As Paul points out the league has never played a regular season game prior to the end of the Stanley Cup finals. Regarding Canadian teams going to the finals, I don’t believe it matters. TSN has way to wall coverage of the NHL playoffs on Spoetscentre regardless of who is there. They have a huge crew on the road at every game in the finals and the CFL would get backed up 15 minutes into the show on sportscentre. If they continue to start after the playoffs are over, the opening of the season will continue to lead off sportscentre. Sorry, but that is very important.
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