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Nashville Predators? In the Stanley Cup Finals? | John Smallwood

Nashville has been an NHL city since only the 1998-99 season. Flyers fans deserve better, somehow.

I guess this is the natural offshoot of having teams that are going through decades-long droughts of championships. Less deserving cities get what Philadelphia desperately craves.

On Monday, the Nashville Predators beat the Anaheim Ducks in Game 6 of the NHL Western Conference finals and advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Nashville? Predators?

Nashville, which joined as an expansion team for the 1998-99 season, nearly lost the Predators to Hamilton, Ontario, in 2007.

Can someone please tell me what business a city that came on during the NHL's great March into the South during the 1990s has playing for Lord Stanley's Cup when the Flyers have not hoisted it in more than four decades?

If the Predators win the Stanley Cup, it will mark the 11th time a franchise (New York Islanders, Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, Pittsburgh Penguins, New Jersey Devils, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes and Anaheim Ducks) has won its first title since the Flyers won their last.

Four of those franchises are below the Mason-Dixon Line, and the other came about because of a Disney movie. The Devils had their three championship parades in a parking lot.

Since 1975, the Flyers are 0-6 in the Stanley Cup Finals and Montreal has won six; Edmonton, five; Detroit, the Islanders and Penguins, four; and Chicago and the Devils, three.

Montreal, Edmonton, the Islanders, Detroit and Chicago all beat the Flyers in the Stanley Cup Finals, but at least, except Uniondale on Long Island, they are all good hockey towns.

Flyers fans, who support the Orange and Black regardless of how well the team plays, deserve better than to be reminded of their frustration every June – especially if the champion represents some front-runner hockey city like Anaheim, Dallas, Denver, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, N.C., Tampa or possibly soon Nashville.

Sixers fans also deserve better memories of June, and Eagles fans deserve better come February.

Eagles fans are ranked among the most loyal in the NFL, but the team's last title was in 1960, a wait of 57 years and counting. During that time, 13 franchises (New York Jets, Kansas City, Dallas, Miami, Pittsburgh, Oakland, San Francisco, Denver, Baltimore Ravens, New England, Tampa Bay, New Orleans and Seattle) won their first NFL titles.

During the same span of time, the cities of Green Bay (8), Pittsburgh (6), San Francisco (5), Dallas (5), Boston (5), New York (5 with Jets/Giants combined), Baltimore (3 with Colts/Ravens combined), Denver (3) Washington (3), Miami (2) and Oakland (2) have had multiple NFL championship parades.

The Sixers last won the NBA title in 1983. Since then, Detroit, Chicago, Houston, San Antonio, Miami, Dallas and Cleveland have won their first championships.

The Los Angeles Lakers have won eight; Chicago, six; San Antonio, five; Boston, Detroit and Miami, three each; and Houston, two.

Well, at least there's a reprieve in October/November. It's been less than a decade since the Phillies last won the World Series, in 2008. Oh, yeah, that was just their second World Series title in 131 seasons of Major League Baseball.

The only thing worse than bad karma is being reminded how much you have of it every June, October and February.