We'll Never See Anything Like The Patriots Again, Except For Right Now With The Blackhawks
“But in this day and age, with the salary cap, with a league designed for parity what the Patriots have accomplished is by far the greatest achievement in the history of sports. It’s the Roman Empire. The world will never see anything like it again.”–Dave Portnoy
Oh word?
Look, I don’t have any problem with the Patriots. Everyone hates them because they’re great and because of Dave Portnoy, but if you can get beyond that they’re an easy team to like. I don’t understand how anyone can hate Brady, Gronk, and Edelman, or Bruschi, Ty Law, Wilfork, McGinest, and Troy Brown. Great players who do things the right way. Real recognize real I guess so I don’t want to get in a shouting match about which dynasty is better. I definitely don’t want get in a shouting match with a guy that lives in an echo chamber. But you can’t just ignore what the Hawks have done in the salary cap era, because it’s actually harder to win in the NHL than the NFL.
The Patriots sustained period of success is unmatched and that 2004 team is one of the best of all-time, but don’t go crying about parity and salary caps. The Patriot dynasty in the early 2000s was able to keep their core largely intact for all three Super Bowls. Brady, Brown, Ty Law, Seymour, McGinest, Matt Light, Bruschi, Faulk, and on and on were kept together for those Championships. What happened when they lost most of those guys because of the Salary Cap? They went on a 10 year championship drought. Yeah they had some great teams and got close, but 10 years is a long time to go without a ring for Dynasty. The Pats rebuild on the fly is impressive, but let’s not act like they went 19-0 or something.
The NHL Salary Cap has basically forced the Blackhawks to be a farm team for the rest of the league. Can you imagine how many more Cups the Blackhawks would have if they weren’t forced to break up their teams multiple times. Sharp, Saad, Oduya, Campbell, Leddy, Byfuglien, Ladd, Frolik, Bolland, Niemi. Those guys are star players on good teams. They were depth guys here in Chicago. Kesler said he wouldn’t fight Ladd because he was a “4th liner”. Ladd gets shipped out to ATL/Winnipeg and he’s their captain and scored 30 goals. If you took all the guys that the Hawks were forced to trade because of the Cap and put them on one team, they’d probably be the 2nd best team in the league. If the Hawks keep that 2010 team together and we are talking about an 8-peat. Instead they we’re forced to strip it down and rebuild and they did. Never missed the playoffs(sup Matt Cassel) and have been in the Conference Finals in 5 of the last 7 years. That’s a higher rate than the Patriots if you’re keeping track at home. Yeah, the Hawks had another fire sale last summer, but the coach of the Canadiens says that’s no big deal.
A few people were saying that luck is a big factor in the NHL. What? You have to win a best of 7 every round. You need to be great for two months and win 16 games in the playoffs to win a championship. It’s a lot easier to win 2 home games and a 3rd at a neutral site. That’s an ignorant argument.
Portnoy said people don’t watch hockey so it doesn’t count or something
Tough talk considering Hawks championship merch in 2013 and 2015 probably paid for a horse or two. That’s fine though. This happens all the time with Emperors. The Patriots are the only team to ever win championships in a salary cap era according to Pres and the army of teenagers regurgitating his every word. Hey did you guys know that Kim Jung Il once shot a 37 with 5 hole-in-ones? Just ask anyone in North Korea.
And yeah, the Pats have been doing it longer, but Toews and Kane are both 27 years old and signed for another 8 years. In the words of the great Puff Daddy we ain’t going nowhere, we aint going nowhere, we can’t be stopped.
PS: The Spurs are pretty good too, but basketball is a different animal. You really only need 3 guys to win a title because your best players are on the floor 90% of the game. Hockey, your best guys play like 35% of the game max.