National Hockey League (NHL)

The fictional version of the **National Hockey League (NHL)** in the You Could Make a Life universe (hereinafter referred to as the "YCMAL NHL" for clarity's sake) is largely based off its real-life counterpart, a professional men's ice hockey league in Canada and the United States, generally said to be the highest level for men's ice hockey in the world.

Some notable differences include:

* The league configuration, with 30 teams (instead of the current 32 for the real NHL), equally divided between 2 conferences, and 3 divisions per conference (instead of 2).
* The playoffs format, which follows the same principle as the real-life NHL from 1998/1999 to 2012/2013.
* The current commissioner and chief executive of the league, while unnamed, is specifically not Gary Bettman. At some point, Castle is the deputy commissioner.

## Retired teams and trivial changes

There were initially to be 32 teams in the YCMAL NHL, including nine in Canada. Those Canadian teams comprised of the seven teams in the real NHL, plus the Quebec Nordiques (for sentimental reasons, pretending they had never folded), and the Saskatchewan Roughriders (as a tribute to the momentary coexistence of the CFL's Ottawa Rough Riders and Saskatchewan Roughriders).

At the time, the following couples of teams existed simultaneously despite being relocations of one another: the Hartford Whalers and the Carolina Hurricanes; the Kansas City Scouts and the New Jersey Devils, the California Golden Seals and the Cleveland Barons; the Colorado Avalanche and the Quebec Nordiques. In addition, the Minnesota Wild were promptly dropped in favour of the Minnesota North Stars and a Dallas team. The possibility of a team in Seattle was also mentioned.

The Dallas team, briefly named the Oh Shits, ended up inheriting the name Wild.

After the number of teams was cut down to 30, the Saskatchewan Roughriders were the first to be retired as the only made-up team. To keep the East-West balance intact, and because the only teams added to the East, the Nordiques and Whalers, were already narratively significant, the Carolina Hurricanes were finally discarded too. The Seattle team was never born.

As a final change, the Nashville Predators and Kansas City Scouts swapped divisions because Nashville is farther away from the Californian teams of the Southwest than Kansas City. The Eastern Conference layout has so far stayed intact, but the names of its divisions did evolve.

## History

This fictional version of the NHL shares the documented history of the actual NHL up until a cut-off point, where it diverges "a little to the left", sometimes during either the late 1950s-60s or 1975-85.

Accordingly, the You Could Make a Life universe has a Gordie Howe hat-trick and a Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy, but it has none of the NHL's (in)famous figures from at least the 1990s on, like Don Cherry (as either a player, coach or broadcaster), Mike Milbury (likewise), Wayne Gretzky, and Mario Lemieux. A fortiori, no current NHL-ers play in the YCMAL NHL.

The same logic applies to the history of the league as a whole. It stays the same for the "Founding" (1917-1942) and "Original Six" (1942-1967) eras, but things start to get muddled with the real-life NHL's expansion stage. For instance, the St Louis Blues, born from that first massive expansion of 1967, do not exist in the YCMAL NHL.

Ignoring all such expansions that do not concern the YCMAL NHL, and assuming that each YCMAL NHL team was born on the same date as their real-life namesake (even if the franchise was only relocated and not truly founded on that date), we can propose a tentative chronology for the inaugural season of each YCMAL NHL team:

* 1917/1918: Montreal Canadiens (founded in 1909), Toronto Maple Leafs (then Toronto Arenas)
* 1924/1925: Boston Bruins
* 1926/1927: Chicago Blackhawks (then Chicago Black Hawks), Detroit Red Wings (then Detroit Cougars), New York Rangers
* 1967/1968: California Golden Seals (then California Seals), Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins
* 1970/1971: Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks
* 1972/1973: New York Islanders
* 1974/1975: Washington Capitals, Kansas City Scouts
* 1977/1978: Cleveland Barons
* 1979/1980: Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets
* 1980/1981: Calgary Flames, New Jersey Devils
* 1991/1992: San Jose Sharks
* 1992/1993: Ottawa Senators, Tampa Bay Lightning
* 1993/1994: Florida Panthers, Dallas Wild
* 1995/1996: Colorado Avalanche
* 1998/1998: Nashville Predators

## Other differences from the real NHL

### Missing teams

As a result of the final recomposition of the YCMAL NHL, there are eight teams from the real-life NHL missing.

* The Arizona Coyotes , the Vegas Golden Knights, and the Seattle Kraken are the only three teams with no equivalent whatsoever, though in the case of Vegas and Seattle, the YCMAL NHL was finalised before the 2017 or 2021 expansion.
* The Carolina Hurricanes were restored to their historical location as the Hartford Whalers.
* The last five teams were replaced by their geographical equivalent: the St Louis Blues were replaced by the Kansas City Scouts, the Columbus Blue Jackets by the Cleveland Barons, the Anaheim Ducks by the California Golden Seals, the Minnesota Wild by the Minnesota North Stars, and the Dallas Stars by the Dallas Wild.

### Lockouts and Olympics

The YCMAL NHL commissioner(s) may have proved just as "expansion-y" as Gary Bettman, but one of the possible benefits of their "less odious" tenure(s) is that there are no lockouts in the YCMAL universe.

Furthermore, YCMAL NHL players were allowed to participate in the 2018 Olympics, and were present or will be present at every Olympics before and after. The 2014 Olympics were originally a major continuity problem for the in-universe NHL since they were not accounted for by You Could Make a Life. Marc and Dan got married during the All-Star break of 2014, when the real NHL forwent the All-Star Games that year to allow for a break for the Sochi Olympics. It was in the end decided that the YCMAL NHL would still hold All-Star Games on Olympic years.

### Out LGBT players

Another major difference is, of course, that there are out players in the YCMAL NHL. The percentage of LGBT players per team was even calculated for a few teams in the universe as it stood in December 2015, and was found to be between 22% (5 players) and 4% (1 player) of the roster. Those stats do need updating to account for the more recent developments of the universe.

This does not preclude homophobia from existing in the YCMAL NHL, but after the widely publicised outing of Dan Riley and coming out of Marc Lapointe in 2011, the league cracked down on homophobic speech and actions to avoid public backlash. Subsequently, and since there is no Burke family, there is no organisation like You Can Play championing gay rights in the YCMAL NHL.

### Playoffs format

The YCMAL NHL's season is structured in the same way as the real NHL, except for playoffs match-ups. Those are decided by regular-season standings within a conference. Eight teams in each conference (sixteen in total) qualify for the playoffs.

In the first round, or conference quater-finals, the teams that win their division are seeded first through third depending on the conference standings. The next five spots are attributed to the other five best teams in the conference. The first seed plays the eighth seed, the second plays the seventh, the third plays the sixth, and the fourth and fifth play each other. For the conference semi-finals, then conference finals, the teams are re-seeded, and opponents are decided following the same guiding principle: the remaining top-ranked team plays the team with the lowest standing possible, and so on.

As such, having a great regular season is (in theory) rewarded throughout the playoffs, by getting not only home-ice advantage, but also (supposedly) easier opponents.

### Various

There is only one outdoor game per season in the YCMAL NHL, the Winter Classic on January 1.

Many of the popular rivalries of the real NHL are still intact, such as the battles of Alberta (Flames-Oilers), Ontario (Leafs-Senators), and Pennsylvania (Flyers-Penguins), but there is an additional bitter rivalry between the two Quebec teams (Canadiens-Nordiques).

The vast majority of NHL Awards are named the same as in the real world, with some exceptions named after people who would not exist in universe, such as the Mark Messier Leadership Award or the Jim Gregory GM of the year.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/162776194656/evan-deep-breaths
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/142853625441/re-asg-olympic-conundrum-you-could-take-it-one
3. ↑ TOTI KS SOTWs Week 117
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/60057900773/as-much-as-i-want-to-know-everything-about-the
5. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/59893963655/are-you-going-to-set-stories-on-all-of-the
6. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/63069217918/dallas-could-be-the-dallas-wild-because-wild-is
7. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/124365784226/i-feel-like-i-should-know-this-but-whats-the
8. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/124000408171/you-mentioned-that-2-franchises-will-falldie
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/142744079796/why-dont-the-carolina-hurricanes-exist-in-the
10. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/129677459251/the-nashville-preds-end-up-in-the-southwest-oo
11. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/129663091536/yeeees-everyone-write-me-stories
12. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/135579539791/same-anon-w-bets-over-where-david-is-ending-up
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/152233256716/what-does-don-cherry-think-of-david-what-does
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/59915248525/so-inbetween-segments-being-posted-my-mind-tends
15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/75464930401/nhl-teams-in-you-could-make-a-life-universe
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/75466925277/polishcrown-said-so-for-those-wondering-the
17. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/60120143728/i-may-also-have-headcannonly-given-re-given
18. ↑ https://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/159365275306/among-the-players-in-your-verse-who-would-raise
19. ↑ You Could Make a Life (chap. XIV & epilogue)
20. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/142817660461/hey-ive-definitely-been-struggling-with-using
21. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/59785813733/were-dan-and-marc-affected-at-all-by-the-sochi
22. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/142848037476/re-the-asg-sochi-olympics-conundrum-i-just
23. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/135616279126/re-lgbtness-of-habs-sens-sens-w-5-22-of
24. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/135616822811/fyi-pt-2-of-the-7-teams-i-calculated-lgbt-for
25. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/135681487646/stats-girl-ive-reconsidered-league-avg
26. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/60462096809/is-there-an-equivalent-to-you-can-play-possibly
27. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/152218734251/does-your-verse-have-outdoor-games
28. ↑ http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/176630385956/question-w-spoilers-about-this-part-under-the
29. ↑ https://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/622459666595741696/do-the-ycmals-nhl-awards-have-the-same-names-as