Morning Skate: Poking fun at southern NHL crowd sizes is a waste of time

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Lace 'em up. Time for the Morning Skate.

I have some bad news.

Yes, it's for you, Canada.

I know you enjoy a good attendance tweet. Especially if it's about the size of the crowd at Panthers games. Or when your team visits the Coyotes for the one time a year and you get to poke fun at their crowd size. Never mind that they're a bad team. It must be the fanbase.

It is exhausting.

But kind of understandable. When it's just sports teasing from one fanbase to another, I get it. But when it's something like this, comparing a Hurricanes crowd size to the size of a junior team in Quebec City ... that is just annoying.

Comparing crowd sizes between your dream Canada expansion city and a bad NHL team in a "nontraditional" hockey market won't convince Gary Bettman to bring a team back to Canada. I hate to break it to you, but as long as he's running the show, the NHL will always seek options in new American cities before returning to a former Canadian NHL town.

And if you enjoy hockey and want more people to enjoy it, too, you should get behind that. Root for those seats in Carolina to fill up. Root for the Coyotes to stay in Arizona. Hope Vegas succeeds and Seattle joins the league soon.

Cheer for hockey to thrive no matter where it is. Petty, schoolyard stick-poking at young markets and fanbases is just a waste of everyone's time.

#TIEGATE

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