With Barkov in the Finals he could be the first Finnish Captain to lift the Cup. Which got me thinking about what other Captain Nationalities besides Canadian have hoisted Lord Stanley.
I decided to compile a list going back to 1990 and here are the results.
by Kapeter
36 Comments
Russian, Ovi
Slovakian, chara
Swedes, Lindstrom and Landeskog
USA Dustin brown, Derian Hatcher and I can’t think of the third one it’s driving me crazy
I’ve always found this to be a silly thing to pay attention to.
It seems to date back to Don Cherry’s pinheaded takes about ‘euro’s’ and other nonsense xenophobic shit he’d spew.
I spent about 25 minutes rattling my brain trying to think of the third American captain. There isn’t one. It’s one guy twice.
Do Canadians outnumber all other players by a rate of 25-7? I don’t think so. Do they proportionally outnumber captains 25-7? Not sure. If not, it seem like a statistical anomaly that they win more than other countries.
I’d love to hear a reasoning why.
Added: There are 15 Canadian captains CURRENTLY. So, at this moment, the 25-7 number appears to be a statistical anomaly.
https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/captains.html
Lets add finnish (1) to that
It sure is time for a Finnish captain to win the cup.
Does Rantanen count for Finnish if Landeskog puts him on his shoulders
If you wanna win, load up on Canadians.
Quick FYI:
It’s Slovak; not Slovakian. Slovaks that speak English will correct you till kingdom come if you say or write Slovakian in front of them.
TIL Barkov is Finnish
I wonder who the Slovakian was??
Canada-25 literally everyone else- 7
Me Heather m houser
Hey, my team is responsible for the 1 Slovakian on this list!
Tell me again how Canadians don’t win Stanley Cups…
Ok
Throw the Conn Smythe stats now
I was about to write “No, Anže Kopitar is Slovenian.”, but then I remembered he got the captaincy 2 seasons later and that Zdeno Chara is indeed Slovakian
1. Still Canadas sport
2. I think the NHL has a bias (good in my view) that players who are two way, PK, PP players should be wearing the “C”. As a Chicago native, couldn’t imagine Kane wearing the “C” over Captain Serious. Still get angry thinking about Quinville putting Kane on in empty net situations so he can pad his stats, when it basically meant 6-4 in defensive zone. Would be curious to see +/- stats on Canadian “C” versus others.
And how many Canadian teams have won the cup since 1990??? Zero!
All those people who posted about Canada’s Stanley Cup woes are going into hiding now.
Yeah! Take that Obama!
I guess if you want to win the cup you need an American franchise full of Canadian skaters.
Only possible if Canadian is living in America. hahahahahhahahaha. At least Toronto got past the first round for the first time since Al Gore invented ice.
I guess no finn for the win! Canadian all the way babay
Ayyye USA is number 2! Haha
This is suspect. Need to control for how many teams had captains from each nationality, even players from each nationality. What about Conn Smythe? What about alternate captains? The whole “all swedish no finish” thing is very 90’s… Think of the great teams of the past and easily come up with a huge amount of non Canadians who were integral to the win.
Zetterberg, Kopitar, Datsyuk, Tarasenko, Malkin, Ovechkin, Backstrom, Landeskog, Rantanen, Hedberg, Selanne, Chara, … Not to mention the goalies!!! Are we really going to say all those players aren’t winners, massive pieces to the winning puzzles of their day? Pretty lame if you stick to that.
If you go back to 1980 its 35, 3, 2, 1, 1
Potvin, Gretz, McDonald and Gainey
In my mind, Kopitar was the captain on his chip teams.
Surprising
They need to make tkacuck captain
Take away the word ‘Captains’ from this phrase and see those numbers shift! Whoo!
As someone who grew up watching Gretzky be an absolute God on the Oilers, it’s almost become hilarious that no Canadian team has won in 30 years. It seriously is the one of the most unfair things to ever happen in sports. It’s our good buddy Capitalism at it’s absolute finest.
Hockey is like a religion to Canadians. Most Americans don’t even know what hockey is!
Since the Canadians last won the cup in 1993 a team from the state of Florida has won the cup 3 times!! I have, unfortunately, lived in Florida. I can pretty much assure you there are not 5000 Florida born hockey fans living in Florida.
The Carolina Hurricanes, who to me are a recent expansion team, raised the cup in 2006. Don’t quote me on this but I am pretty sure ice making technology was seen as the work of Satan until the mid 80’s in North Carolina. Still, Edmonton fans get to watch Gretzky go to LA and make cartoons and the six people in North Carolina who know what hockey is get to watch The Canes raise the cup.
This is nothing compared to the Coyotes. Ice has never existed anywhere near Phoenix. There aren’t any kids who grow up in Arizona playing hockey. Does this team just exist to give retirees who move to Arizona something to do? I mean they moved to Phoenix from Canada.
I know I am rambling but if you take a step back and look at this it’s insane. I mean we as Americans just straight up stole the world’s premier professional hockey league and turned it into a third rate advertising vehicle. There are Canadian kids who would give their left nut for a NHL team near them, and instead the Florida Panthers exist because the NHL can make slightly more by placing a team around a larger population. It’s wrong. It’s immoral. It’s almost evil.
Interesting!!
TIL Selanne wasn’t the captain when Anaheim won. It was Kariya most of his(Selanne’s) career and Neidemeyer the cup season.
Bettman!!