Hello hockey

Long time no see! If you're wondering where I've been...I guess I've been finding other ways to procrastinate for the last week or so. Ah well. Here's a little something anyhow!

So it's hockey season again. And for the first time in - well, in my life - I find myself starting the season without a team to cheer for.

A brief history lesson - for reasons that basically boil down to proximity, I spent my formative years as a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Then a relative got a job with the Colorado Avalanche, who had just moved from Quebec, and I started following the Avalanche a little more closely (of course, it didn't hurt that they won the Stanley Cup their first year!).

The relative has since moved on, and I've spent the last few years half-heartedly cheering for the Leafs once again - but I just can't do it anymore. They're not good, they're not even CLOSE to being good, and they're not going to get good without some radical changes. Sundin is too old to carry a team on his back, Jason Blake is not the superstar saviour that the media is making him out to be, and anyone below the second line would be lucky to make the roster of any other club. The defence is horrible aside from McCabe and Kaberle, and all these great things I'm hearing about Toskala sure sound like what was said about Raycroft a year ago. How'd that work out?

But back to my original point - I'm in the market for a new team. Now, there are a few main criteria I had to set out before starting this search...

-No 'bandwagon factor'...it'd be easy to pick Anaheim or Ottawa simply because they've got a great shot at going all the way this year. Not interested. Ditto for Pittsbugh...not as good as the other teams I mentioned, but because of Crosby, everyone's jumping on that bandwagon anyhow.

-Along the same lines, I *do* want the team to have a realistic shot at at least making the playoffs this year. If mediocrity didn't bother me, I'd stick with the Leafs.

-I will never be able to bring myself to cheer for the Red Wings, Canadiens, or Rangers, so they're all out.

That still left me with probably about a dozen teams. So then I looked at some other things...are they going to be on TV often (thus allowing me to watch their games)? Are they a younger team that will likely only improve over the next few years? Do they have any players I really like?

After all that, I narrowed it down to three teams.

Buffalo: Geographically, if I refuse to cheer for the Leafs, this is the next-most logical choice. However, because of a large, undefended border, they seem further away than they really are. Plenty of games on TV, and if I try really hard, I can usually pick up Buffalo radio signals. A year ago, they'd have been a bandwagon team, but after losing Drury and Briere, people seem to have soured on them. I don't think those losses will hurt them as much as most seem to think. Bonus: Derek Roy, Andrew Peters, and Max Afinogenov - the Sabres lead the NHL in former Kitchener Rangers.

Philadelphia: Not as much TV coverage as Buffalo, and they don't have the same 'underdog' story going for them this year. However, they *are* poised for a breakout season, and do also have a former Kitchener Ranger in Mike Richards. On the other hand, I still have bad feelings towards their minor league team. Bonus: I've heard of virtually none of their lower line/bench guys. This means that there's a decent chance they haven't failed with other teams and been brought in regardless, like, say, Toronto.

Colorado: Yeah, there's a chance I could get back into them this year. They don't have the whole "Sakic/Forsberg/Bourque/Blake/Roy" thing going on that made them, along with any other team of all-stars, such an obvious choice back in 2000. They do still have Sakic, and picked up Ryan Smyth for a nice one-two punch, but beyond that...there's pretty much nothing. I think I've watched roughly half of this year's Avalanche play in the AHL. And yet, people are convinced that they'll somehow make the playoffs.

So who am I cheering for? I don't know yet. I'll watch as many games as I can of all these teams, and hopefully one will make a strong enough impression on me - and when I do make a decision, this blog will be the first to know.

--Ryan