Duck U: RIV 101 - Rivalry Theory
by Jen Neale on Oct 10, 2011 6:24 PM PDT
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JEN:
In an effort to keep you, the faithful reader, up-to-date on everything Anaheim Ducks, I find myself needing to add one more writer to make our team complete for the season. Let me introduce to you our newest writer, Chris. Chris has been blogging about the Ducks on his own, and I think he's going to be a great addition to our site. Don't believe me? Check out the Duck U story he submitted as a try-out. Without further ado, here's Chris!
CHRIS:
Hello Class, I'm Professor Chris Kober. In this class we'll be discussing what makes an NHL rivalry and a general overview of how that can be applied to the past, present and future of the Anaheim (Mighty) Ducks franchise. If the course is allowed to continue, the rest of the syllabus will consist of breaking down the Ducks' top rivalries.
Before we begin, its important to note that Rivalry Theory is an extremely subjective course, based in opinion and couched in emotion. There are no right or wrong answers per se, only effective and ineffective arguments. Also, the rivalry discussion isn't black and white. To paraphrase Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters 2, we have more than two grades of opponents there aren't just rivals and non-rivals, there are many subtle levels.
Generally speaking there are two types of rivalries. First is the rivalry between the teams on the ice. If the players seem to have feelings ranging from a genuine dislike to hatred for each other there is a foundation for a rivalry.
It isn't the type of hate that existed back in the Original Six days when teams played each other about 857 times per year and nobody ever got traded from one team to another, but when Corey Perry can goad four-time Lady Byng winner Pavel Datsyuk into dropping the gloves there's something there. Sometimes you can just feel the tension on the ice, and other times the tension is in the stands.
The second type is the rivalry among the fans. Trash talk and bragging rights are the main battle fields for this type of rivalry. Think of our good friends over at the Battle of California. Friendly rivalry and one-upsmanship is, for some, what being a fan is all about. This is where you get that feeling of wanting your team to score just so you can shut the opposing fans up. Unfortunately, as Ducks fans we're all too familiar with that feeling at The Pond.
The best rivalries come when player hatred feeds fan distain. The latter type of rivalry can exist on its own, though it will probably be less intense without some snarl between the boards. On the other hand, you'd be hard pressed to find a player on player rivalry that isn't swimming in a pool of fan vitriol.
Within just about every rivalry there is a mixture of these two concepts, whether it's fans hating on each other, on their rivals' players or the rare occasion of players giving it back to opposing fans (See: Andrew Ference). You can like a team's players and despise its fans but more likely than not, abhorrence of the fans will color your view of the team in general. The reverse, hating a player or players while liking their fans, is almost unimaginable.
There isn't really, such a thing as a natural rivalry. Rivalries are built, most effectively in the playoffs. This is why I am of the belief that the Ducks' biggest rival is not LA, as the uninitiated may assume, but Detroit. The concept of a cross town rivalry is fine, there is plenty of animosity in the crowd at Ducks/Kings games but it pretty much stops there and is relatively superficial. The Kings/Ducks rivalry on ice is heating up, as is evidenced by the season ending mini-series last year where even Teemu Selanne ended up in a fight with Brad Richardson, however it's got a ways to go.
The way that the NHL is structured today devalues divisional play and in effect devalues geographic rivalries. The only thing at stake in the regular season among the teams in a division is the division title, and with it a spot in the top three in the conference. However, that isn't even a competition at times. If one team runs away with the division lead, their division "rivals" most important games suddenly become those with the teams on the bubble that they are fighting with for a playoff spot. Maybe, by chance, one of them is in the division but it's not likely that there will be more than that.
This is why next season's realignment is intriguing, especially if it means a possible return to a divisional playoff structure. I can't say that I have any recollection of divisional playoffs in the NHL, and I can see the down side of an easier road to the playoffs (and even the second round) for teams in less competitive divisions. However in terms of building rivalries and creating juicy early round matchups, I salivate at the prospect of divisional playoffs.
Not only would teams be battling within their division to make the playoffs, the teams that do make it would have to play each other to get out of the first round. This limits options of teams that you could play in the first round and therefore means more repeat first round matchups and therefore more intense rivalries within the division.
The way it is now, divisional play is based on an unbalanced schedule. It's quantity over quality. This is why all Ducks fan vs. Kings fan arguments always come down to "We won a Cup!" vs. "At least we aren't named after a kids' movie!" The teams play a lot but it doesn't necessarily mean anything when they do. Making matters worse, the Kings and Ducks don't happen to be good in the same years very often, if ever.
When it comes to Detroit there is a different hurdle to jump in building a rivalry. The two teams have met five times in the playoffs and for now the Wings have the lead 3-2. The problem with having a rivalry against the Red Wings is that everyone does, or at least they think they do. Due to Detroit's success (20 straight playoff seasons 6 finals appearances and 4 Stanley Cups in that span) nobody likes them, but a rivalry has to be mutual. The "they hate us way more than we hate them" thing is not really fun for anyone.
The first 2 playoff series against the Wings were Detroit sweeps, which made game one of the series in 2003 exhilarating for Mighty Ducks fans and Game 4 almost unfathomable. The two more recent series were just epic battles between two great teams. During the playoffs this year, on this very blog, Daniel argued that the Ducks stopped the Red Wings from winning the cup in '03 and '09. I would add that the Ducks were the only reason Detroit didn't win the Cup in 2007 as well. So in theory, the Ducks were one of the main stumbling blocks, if not the main stumbling block standing in the way of Detroit winning three cups in a row and four in five seasons from 2003-2009. Early on the Mighty Ducks were but the buzzing of flies to the Red Wings (another Ghostbusters 2 reference? You Bet!) but now that they've held their ground there is a real rivalry.
The Ducks/Sharks rivalry falls somewhere in between that which the Ducks have with the Kings and Red Wings. San Jose may have our number in the regular season, but we got them when it counted, not to mention in a sore spot for them: the playoffs. The Ducks/Sharks rivalry is on the right track, it just doesn't have the history built up yet that the Ducks have with Detroit.
So, in closing I give you my basic rankings of the Ducks' top four rivals:
1) Detroit
2) San Jose
3) LA
4) Dallas
After that it gets pretty murky. Discuss!
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I don’t really have much to add, this is a solid post right here and really can’t disagree with much. I’ve always felt like the LA rivalry was more about LA hating us than anything. Detroit and San Jose are far more meaningful.
I think it’s a rivalry built on geographical hate. L.A. and Orange County hate each other and the fans try to carry that over to the game.
by Daniel AC on Oct 11, 2011 8:21 AM PDT via mobile up reply actions
I would agree with that but it hasn’t carried over onto the ice much, with the notable exception of that last game of the season last year
by Chris D-5 on Oct 11, 2011 9:34 AM PDT via iPhone app up reply actions
Thanks for the warm welcome, Jen. Looking forward to my rookie season in the big leagues.
by Chris D-5 on Oct 10, 2011 7:50 PM PDT via iPhone app reply actions
Welcome aboard, Chris! :)
GO DUCKS!!!
DUCKSandPUCKS.com; contributor - Anaheim Calling
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During the playoffs this year, on this very blog, Daniel argued that the Ducks stopped the Red Wings from winning the cup in ’03 and ’09.
I’m not sure about 2003, but there are many of us who believe that the 7-game series against the Ducks took far too much out of the Wings physically and cost them the Cup that season. That was a gruelling, punishing series that the Wings survived rather than won.
You make a good point about the “hate them more than they hate you” angle. As a Wing fan, I’m used to other fans having this level of disdain for the Wings that I just can’t muster for 90% of the NHL. However, the Ducks are part of a small group of teams that would probably qualify as true “rivals” in the sense that you’ve discussed here, along with Chicago and Pittsburgh.
Agreed. Playing the Wings at the Joe is terrifying, but I always look forward to it.
"I'm not a lady. I'm a DUCK!" - Connie Moreau, D2: Mighty Ducks
Managing Editor - Anaheim Calling
I would argue that the Wings hatred is right and proper cause Detroit sucks. But our rivalry is based on the frequency of our playoff meetings and their intensity. While no one will ever like Detroit because of their years of dominance, once we go 3 or 4 years without meeting them in the playoffs the rivalry will fade away. Like the old Avalanche v Detroit rivalry that now no one cares about.
The Kings and Sharks however (in that order) are divisional and geographic. LA (and their superiority complex) v OC (and our superiority complex) and NorCal (and their stupid “pop” instead of the correct soda) v SoCal (we steal all their water).
Those rivalries aren’t going anywhere and aren’t dependent on playoff meets. We should always be in the same division/ conference. Until I can sit next to one of those fans without wondering the outcome of giving a grown man an indian burn, I hope those teams finish 29 30 every year. Without any injuries. In order to take all hope away from them. I would have loved it if Kopitar was healthy so they could lose in the first round last year without that sense of what if?
Like the old Avalanche v Detroit rivalry that now no one cares about.
If you watch the Forsberg jersey retirement and the game afterward, I think you might change this statement. The rivalry may no longer be on the ice, but Wings fans still want Colorado blood on the ice every time we meet and the opposite is just as true. If Colorado were to put a decent team on the ice for once, I think that rivalry would heat back up on the ice quite quickly, simply due to the hatred the fans still have for the opposing team.
by Apocalyptic0n3 on Oct 11, 2011 10:08 AM PDT up reply actions
I wasn’t aware there was still animosity but even in your response (don’t know how to do that cool quote thing):
“if Colorado were to put a decent team on the ice for once”
the rivalry still seems dependent on good teams and meeting in the playoffs. I never want Kings and Sharks to have good teams or make it too the playoffs. I want them to make horrible signings and have terrible GMs. I don’t care what the standings are, I want to win every meeting 13-0 and with 2 minutes left on a 5-3 i want our best players out on the ice trying to make it 14-0.
Yes, rivalries are always dependent on good teams taking the ice. But, as I said, this rivalry is as much between the fans as it ever was between the teams. That is one of the key components of a rivalry, in my eyes. Look at, arguably, the greatest rivalry in any sport of all time: Duke-UNC. That rivalry has existed for decades because the fans hate each other. Not because the teams are always competitive (though they generally are) or because there are violent altercations, but because the fans want to rip the throats out of the other fans.
That is how we are towards Avalanche fans and how they are toward us. Hell, Mile High Hockey had a list up in August that detailed their most embarrassing losses of all time. They purposefully ranked some of the losses to the Wings (in particular, the Game 7 ass whooping in 2002 where we ran Roy straight out of the Joe) just to get a response from us (which they did). We bait each other, we annoy each other, we attach each other. Other than the general distaste toward Chris Pronger, especially when he was with the Ducks, I can’t remember ever doing that with Ducks fans like we do with Avs fans and Chicago fans try to do to us (most of their fans haven’t followed hockey long enough to really get anyone to respond to them, though, so it’s a weak attempt)
Writer for Winging It In Motown - Aspiring Interface Designer - Music Enthusiast
by Apocalyptic0n3 on Oct 11, 2011 10:56 AM PDT up reply actions
Woops
They purposefully ranked some of the losses to the Wings lower.
One solitary word can completely change what you are saying. Hate that.
Writer for Winging It In Motown - Aspiring Interface Designer - Music Enthusiast
by Apocalyptic0n3 on Oct 11, 2011 10:57 AM PDT up reply actions
As a Wings fan, I don’t see the Ducks as much of a rivalry. That could very easily be because I was spoiled and hockey for me truly began with the face shattering Lemieux hit on Draper 15 years ago, but I don’t see very much intensity on the ice when we play. Yes, we have had our encounters, but we’ve also had them with St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Chicago, San Jose, Phoenix, and Nashville. You guys likely have similar lists of teams where violence is to be expected. From my point of view, at least since you traded Pronger (who I think the Wings have a personal rivalry with, regardless of team), that has only existed for brief moments in our relationship.
Granted, there are so very few true rivalries in the NHL today (here’s to hoping the conference’less, time-zone division, first round divisional playoffs realignment happens!) that what we have may be near the top of the list, but as someone who still hates the Avalanche with a burning passion nearly 10 years after the accepted end of the rivalry, it leaves a lot to be desired.
Writer for Winging It In Motown - Aspiring Interface Designer - Music Enthusiast
by Apocalyptic0n3 on Oct 11, 2011 10:17 AM PDT reply actions
I would never claim that the Ducks are the Wings biggest rival by any stretch, but from what I can tell from the little interaction that I have with Detroit fans it would seem that we’ve made strides toward being a rival from being a non factor early on in Ducks history.
The Ducks are never going to be able to have a response for the history of the Original Six, 11 Stanley Cups, Gordie Howe etc. etc. etc. But we have our small victories, they all happened to have occured within a five to seven year stretch, which I think has made the competition betweent the teams much more heated.
I guess my point is that we will always hate you more than you hate us but the gap has closed quite a bit since ’03 or so.
I guess my point is that we will always hate you more than you hate us but the gap has closed quite a bit since ’03 or so.
The issue that Wing fans have is that there are so many teams out there that hate the Wings based on their dominance of the last 15 years, so it’s hard to pick one or two out that cause us to have the same hatred as others have for the Wings.
To Apocalyptic0n3’s point above, the Avalanche rivalry is still there, but it’s different in that’s between the fans, not the players, at least not to the extent it was.
I don’t think there are any rivalries in the NHL that are the same as the Wings-Avs of the last ’90s because it was a rivalry built on the huge success of both teams with one major incident thrown in to create bad blood between the players that went beyond trying to beat them in a hockey game.
The Wings-Avs rivalry also wasn’t manufactured like some of them are today (thinking specifically of Caps-Pens here), so that’s what made it so intense. The closest thing they have to that now is Canucks-Blackhawks, but if they don’t meet in the playoffs for a few years, it will fade away.
Personally, I will loathe Ducks for having Chris “Elbows Ahoy” Pronger and Corey Perry on their team, but it’s not a rivalry that will have any staying power if they don’t meet in the playoffs for a while.
I would argue that at least half of the vitriol aimed at the Wings is inspired by the conceitedness of their fanbase in general (think more those upstanding gents at A2Y than the type that’d be debating here) rather than their continued success. Sure, winning all the time can cause others to seeth at moments, but the taunting that come from the fans tends to truly cement hatred in the franchise.
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by Bleys on Oct 11, 2011 3:23 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
I think the rivalry with Detroit goes deep. That Perry-Datsyuk fight on the first game of the season doesn’t happen if there isn’t real hate. More importantly, there’s something purely hegemonic about the rivalry. It’s an original 6 team versus a non-traditional market. It’s everything hockey wants to celebrate against everything it wishes it didn’t have to face (read Disney).
Wings fans might not want to take the rivalry seriously, but when I watch the teams play, I get the sense that the Wings really want to dominate the Ducks. As often as the Wings play nationally televised games, I think I can tell the difference.
It’s an original 6 team versus a non-traditional market. It’s everything hockey wants to celebrate against everything it wishes it didn’t have to face (read Disney).
Is it bad that I lawled at this? I mean, it’s like when a comedian points out something that’s so blatantly obvious and you die laughing because you didn’t notice it all along.
I got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell
That’s just how I’ve always seen it. No one wants to take the Ducks seriously, even after the Cup win. You hear them talk about us on national tv, and even when they say good things about us, we aren’t talked about as an elite franchise, despite our sustained success for most of this decade. Compare that to a Detroit franchise that seems to never do anything wrong.
I'd agree with this
Winning breeds arrogance, and Wing fans have it in spades. Some just wear it a little more openly than others.
As a Wings fan (yes, another one)
I think that I’d rate the Ducks as one of the Wings top rivals right now. I’d say:
1) Penguins
2) Ducks
3) maybe Blackhawks
The Pens for obvious reasons. The Blackhawks rivalry is still kind of one-sided. There were chants of “Detroit Sucks!” at their Stanley Cup parade. So the Wings are clearly in their heads. Whereas Chicago has not beaten the Wings in a playoff series in many years so I have trouble resenting them. They won their cup during a fluke down year for Detroit when injuries wrecked the season and the Red Wings were lucky to even make the playoffs.
But, I agree that tough, seven-game series against the Ducks probably prevented Detroit from winning the Cup in 2009. Also, in the discussion threads at Wings-related blogs there is a lot of disdain for the Ducks’ style of hockey: from the traditionally thug-heavy lineup to Carlyle’s graceless dump and band style. Also, coming in for a lot of criticism is the way the star players conduct themselves on the ice (not Selanne, of course). When the Ducks get behind by a few goals Getzlaf and Perry start to run around taking dumb penalties and trying to injure opposing players. Not something Yzerman or Lidström have ever done.
Also there may be some cultural animosity because there Orange County is the exact antithesis of Detroit. But that may actually be holding back the Ducks from being widely seen by Detroit fans as our main rival. Traditionally, our rivals are old hockey clubs from actual cities like Montréal and Chicago. It feels a little beneath us to take seriously a hockey team from the suburbs that was a spin-off of a Disney movie. Like it would be hard for USC to work up a rivalry with a clown college regardless of how good their football program is.
I think you are right.
At first I scoffed at the idea, but even though there are a lot of teams in the mix as Detroit rivals (Chicago, Pittsburgh, Nashville, St. Louis, Columbus, Colorado, San Jose), Anaheim is definitely one of those games that the Wings have play with a lot of emotion and energy and they treat it like a rivalry game.
To most Wings fans, the rivalries would probably be Chicago or St. Louis because of the divisional matchups. But one integral part of a rivalry is that each team has to have success against each other in the playoffs, and that has happened with Anaheim, not so much with Chicago and St. Louis. That’s what really breeds “hatred” between teams and their fans… aside from the occasional cheap shot.
The stars also seem to take their games higher in this matchup. Getzlaf and Zetterberg always seem to rack up the points and there is always chippy play and a few fights. A common sight in Anaheim, not so common in Detroit. You know emotions are high when there is a fight involving a Wing.
Although it makes sense
I’m not totally sold on the idea that the Ducks’ main rival is Detroit.
It makes sense looking at the stats, and the likelihood of teams winning the cup if not for the other ruining it, but I’ve never found a real hatred for Wings.
I’ve been a fan since the team came into existence when I was a kid so I’ve been through all the pain and misery Detroit has put us through, especially back in 97 when the then-Mighty Ducks had just beaten Phoenix and then got swept by Detroit, yeah it wasn’t too surprising, but when you’re 9 you get real bummed out.
Combine that with a lack of a really big reason to be a rival with LA or San Jose on the ice, and somehow I still rank the rivalries with them higher. That of course is just what my gut tells me.
I LOVE watching the Ducks play the Wings, it brings out so much emotion and action they’re easily some of the most entertaining games to me, regardless of the outcome. But I never feel emotionally drained at the end of the games like I do against LA or San Jose.
Then again it probably all comes down to living in direct contact with Kings and Sharks fans constantly. You know, familiarity breeding contempt and whatnot.
I’d never tell a person that what he “feels” is wrong, I just think that when you look at the things that create a rivalry, heated playoff series, brawls during regular season games, heightened play, you see that more with Ducks-Wings than you do with the Ducks vs. the other teams you’ve mentioned.
I agree that proximity to the fans makes a person want to quiet the shit talkers, but that doesn’t mean the teams hate each other. I’ve seen the Ducks get up for those games, but playing Detroit is just different. Playing for pride and playing for hate are too different things. I sincerely believe that Ducks players hate the Wings and vice versa.
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