St. Louis Blues Likely To Head “Home” After Canada Day Rumor

The St. Louis Blues players are proud to call our city their in season home. On Canada day, they likely learned many will be heading “home”.

The St. Louis Blues players have a history of finding something special about the city they call home during their playing days. That is why so many end up remaining in the area when they are done.

That includes many Canadians, such as Al MacInnis, Jamie Rivers and Bob Plager. Instead of going home when their skates needed no more sharpening, they stayed in their adopted home.

A semi-reversal might happen in the next few weeks. While the current group of Blues definitely feels good about living in St. Louis, many might be heading “home” if/when the NHL resumes.

The Blues have a roster comprised of approximately 67% Canadians. That is if you include all 24 players on the main roster.

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That number has approached 90% or higher if you only include players included in a typical lineup. A team in the heartland of the United States of America is predominantly Canadian, any way you slice it.

So, if/when the league’s playoffs come to pass, those Blues should feel at ease with what they likely heard on Canada Day (July 1 for those who don’t know). While still a rumor right now, the likelihood is that both hub cities will be in Canada.

This is a quick turn of events. For the longest time, the league seemed set on Las Vegas being the host for the Western Conference teams and all the other cities were vying for the other half of the playoff group.

Unfortunately, a recent spike in covid-19 cases seems to have made the NHL too afraid of setbacks or shutdowns if they tried to hold part of the playoffs in Vegas. The NHL was dying to have all those luxury hotels around the Golden Knights’ arena available, but it probably became untenable from a public perception aspect.

That opened up possibilities up north. According to Bob McKenzie, the NHL is now likely to present Edmonton and Toronto as hub cities for player approval.

So, 67% of the Blues roster would essentially be playing at home, sort of. It would be their home country anyway.

The reality is most of the Blues players from Canada hail from Ontario, with a few from Quebec. Colton Parayko is the only one actually from Alberta.

The only other players close to Edmonton, the likely Western Conference home, are Tyler Bozak, Brayden Schenn and Jaden Schwartz, but they’re all from Saskatchewan.

Nevertheless, perhaps playing in their home country will make the Canadian Blues players more comfortable. It’s going to be a weird situation no matter what, but anything that will put them at ease should be seen as a benefit.

Maybe the league will actually push this forward for a vote soon. The longer things go, the more negative rumblings emerge.

Details need to be hammered out sooner rather than later. As of right now, expect all the players to gather in Canada to play for the Stanley Cup.