from Michael Traikos of the National Post,

Whoever ends up winning the Stanley Cup, which begins on Saturday between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Dallas Stars, will not have an asterisk attached to their name. Although maybe they should, based on everything they went through and how hard it was to get to this point.

Of course the hardest part is still to come: Convincing Canadians to care about a final played between two southern U.S. teams that don’t have a pre-packaged star player to build a marketing campaign around.

Whether you live in Canada or the U.S., this series won’t be an easy sell.

Hard-core hockey fans will no doubt love this series, which will pit Russia’s Andrei Vasilevskiy against Anton Khudobin, four-time Norris Trophy finalist Victor Hedman against future Norris winner Miro Heiskanen, and the likeable Jon Cooper against the even-more-likeable Rick Bowness. But hard-core hockey fans also probably sat glued to their TV sets watching the six-hour, five-OT marathon between Tampa Bay and Columbus early in the first round.

It’s the casual sports fan whose wandering eyes the NHL should be worried about.

The sporting landscape has never been this crowded, this competitive. The Toronto Blue Jays are in the midst of a playoff run. Unlike last year, the Toronto Raptors are out of the playoffs. But the NBA western final still has Canada’s Jamal Murray up against LeBron James.

more