win.

"Last time we did this, we were saying it was two in four years," forward Patrick Sharp told the crowd at Soldier Field. "Now we're proud to say it's three in six. Everybody wants to know which was the best Cup … 2010 was special, 2013 was special, but there's nothing like winning the Cup on home ice in front of your fans." Each player went up to the stand to say a few words about their win, Patrick Sharp, assistant captain, was very ecstatic about the win saying it was the best one to win for him. Winning three cups in a players career is an amazing achievement, now winning three cups in six years is incredible. In my opinion, the Chicago Blackhawks have been a part of a dynasty that will forever be remembered by all. 

Captain Jonathan Toews at Soldier Field

To continue, the parade lasted over 3 hours and ended up at the stadium. Over all, its estimated that there were over two million fans who went to either watch the parade or at the stadium. To me, this shows incredible support for the team, having a fan base of two million people just from your city who are willing to stand outside or pay to sit in a stadium to see the players is amazing. 

In conclusion, I think that the Stanley Cup parade is a really cool and a good way for teams to celebrate their win. I really enjoyed watching this years parade for many reasons, some being because it was my favourite team, seeing my favourite players hold the cup and because I could celebrate along with them.

http://www.nhl.com/ice/m_news.htm?id=771360

Draft Day

Each year the NHL and other sport organization like the NBA and NFL host a draft lottery. Some of you may be asking what that is. Well, the teams that don't make the playoffs are cut up into fractions, meaning; say Edmonton does the worst out of all the teams, they get a 10% chance of winning. Now that all the teams have a percentage of wining the lottery, team names are put into a bowl. Its most likely that the worst team gets the number one draft pick who this year is an unbelievable player.

Canadian eighteen year old Connor McDavid is set to go first overall in the draft. Throughout his OHL seasons with the Erie Otters, McDavid started his amazing career back in two thousand twelve when he obtained sixty six points in sixty three games. He has progressed a lot as a player because this season in only fourty seven games, he had one hundred and twenty points. To me, if you can get that many goals and assists, its time to get out of the minors and play with some real competition, its time for McDavid to play in the NHL. Connor is in my opinion, an amazing player and could compete with some top players. It's a shame that he'll most likely be going to a team in its rebuilding stages.

Connor McDavid

Edmonton, most likely McDavids future team, hasn't made the playoffs since I can remember. They come close to last place every year. Even with the last four first draft picks, Eberly, Hall, Nugenthopkins and Yakupov, they can't seem to find a way to win. In my opinion, the lottery isn't always fair because star players like Conner are stuck playing on a team that won't make him any better. 

To end, I think that the NHL should enforce a rule stating that you can't win the lottery more than two times in a row because if your team isn't winning with star players, maybe its not the players but the coachig staff. 

Stanley Cup Champions

Just last night, the Chicago Blackhawks won the greatest trophy in sports, the Stanley Cup. For certain members of the team, this is their third cup in the last six years. Players such as Jonathan Toews, Brent Seabrook, Ducan Keith and Patrick Kane and many more now have three rings to go along with their three cup wins. Winning the cup is a dream for many young players but what is it like to actually win it? Young Chicago player Andrew Desjardins won his fist cup with the Blackhawks. He later blogged about his experiance saying it was ''amazing feeling'' to win the cup. Playing his first season with Hawks, he was handed the cup fifth out of twenty six others players. I think that Chicago desereved the cup because, the players on this team have worked extremely hard all season and through the playoffs to win. Chicago played in 4 games that went to triple or double overtime. Some players playing almost a fifty minutes in a hour and fourty minute game. In the final game, he played thirty minutes and ninetine second, plpaying just over half of the game. In my opinion, a player that works that hard deserves to hold the cup above their head. I aslo believe that Chicago desereved the cup this season becuse of their history. Before the addition of the players that now make up the core of the team, Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and others, Chicago was not a good team. Tgey couldn't make the playoffs, had a hard time beating other teams in the regular season and were just plain garbage. But, after winning the draft lottery two years in a row, they picked up Kane and Towes, who have the most goals for the team the last few years. To me that is an incredible story, a team that went from dust to gold. 

Jordan Leopolds Heart Warming trade

March second of this year the Columbus Blue Jackets traded defensemen Jordan Leopold to the Minnesota Wild in a heart warming trade. Leopold, a Minnesota native played for the Jackets for a while before the general manager of the Wild received a letter from Jordan's eleven year old daughter Jordyn wrote to him. After reading the letter Jordan's wife Jamie started to cry. In the letter, little Jordyn writes : ''my dad is lonely without his family'' Leopold's family lives in Minnesota a 14 hour drive from where he was playing in Columbus. His daughter definitely change that.

The letter also reads "I'm lost without my dad, so is my mom, 2 sisters and my brother." To me this is really really sad because not growing up with my dad would have completely changed who I am. I couldn't imagine never seeing my father, it must be really tough. She goes on saying "the wild haven't been wining a lot of games lately, the team needs some D", this is not only true but  funny because this young girl is practically telling the Wild's GM that his team is doing bad. This part made me laugh because it was so true.

Also, Jordyn is solely the reason why her father was traded, most fans and people that aren't even fans like to believe she convinced the Wild to get him. "Trading Jordan Leopold was about doing the right thing for a guy who was a great pro for us," the Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen said. "He's done everything we asked him to do the right way". Kekalainen also tweeted "it's not always just about business" with a picture of the letter from Jordyn. In my opinion, this whole story is really heart warming and the Minnesota Wild association is very classy for doing such a thing.

NHL Playoff Bracket Challenge

For many years now, the National Hockey League has started a NHL playoff bracket challenge. As a fan, you can choose what you expect to happen during the playoffs. This is a way for fans to interact with each other and have fun with making their own bracket. Also, NHL.com gives away prizes to the people with the top three brackets. The way it works is by points, if you guess the winner of a series in the first round you get ten points, if you also guess how many games out of the seven game series you get an extra 3 points.

Link to make your own bracket

If you guess the whole bracket or the closest you could win two tickets to the NHL awards in Las Vegas and a brand new Samsung S6 Edge. To the person who comes in second place, they would win a Samsung Curved SUHD 55' TV and a Samsung S6 Edge and for third place a Samsung S6 Edge. In my opinion, the winners of the bracket challenge are very lucky people because those prizes are pretty expensive for guessing a bracket for a sport.

The way the bracket works is that the eight teams from the west are on the left side and the eight from the est are on the right. The first round matches for the west are St Louis vs. Minnesota, Nashville vs. Chicago, Anaheim vs. Winnipeg, and Vancouver vs. Calgary. On the est the matches are Montreal vs. Ottawa, Tampa vs. Detroit, New York Rangers vs. Pittsburg and Washington vs. New York Islanders. In the first round yo must also pick the number of games the series will finish at out of seven games. From there you choose 4 teams that move on to the second round of the playoffs, you then pick just what team moves on the the third round and so on for the two teams that play in the finals. For the Stanley cup finals you pick how many goals will be scored in that series as well as a winner of the cup. 

In my bracket you can see I've chosen the Chicago Blackhawks to win the cup against the Tampa Bay Lightning with 19 goals scored in the series. I believe the when Kane returns for Chicago in the second round of the playoff, they'll have an unstoppable team.