Offseason means no games to be mad about so let's manufacture some rage the healthy way: ranking who we actually hate and why.
My board, and I'll defend every slot:
1. Colorado. Not close. Not negotiable. The single most genuine blood feud this franchise has ever had and the wound from a certain hit never fully closed. I don't care that the rivalry cooled when we moved conferences. Hate doesn't expire.
2. Chicago. The Original Six hate, the divisional grind, the obnoxious fans. Honest, traditional loathing.
3. Toronto. More annoying than hateable but the fanbase earns a spot through sheer volume.
4. Pittsburgh. 2008 and 2009 made it personal even if it's not historic.
Tell me where I'm wrong. And don't you dare leave Colorado off the top.
COLORADO AT ONE IS THE ONLY CORRECT ANSWER AND ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE WASN'T ALIVE FOR IT. what they did to Vladdy, the cheap shots, the whole bitter beautiful war of the late 90s. that's not a rivalry that's a generational grudge passed down like a family bible. i taught my kids to dislike that color of burgundy before they could skate. number one forever.
Colorado is correct and I'll add the context the young folks need. That rivalry had everything: a cheap hit on Kozlov, the Lemieux hit on Draper that started it, Vernon and Roy going at it, McCarty's revenge, the brawls, two of the best teams of their generation hating each other with real venom for a Cup. It wasn't manufactured for tv. It was genuine. Nobody under 30 has seen a rivalry that real and I'm sorry for them, because hate that pure is a kind of gift.
colorado one, everything else is a distant pack. but i'll fight you on toronto being above pittsburgh. the leafs are background noise, an annoying little brother who hasn't won anything in my entire adult life. pittsburgh actually beat us when it counted. i hate the team that took a cup from us more than the team that just talks loud. move the penguins up.
@GrumpyInGrosse said:i hate the team that took a cup from us more than the team that just talks loud
This is the correct framework actually. Hate should be weighted by damage done, not volume. Toronto has never once cost us anything that mattered. Pittsburgh took a Cup off our home ice in 2009 in a series we should have won. Recency and stakes both argue Pittsburgh at two, not four. Scotty's list overrates noise and underrates injury. Penguins up.
colorado is so number one that even the young fans who never saw it hate them on instinct, it's encoded in our DNA at this point 🧬 but i gotta defend toronto's spot, the leafs fans travel and take over our building and that specific annoyance earns its rank. pittsburgh hate is real but toronto hate is a WEEKLY irritation. different category of hate but valid 😤
Colorado is the only one of these where the hate predates the internet performing it. The Chicago and Toronto stuff is real but a lot of it is fans hyping a rivalry into existence because the divisional schedule throws them at us. Colorado we hated with our whole chest before anyone was farming it for content. That's the difference between a rivalry and a grudge. We have exactly one true grudge and it wears burgundy.
alright the penguins lobby made its case and i'm persuaded to swap them with toronto. damage done over decibels is the right metric, i let recency annoyance cloud it. final board: colorado, chicago, pittsburgh, toronto. and colorado stays carved in stone at the top until the heat death of the universe. good ranking session everybody, i feel appropriately enraged for june now.