We pay a lot of money for tickets and have done so for over 10 years. Doubt I would continue to do so if we were perennial losers for the next 10 years.
Seems like it's one of those things where it's easy to say "sure, I'll trade 10 years of suck for 1 cup year!" but actually living those 10 years would make most people disinterested. I don't care how big of a fan you are today I guarantee you that fandom would fade in a 10 year run like that. Of course then you would be 'bandwagon' during the cup run.
Yep- this exactly. We have had this discussion many times on here and it is always a fascinating topic.
It is so easy to say when it is just a hypothetical, but in reality I don't think it is nearly as cut and dried as people make it out to be.
First, when I hear people say- “nothing matters except winning the Cup- without it everything is meaningless”. Do not agree with that. The Blues have gone 50 years without a Cup. The Leafs haven’t been out of the first round since 2004 and haven’t won the cup in 52 years.
The cold hard fact for us Preds fans is this- there is a great likelihood that we will never see the Preds win a Cup- it might not EVER happen. And if that winds up happening, what it the point of being a fan if everything else is meaningless?? I have been a hockey fan for over 30 years and I have never seen my team win a Cup. But there is no way you can tell me that those 30 years meant nothing. The past 3 seasons have given me some of my greatest sports memories in my lifetime.
We still don’t have a Cup, but was that SCF run meaningless? If it truly is win the Cup or nothing else matters, then by that logic we may as well have missed the playoffs that year.
So the Canes win a Cup, and then miss the playoffs 10 straight years. If we made that deal with the devil for the Preds, I don’t think a 10 year run of awfulness would be nearly as easy to take as some people say. We have had it pretty good the past few years as Preds fans, and I think it is easy to forget how miserable it is to lose for even one season. Heck, we just had a division winning season, 100 points, make the playoffs, and yet many Preds fans are looking for the nearest tall building to leap off of. Could those people really handle 10 straight 80 point seasons???
I just think people severely underestimate the regular season and how much it does matter when you are a die-hard fan. Especially when you shell out thousands of dollars for tickets and make great sacrifices just to go to games. Heck, we had a 100 point season this year and even it felt absolutely miserable- imagine several years of 70-80 point seasons. It would be unbearable. The thing about miserable seasons is you are talking almost 7 months of misery almost on a daily basis. When we flamed out in the playoff this year it was 2 weeks of misery. Have a bad season and it is SEVEN months of misery.
Look back at the 117 point season- no, we did not win the Cup that year, but no way anyone can tell me that since we didn’t win the Cup then that season didn’t matter or was meaningless. That was an incredible season that brought every Preds fan a ton of happiness and memories over a 7 month period. You just cannot tell me that doesn’t matter. Same thing for the Cup run season.
And if we did win a Cup and then entered that 10 years of no playoffs, I don’t think it would take long before some fans would be up in arms and all doom and gloom again. Lot harder than it looks to just say “well, we have had 6 straight awful seasons, but it is ok because we won that Cup 7 years ago”. Carolina is a great example of that.
I am sure many of you guys will disagree with this- don’t get me wrong- winning the Cup is and always will be the ultimate goal and is the most important thing. All I am saying is it is not as easy a question as many make it out to be- when you are as invested as a fan as most of us are on here, overall success apart from a Cup win is also extremely important
