National Hockey League

The National Hockey League (American translation: NFL) is a form of Canadian street fighting on ice, best known for fighting, the Stanley Cup, fighting, Wayne Gretzky, Trevor Linden, Mark Messier, fighting, Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, the FoxTrax puck, fighting, drunken Canadians, and fighting. Oh, and did I mention fighting? It is regarded by many as the worst-run professional sports league in the world, thanks in part to its decision to completely forget its core business (playing ice hockey) in favor of Commissioner Gary Bettman's favored pastime: being a jackass. Also, fighting commonly occurs during NHL games. Did I mention that? Of course I didn't. Also, despite the beliefs of some stupid Chicagoans, $300 for a standing room only ticket at a Stanley Cup Finals is reasonable. And fighting! I forgot to mention fighting!

Divisional structure

The NHL is divided into two conferences and six divisions. The teams are arranged based on their relative favor with the powers-that-be. For example, Detroit is considered a favored team, so it was placed in the fluffy marshmallow that is the Central (i.e., Middle-of-Nowhere) Division. On the other hand, for icing one of the worst-ever hockey teams, Edmonton is considered an unworthy team, so it gets stiffed with the forest of cacti that is the Northwest Airlines Division. To make things more unbalanced, teams play against their own division a ridiculous number of times. This results in Detroit clinching its division by Christmas, while all five Northwest teams battle in a shootout on the last game of the season just to clinch a playoff berth.

Rookies

Got milk?

Following the regular season, the favored and unworthy teams play for the Stanley Cup. In the playoffs, roughly anything can happen, which has resulted in recent conference finals resembling the results of a coin-flip or d20 roll. This has had the unexpected effect of leaving favored teams playing golf in May while the unworthy teams get multiple cracks at the Cup.

The NHL is trying to resolve this issue by examining legislation that would allow players to leave their teams whenever they want. The NHL hopes this legislation will give favored teams the hint to sign all of the talented players and leave the unworthy teams with all of the stupid ones. This would make it almost impossible for unworthy teams to get past just the first round of the playoffs.

Hockey fans

A typical Detroit fan.

There are many types of fans in the NHL: distressed and delusional Edmonton fans, desperate Toronto fans, drunken Calgary fans, stonedand fucking annoying Vancouver fans, and pissed-off Canadians who think Quebec City and Hamilton should all house NHL teams.

There is also Rob, the only Phoenix fan, and Bob, the man who used to be Nashville's only fan. However, like most hockey fans, Bob was attracted by Canada, so he moved to Toronto, and Nashville is left, once again, with no fans.

Fans in Detroit are often given Stanley Cups in giveaways, largely due to the immense surplus of the trophy. This has disastrous effects on the Stanley Cup industry and results in recessions within Detroit. These usually occur on a bi-weekly basis and are largley ignored by the public.

Expansion

This one is for you, Bettman

2009-2012 Expansion: HOLD IT. Then Fart slowly away.

Despite all of the failed expansion teams, the NHL is considering adding 10 more hockey teams. So, would you like to own a National Hockey League team?

• All you need is $2 billion dollars and a wife, whom everyone is allowed to play with!

• You must choose a color that the rest of the league will hate (not including the mandatory pink!), and you must choose a team name that is offensive to all religious groups.

• City size does not matter, as long as you can afford the bill! Good luck!

• However, the city must be located in a region that does not receive any ice or snow. Otherwise, the team will be fined $100 million for every inch of snow that falls.

• Even attempting to place a team in Canada will make Gary Bettman cry. He will sue you for enough money to create another team in a warm-climate city where nobody has ever heard of hockey.

• The only way to place a team in Canada is to first set it up in Atlanta. Then, after a few years of failure and obscurity, it can be moved to a Canadian city. At this point, it is optional whether to keep the current team name, or rename the team.

• It's worth choosing a logo that people can make fun of, because you can have fun screwing a poor bastard out of as much money as possible to wear the fucking thing.

Better than European hockey

The NHL is better than European hockey because it does not have French players. (The French are simply not big enough to play in North America, and in fact, their only option is to play in Sweden.If you need any proof you should look at Cristobal Huet) Also, the NHL has Morgan Freeman, and it allows fighting, prostitution, and nudity. Unfortunately, the nudity is now regulated: the NHL recently implemented an instigator rule that states fighters must seek permission in triplicate from their opponent and sign legal documents stating they will not sue in the event of an injury before punching them in the face. The highlight of any NHL game is a bench-clearing brawl, in which a typical hockey fight spreads to everyone in the arena, like a vicious (yet entertaining) plague. But recently the NHL decided that was too much fun, and it enforced strict regulations that make it almost impossible to start an entertaining fight. And, to ensure that European players wouldn't get their asses kicked, the bench-clearing brawl was replaced with a shootout following a scoreless overtime period.

Future

In recent years, Gary Bettman has shocked the hockey world by deciding to carry out all his expansion plans in North Korea and shamefully but succesfully turn it into a crazed country, and shortly after was revered by many Koreans for his socialist approaches to the sport, and never came back stateside again. In exchange for Bettman's good riddance absence, former president and Commie extraordinaire Kim Jong-Il has decided to take over as NHL Commissioner as first Asian head of a North American sports league. Fans petitioned him on Facebook in order to help them regain their genuine love of hockey. The only downside is, Jong-Il's favorite team, the To-roon-to Red Stars have ended up winning the Stanley Cup since he took up office on December 21, 2012. Whoever objected to this got a big ass whooping and a free trip to the minors.  

Since then, not only do the NHL teams have to play with each other, they also have to play with those rowdy Russians at the KHL, those douchebags in the NBA and those pansies from the UEFA. Portuguese male stripper Cristiano Ronaldo was the NHL's first signing from the UEFA league, as he got drafted by the Penguins 1st overall in 2020. Sidney Crosby, due to his incessant whining, got sent away to the Real Madrid Hockey Club shortly after upon Commish Jong-Il's request.  

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