FanSided has released it’s annual 250 rankings. The St. Louis Blues are much too low overall.
The St. Louis Blues do not get a ton of respect nationally. While there was not a ton of naysayers, outside of our normal rival fans, there were those that called the Blues Stanley Cup win a fluke.
Why that makes sense is anyone’s guess. I suppose anyone that wins one championship and doesn’t repeat is a fluke then, which makes the Chicago Blackhawks a fluke three times. Anyway…
Despite this perception, the league actually holds the Blues in fairly high esteem, considering St. Louis is one of their smaller markets. In the past five years, the Blues have hosted a Winter Classic and an All-Star Game, played in the Hockeyville preseason game twice and driven some of the highest ratings in recent memory for a Stanley Cup Final.
Even with all that, the Blues are still at the mercy of hockey’s overall reputation when it comes to perception around the sports world. For example, our parent company just released its annual FanSided 250, which ranks organizations and individuals based on their fans.
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In terms of the Blues rank within the NHL, they’re actually in a pretty sweet spot. St. Louis ranked eighth out of all NHL teams within the FanSided 250.
Ahead of them were powerhouses like Toronto, Pittsburgh and Boston, as well as Dallas, Washington, Vegas and Tampa Bay. The only one I disagree with is Dallas being at number four, but we will let it slide considering they made the 2020 Stanley Cup Final.
However, the gripe all Blues fans should have is the team’s rank within the overall 250. The Blues fall in at 196. That’s just too low.
Directly ahead of them in this list is the Iowa Hawkeyes. I have nothing against this Big 10, or B1G, school, but they have not done anything.
Their last national championship was in wrestling, back in 2010. They have not won a national title in football since 1958 and not even a conference title since 2004. Their last conference title in anything was for outdoor track and field and also field hockey in 2019.
Iowa is a decent school, but they should not be ahead of the Blues. K-Pop is not my thing at all, so of course that’s too highly ranked in my opinion.
The Milwaukee Brewers at 190? Seriously? Another example of the overvaluation of baseball (sorry Cardinals fans).
Personally, I still enjoy The Walking Dead, but it has gone almost as far off the deep end as Game of Thrones from a fan standpoint. All you see are complaints, but that chimes in at 172.
The Office rolls in at 161 and has not been on the air with new episodes in seven years. The Mandalorian is far too low at 91, but this is not a Star Wars page, so I’ll leave it at that.
I don’t envy the people that put these lists together. They have such a wide variety of criteria to base it on that you know it’s not an easy task.
Maybe the college team stuff shouldn’t bother me. However, when the Blues have over twice the social media interaction and have had more success in their field, it’s hard to understand.
It also highlights how far behind the NHL is compared to just about anything else. Only one hockey team, out of 31 NHL clubs, made the top 50% of this list. Everyone else, including the Blues, is in the bottom half.
In fact, all but three NHL teams are in the bottom third of the FanSided 250. It’s a sad state of affairs that the highest level of pro sports teams in one sport cannot finish higher than someone named Megan Thee Stallion – clearly I don’t keep up with pop music any more.
Such is life.