The Summer Everyone Crashed Out
Something rather interesting happened this NHL off-season: everyone (minus Florida, Carolina, Montreal, and Utah fans) crashed out. I’m sitting there refreshing Twitter every few minutes to get the latest from the insiders, and all I see is everyone, regardless of fanbase (minus the four I listed), just crashing out so hard you’d think every player with a pulse left their team. I have truly never seen this before. Yes, there’s always some crashing out during the off-season, but not to this level, not this widespread. So, what’s going on?
The thing is, most of this crashing out, as implied earlier, is not deserved. The majority of NHL teams are only marginally worse, or in some cases, marginally better. The average NHL team is maybe 2-3 points better or worse than they were last year. At most. There are about three teams that are undeniably worse than they were last year (Toronto, Columbus, Winnipeg). If there’s another team or two that I’ve left out, I apologize. It’s hard keeping up with all the signings and moves. Those are just the teams that stuck out to me as worse. That being said, really not too many are, and for two of those teams (Toronto and Winnipeg), it’s mostly because they lost one star player. Then, there are teams that were looking to improve a lot through free agency…and didn’t, and are crashing out. I think this is also a massive overreaction (looking at you, Detroit fans). But why? Why has such a bad free agency class that mostly left teams about the same as they were, have fans crashing out? It just doesn’t make sense on the surface. If anything, the average fan should feel numb, shrug their shoulders, and go, “meh”, and hope their GM makes a big move in the trade market.
Honestly, I think all this crashing out has nothing to do with sports. I think fans are so surprisingly upset with their teams, and not because of what happened in free agency or trades. It’s happening because of our political situation. Both Canada and America are in obvious material decline. These two nations are collapsing, and everyone knows it. It’s just that since America is the most powerful nation on Earth, and has a leader who likes to put on a show, everyone pays more attention to the United States. But no mistake, Canada has many of the same problems as America, such as homes and apartments being unaffordable, struggling to find a doctor, more and more money going to the military rather than improving the lives of the average citizen, food getting expensive, people are struggling to find jobs, etc. Oh, and their healthcare system is being privatized (or, in the case of America, even more privatized). So, both countries, which are linked together, are falling apart, getting worse and worse to live in, unless you’re rich. Add to that the cruelty of the Trump administration and Trump’s threats to annex Canada, and you have nothing but pure stress for both populations. So, everyone is looking for a way to escape, to have something to enjoy. For many, that’s sports, more specifically, hockey. Guess what wasn’t enjoyable this year? Watching Florida repeat as Champions and the entire free agency class drying up, especially in the last 24 or so hours before free agency opened. So, you’re watching your team, at best, marginally improve. It’s not what you got your hopes up for. It’s not bringing you joy or excitement, and you really, really, need some joy and excitement right now. What does this lead to? Crashing out.
That’s at least what I believe to be going on. I cannot prove it, but as someone who covers both hockey and news, this seems to be a reasonable guess of what’s going on. The thing is, even though sports are political, people still go to sports to get away from politics, or at least, try. You watch sports or play them because they’re enjoyable. So, what if the world around you is crashing down, and sports aren’t enjoyable? It’s going to lead to something like what we’ve seen this past week. The stress is mounting up for real-world issues; it was only a matter of time before it started infecting sports. I believe that stress is being let out as anger towards favorite sports teams, players, etc., at this point, because the stress has to be let out somewhere.
If you found value in this article, please consider paying for a subscription here at Prism Hockey, as subscription money goes to other subscriptions such as DeepL (for translating articles in other languages to cover hockey news around the world) or Google One (necessary for storage for my articles and graphics on social media) to ensure I can continue to cover hockey. If you aren’t able to buy a paid subscription, please consider at least getting a free subscription as all articles are free, and sharing this article. I’d also love to hear your thoughts on this article in the comments below (only paid subscribers can comment) or on social media. I can be found on Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, and Tumblr.