Why I finally gave up on an NHL Team

[Fanboy]

So 3 Years ago I reached my limit with my team at the time, the Vancouver Canucks, after following them for 44 years I had enough of the losing and not being able to win just one Stanley Cup.  So I wrote a letter to Vancouver Management and I burned all my Vancouver jerseys, hats, tire cover, etc etc.  3 Years later the Canucks are one of the worst teams in the NHL and I don't miss their losing ways at all.  I am not going to be the loser fan who cheers all his life for a loser team.

 

But I love hockey so I decided to be the #1 fan of the Vegas Golden Knight, this is my new team from now until I die.  Go Golden Knight.

 

Incidentally here is my letter that I wrote resigning myself from being a Canucks Fan

 

 

AFTER 44 YEARS I'M QUITTING AS A CANUCKS FAN

 formerfan » Fri May 01, 2015 8:55 am

Last week after the Canucks disappointing loss to the Flames I have finally reached my limit of waiting, hoping and praying for the Canucks to win a Stanley Cup. After 44 years of waiting I have finally had enough. I packed away my 9 hockey jerseys, 4 hats, tire cover, 2 flags and 2 blankets into a box and said this is enough waiting.

I do not want to be one of those fans that waits their whole life to see their team try to win the ultimate prize. Life is too short for that, I have already dedicated 44 years to this team, I do not want to be like a Leafs fan who is waiting for 48 years for their team to even reach the finals or how about a Chicago Cubs fan, there is not one alive who has seen them win a World Series, it's been 108 years for them!!.

Nope I'm not going to be one of those fans who gets swayed by the media and the hype to cheer on their team every start of the season, hockey is a business and as long as fans come and pay and watch and buy the $17.00 beers and pay $700 for a pair of platinum seats the hype will be there. Unfortunately for me I can't justify watching a losing team for those kind of prices and hype.

Simple math will show us that the Canucks will not win a Stanley Cup until 2031 possibly.

First Stanley Cup appearance 1970 - 1981 11 years waiting
Second Stanley Cup appearance 1981 - 1994 13 years waiting
Third Stanley Cup appearance 1994 - 2011 17 years waiting
Possible Fourth appearance 2011 - 2031 20 years waiting

I'm sorry but I'm not willing to wait until 2031 to maybe see the Canucks win the Stanley Cup, I will not be a Chicago Cubs fan who has waited for 108 years and is still waiting. I'm an athlete myself and a competitor and I play to win and not just have fun and I expect my hockey team to win also, unfortunately 44 years without winning is too long to wait. So this is my official good bye letter to Vancouver management, Trevor Linden and everyone else in Canucks Nation. Not going to be a loser fan like a Leafs or a Cubs fan.

P.S. Now that Edmonton has McDavid, they will be making the playoffs and the Kings and Sharks will not be missing the playoffs next year so that leaves the Canucks not making the playoffs, so be patient Canuck fans maybe in your lifetime you might see another Stanley Cup final, but I'm not wasting anymore time with this team

Goodbye

formerfan

[JR Ewing]

You literally burned your Canucks gear?

 

 

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

@JR Ewing

 

Why so surprised?

 

Canucks fans... 1994, 2011...burning stuff..... seems about right to me.  

[JR Ewing]

2 hours ago, TropicalFruitGirl26 said:

@JR Ewing

 

Why so surprised?

 

Canucks fans... 1994, 2011...burning stuff..... seems about right to me.  

 

 

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

In all seriousness, I can't imagine just "giving up" on a team like the OP has.

 

Granted, it is just my own opinion and it doesn't make the OP wrong, but I would have thought that loyalty towards a team comes from some long founded allegiance and SHOULD be able to survive even the leanest times.

 

That said, I guess I could say I HAVE given up on my team (in a manner of speaking), but certainly not to the extent of writing letters, burning stuff or anything that extreme.

 

As a Tampa Bay Lightning fan, I was subject to some pretty long, lean (and sometimes downright ridiculous situations) and the worse I've ever done to protest was cancel my season tickets and simply not watch games on TV (well, not FULL games...the fan in me demanded I at least watched bits n pieces of the wreckage), nor buy gear to support the team.

 

But the interest and allegiance to my team was always there.

And a guy like @JR Ewing can certainly speak of pain of not winning with his Oilers in the years prior to last year.

Kudos to him for continuing to stick by his team....on horrible year after the other. And now he will be rewarded, it appears, with the McDavid era.

 

As for the Canucks not winning...sure disappointing. And I get hockey is viewed with a degree of seriousness not quite seen in the US (well, mostly) when it comes to winning and losing, but still, the Canucks had some good runs, iced some good (if not irritating) teams who certainly had the ingredients to win a championship, but just ran into either a team of destiny in New York (and that Ranger team I remember vaguely was damned good too) or a better, more playoff built team in the Boston Bruins with their tough, defensive, grinding, opportunistic scoring style.

 

And now the Canucks are terrible, will likely BE terrible for the foreseeable and it is easy to dump, criticize and even quit on them.....but I would have thought that was for bandwagon fans to do that.

The true diehard would stick by them.....for better or worse, no?

 

Again, just my opinion, and the OP certainly has the right to choose his NHL horse as he sees fit.

[JR Ewing]

For most of the last 25 years, there have been times where I swear the Edmonton Oilers were purposely trying to make me cheer for another team. They lost a lot a lot, but it the circus off the ice that frustrated more than anything. From being so poor that they had to disband their AHL team, to the fact that they only started to even so much as scout the World Junior Tournament within the last 10 years, they were the flagship of how now to run a hockey team.

 

I did get to cheer for a dynasty, and I did get to cheer for the likes of Gretzky and Messier and Coffey and so on, so I can get it if perhaps disgruntled fan of another team tells me that I could never understand. Maybe I can't.

 

In the end, I couldn't bear to switch allegiances. I cheer for my team no matter what.

 

[Honest Bender]

as posted before, I didn't "Give Up" on the Flyers, I just gradually gravitated away from them as I fell in love with the Predators. But i've also never followed a franchise that was consistently inept the way the Canucks have been (with few exceptions)

 

Everyone experiences their fandom in different ways, I know if I lived in the area right now I'd be excited about the Golden Knights starting up. Good on OP for supporting the new home team, I hope they fill their arena every night and prove to be a successful franchise in a non-traditional market.