Which Hocky Team Should I Root For?

I am gonna lay out the facts for all you Jeff Reporters out there.  I like Hockey.  Always have.  After a statement like that there are two questions that come to mind: (1) if The Jeff Report likes hockey so much, why don’t you post more often about hockey…or at all? (2) What is your favorite hockey team?  These are very good questions, and I will give you a solid answer that covers both questions.  THERE IS NO HOCKEY TEAM IN KANSAS CITY.

It is really hard to follow a sport in which you don’t have a team to root for.  Besides the fact that you don’t have the one team you follow, you don’t have to follow any other teams because they represent no competition for you (i.e. nobody to root AGAINST, which is almost as important in sports as somebody to root for).  Furthermore, the NHL makes it near impossible to be a fan.  The NHL has a tv contract so bad they would probably switch with the Big XII and consider it an upgrade.  There is maybe one game a week on for the entire league and each team has less than 10 games televised each year.  For these reasons I have only been a lukewarm hockey fan in years past, but this is all about to change (with your help).

I am going to leave it up to all of you which team I follow religiously this hockey season and blog upon.  Hopefully, along the way I can drop in some interesting tidbits about hockey and strategy that everyone will find interesting.  Please do not take this decision lightly as I will be buying a hat for the chosen hockey team to show my support, so this decision could end up costing The Jeff Report nearly $30.  Tread lightly and make a good decision.  Without further ado, here are my 3 candidates:

New York Islanders – I have always liked the Islanders.  Even though I generally hate all NY sports teams, something about the Islanders screams underdog to me, and that is something that I like.  It also seems they have done a good job of cultivating talent over the years, both Roberto Luongo and Miroslav Satan have been amongst the best during their careers and both started with the Islanders.  After a big time run in the 1980’s that included 4 straight Stanley Cups, the Islanders were taken back to Earth and have been mediocre or below average since; however, it seems nowadays they are heading towards a window of solid hockey and I could be coming aboard just in time.

Nashville Predators – Up to this point this is the hockey team I followed the most.  As an expansion team the Preds came out competing right out of the gate and went to the playoffs their first 4 years of existence.  Even though I have been "following" them recently, I don't know their players as well as I did the Islanders back in the day.  I started following the Preds for two reasons; (1) they threatened to move to KC until they got a new arena so I was following them in preparation and (2) outside of STL they are the closest team to KC in proximity.  The odds of me seeing a Predators game is higher than others because they are closer and in the same division as the Blues.

San Jose Sharks - This team I don't have a history of following but I like them for three reasons: (1) the mascot Sharks is just plain cool, (2) I've been to San Jose and they really love this team, I can appreciate when a town rally's around their sports team like they do, (3) when the IHL was still in existence the Kansas City Blades were a farm team for the San Jose Sharks, so there is the most legitimate connection to KC that any of the teams have.








So there it is, my three candidates for the team I am going to follow this hockey season (and blog about).  Who's it gonna be?