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Forbes
7 hours ago
- Sport
- Forbes
The Improbability Of Canada's Stanley Cup Drought
The Florida Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers for the second straight year in a row to capture the Stanley Cup on June 17. This marks the sixth Stanley Cup final in a row featuring a hockey team from the Sunshine State. It has been an incredible stretch of hockey at the highest levels for both the Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning. On the other side of the emotional spectrum, Canadians are once again left waiting to bring the Cup back to the birthplace of ice hockey. There was a sense that this might finally be the year Canada broke its long, frustrating drought. Hopes were high going into this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs, as five of seven Canadian NHL teams qualified for the postseason. The last time a Canadian team won the cup was in 1993 when the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Los Angeles Kings. That was also the debut season for the Tampa Bay Lightning and came just one year before the Florida Panthers joined the league. In the time since, teams from Florida have hoisted the Cup five times. For Canadian hockey fans, this is not just another painful moment, it is a gut punch laced with irony. The notion that teams from sun-soaked Florida could be celebrating year after year while Canada remains empty-handed feels almost cruel. And yet, as improbable as it seems, this run of southern dominance is very real. This is where probability theory can offer a new perspective. What are the odds that Canada could go over three decades without a Stanley Cup? How likely is it that two relatively young franchises from a non-traditional hockey market could have this much success? And perhaps most importantly: when, statistically speaking, might Canadian fans finally get to celebrate again? To put a number to Canada's hockey heartbreak, I built a Bayesian model. This is a statistical approach that is designed to capture long-term trends while staying grounded in a fair and interpretable framework. At its core, a Bayesian approach is a way of updating a belief state in light of new evidence. It starts with a prior belief which is an initial estimate of how likely something is to happen. As new data comes in, that belief is updated to form a posterior belief, which becomes a more refined, data-informed estimate. The model begins with a neutral prior belief known as a Beta(1, 1) distribution, which assumes no preconceived belief about whether Canadian teams are more or less likely to win the Stanley Cup in a given season. This assumption that replicates the extreme uncertainty inherent in sports. From there, each season after the NHL-WHL merger becomes a data point. The model looks at whether a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup. If one of them did, that year adds a 'success' to the tally. If not, it's another 'miss.' With each new season, the model refines its estimate of how likely it is that a Canadian team will win in a given year. The beauty of the Bayesian approach is that it balances the weight of history with the possibility of change. What emerges is a dynamic, evolving probability. It is a quantifiable value that captures just how long the Cup has stayed away from Canada, and how likely it is to come home anytime soon. Between 1980 and 1993, Canadian teams were a dominant force in the NHL, capturing eight Stanley Cups in just 14 seasons. The Edmonton Oilers led the charge with five titles during their dynasty years, followed by the Montreal Canadiens with two, and the Calgary Flames with one. At the time, it felt like the Cup belonged to Canada. Heading into the 1993–1994 season and fresh off the Canadiens' most recent Cup win, the Bayesian model, would have estimated about a 60% chance that a team from Canada would win the Cup that year. But as the seasons passed and the Cup stayed south of the border, that probability began to fall. Over time, it gradually leveled off around 20%, aligning closely with what you would expect if every NHL team had an equal shot in a 32-team league. Using this model, the probability that no Canadian team has won a Stanley Cup since 1993 is 0.0000037 or roughly 1 in 300,000. That is roughly the same odds as flipping a fair coin and getting heads 18 times in a row. In a sport defined by randomness and parity, this kind of losing streak is not just heartbreaking. It is statistically absurd. The same Bayesian model that tracks Canada's teams' annual probability to win the Stanley Cup can be used to predict when a Canadian NHL team will win again. In simple terms, the expected wait time is just the inverse of the annual win probability. After updating the model following the 2025 Stanley Cup Final, the estimated probability that a Canadian team wins in any given season is 19%. Flip that number, and the math tells us something hopeful, if not immediate: on average, we can expect a Canadian team to bring home the Cup in about 5.2 years. Of course, this is just an average. Canada could win as soon as next season, or the drought could drag on longer. Canada's Stanley Cup drought is more than just a sporting oddity. It is a statistical anomaly that defies expectation. For a country that lives and breathes hockey, the fact that no Canadian team has lifted the Cup since 1993 feels more like a cosmic joke than a cold streak. The numbers suggest that Canada's fortunes will eventually turn. And when a Canadian captain finally hoists the Cup again, it will not just be a victory for one team. Rather, it will feel like the end of a national exile, long overdue and deeply earned.
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Mike Tauchman's RBI single
Former Canadiens Headlines Denmark Squad For The Olympics When the 12 nations that will take part in the Olympic tournament announced their first six players on Monday, a single Montreal Canadiens player was named: Juraj Slafkovsky with Team Slovakia. That's not to say Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, and Patrik Laine won't be representing their respective countries come February, but they haven't made the cut yet. 2:24 Now Playing Paused Ad Playing
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Perry forever the bridesmaid in ongoing search for second Stanley Cup
Always the bridesmaid, never a multiple Stanley Cup champion. And as far as relationships go, Corey Perry has to have a love-hate one going with the NHL's most prized possession at this point. A veteran of 20 NHL seasons — going back to when the team that drafted him 28th overall in 2003 was still calling itself the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim — Perry tasted victory from Lord Stanley's Mug during his sophomore season in the league back in 2006-07. And he hasn't been without his chances lately when it comes to securing a second. Fast-forward to these playoffs, which saw Perry hit his 40th birthday milestone, and he has reached the Stanley Cup Final for the fifth time in the past six years. Aside from falling in back-to-back finals with the Oilers, Perry was runner-up in 2021-22 with the Tampa Bay Lightning, 2020-21 with the Montreal Canadiens and 2019-20 with the Dallas Stars. That's five Stanley Cup eliminations in a span of six years with four different teams for a player during a span of his career where most are left wishing they could still be playing. 'Yeah, it's devastating. I mean, five of the last six, it doesn't get any easier,' Perry said. 'It just doesn't feel real. 'But you get ready and you move on and you get ready for next season. Hopefully, you have that opportunity to do it again.' Maybe one day, when the dust has settled on his career, Perry will be able to see it as a pretty amazing ride. 'Maybe in 10 years when I look back,' he said. 'Whenever I'm done playing.' But he's not at that point just yet, as he's already turned his attention to next season. 'I just want to win,' said Perry, who was on a one-year, $1.4-million contract. 'Hopefully it's here and hopefully we can figure something out and get something done, because this is a good team and there are some good things ahead.' E-mail: On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge Another season for the Edmonton Oilers, another loss to the champions Change needed: Factors standing in the way of the Oilers winning a Stanley Cup next year
National Post
14 hours ago
- Sport
- National Post
Perry forever the bridesmaid in ongoing search for second Stanley Cup
Article content And as far as relationships go, Corey Perry has to have a love-hate one going with the NHL's most prized possession at this point. Article content Article content A veteran of 20 NHL seasons — going back to when the team that drafted him 28th overall in 2003 was still calling itself the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim — Perry tasted victory from Lord Stanley's Mug during his sophomore season in the league back in 2006-07. Article content Article content And he hasn't been without his chances lately when it comes to securing a second. Article content Fast-forward to these playoffs, which saw Perry hit his 40th birthday milestone, and he has reached the Stanley Cup Final for the fifth time in the past six years. Article content Aside from falling in back-to-back finals with the Oilers, Perry was runner-up in 2021-22 with the Tampa Bay Lightning, 2020-21 with the Montreal Canadiens and 2019-20 with the Dallas Stars. Article content That's five Stanley Cup eliminations in a span of six years with four different teams for a player during a span of his career where most are left wishing they could still be playing. Article content 'Yeah, it's devastating. I mean, five of the last six, it doesn't get any easier,' Perry said. 'It just doesn't feel real. Article content 'But you get ready and you move on and you get ready for next season. Hopefully, you have that opportunity to do it again.' Article content Article content 'Maybe in 10 years when I look back,' he said. 'Whenever I'm done playing.' Article content Article content But he's not at that point just yet, as he's already turned his attention to next season. Article content 'I just want to win,' said Perry, who was on a one-year, $1.4-million contract. 'Hopefully it's here and hopefully we can figure something out and get something done, because this is a good team and there are some good things ahead.' Article content
National Post
16 hours ago
- Sport
- National Post
Stanley Cup is no stranger to damage or rough and tumble adventures
The Florida Panthers are hardly the first team to play rough with the Stanley Cup. Article content A team fights that long and that hard to win it, you deserve a chance to celebrate and though it's made of malleable material (a silver-nickel alloy that can usually be re-shaped) its custodians prefer it be returned in one piece. Article content Article content Donated by Lord Stanley of Preston in 1888, some of our favourite tales of when the Cup was runneth over: Article content Article content The 6,400 kilometres the Dawson City Nuggets travelled from the Yukon to Ottawa to challenge for the title in January of 1905 was Cup-worthy in itself, though the Ottawa Silver Seven blew out the weary travelers in a best-of-three series. Article content After a 23-2 one-sided clincher, the gracious Seven held a banquet for the visitors, with the victorious Bytowners later staggering into the street with their prize. Bets were placed whether one of them could boot the bowl across the Rideau Canal — thankfully frozen over at that time of year — but when it only landed halfway, none of the merrymakers thought to retrieve it. Article content Next morning, a player was grateful to find it still there. Article content Article content In 1924, the Cup was abandoned again. Article content The winning Montreal Canadiens went off to owner Leo Dandurand's home, but the car carrying the trophy had a flat tire. After getting out to fix it, they forgot they had put the trophy at the side of the road. Article content Twice the Cup has been allegedly burned, once when the 1940 champion New York Rangers ceremoniously set fire to the paid-off mortgage of original Madison Square Garden and during one of Toronto's championships in the '60s during a team bonfire party. Article content THE TOOTH HURTS Article content Article content It has been established that the bowl can hold 14 bottles of beer. Article content But in 1957, Habs legend Maurice 'Rocket' Richard chipped both of his front teeth while taking an enthusiastic swig. Article content Other players have been at a loss for words when asked to describe the taste of beer, champagne and alloy after it's constantly refilled. Article content A Montreal fan didn't take it well when his team failed to win the Cup in 1962. Article content As it sat in a glass case in the lobby of old Chicago Stadium during the '62 playoffs, won the previous year by the Blackhawks, Ken Kilander deftly opened the door, put the Cup on his shoulder and was marching out when arrested. Article content He later told the judge: 'Your Honour, I was simply bringing the Cup back to Montreal where it belongs.'
