Its been 46 years since there were no Canadian teams in the NHL playoffs, and while cheering on the Toronto Raptors may help fill the void, Canada is a nation of hockey fans first and foremost.
With no home teams battling for the cherished Stanley Cup, deciding which American team to throw your support behind can be complicated. Is it the team in the coolest city? The one with the best logo? The one your dad was a fan of?
The St. Louis Blues are hoping youll choose the remaining team with the most Canadian players on the roster.
READ MORE:St. Louis Blues winger Scottie Upshall watches from afar as hometown Fort McMurray burns
In a video released on their website last Friday, the Blues urge Canadians to adopt them for the playoffs and list many reasons why, including having 18 players from the Great White North playing for them (Tampa Bay has eight, the Penguins have 11 and San Jose has 13).
WATCH BELOW: St. Louis Blues released this video urging Canadians to adopt them as their playoff team
Other reasons Canadians should adopt the Blues according to the team:
They also highlight that, like Canadians, they are genuinely nice people, which they proved Tuesday when they flew 12-year-old Wyatt Nelson and his visually-impaired father Gerry from Saskatchewan to St. Louis for Game 2 of the Western Conference series.
Wyatt provides play-by-play commentary for his father and when the Blues heard their story, they made them their guests of honour. Wyatt even got to call some of the action on the Blues radio broadcast during a break in the second period.
READ MORE:Saskatoon boy calls play-by-play at NHL playoff game for blind father
To make Canadians feel even more welcome cheering for them, they also promise to perform O Canada ahead of each game even though its not required since no Canadian teams are playing (theyve had difficulties sticking to this promiseunfortunately).
The Blues are currently tied with San Jose 1-1 in the Western Conference finals.
SOUND OFF: Will you cheer for the St. Louis Blues now? Leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.
-with files from Thomas Piller
2016Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
DNCE has teased a new video for the song "Toothbrush" with a 20-second clip that"s getting considerable attention thanks to super model Ashley Graham, who plays frontman Joe Jonas" love interest.
DNCE, Shawn Mendes Join Performers at 2016 Billboard Music Awards
Jonas first previewed the video on Monday with a photo of him and Graham in bed together, then followed up Tuesday (May 17) with the video clip that includes shots of DNCE performing on a rooftop intercut with Jonas and Graham getting romantic in and out of a nice apartment.
DNCE Covers Rihanna"s "Work" With Office Supplies: Watch
Graham has become one of the world"s most recognizable models after becoming the first plus-sizemodel to land a Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit cover while being vocal about the obstacles she and others have faced and continued to face in the industry.
Politically-charged rockers Rage Against The Machine havent performed live since 2011, but that may soon change.
After three decades performing together, Widespread Panic bassist Dave Schools shares memories of playing Red Rock Amphitheatre where they hold the record for sellouts.
One year ago today the JamBase Grateful Dead 50th anniversary cover series Songs Of Their Own debuted with the first of 50 daily video installments.
In honor of Page McConnells 53rd birthday today, heres a look at the Phish keyboardist lending his talents to other bands over the years.
Jam scene favorites Govt Mule will team up with one of their major influences, ZZ Top, for a series of dates in September.
Frank Zappas sons continue to air out their differences in public as Dweezil Zappa has addressed nearly every claim in Ahmet Zappas recent open letter.
The wife of Nigerian President, Mrs. Aisha Buhari has called on well-meaning Nigerians, corporate bodies and international development partners to join forces together in the fight against tuberculosis in Nigeria.
She made the appeal while speaking at the National Tuberculosis Conference in Abuja on Tuesday.
Mrs. Buhari who was represented at the occasion by the wife of the country"s Vice President, Dolapo Osinbajo said the conference came at a time Nigeria needed to pay more attention to issues of tuberculosis as it has become the most dangerous disease in the world.
Nigeria currently has the highest number of tuberculosis cases in Africa and the third highest in the world.
Statistics shows that over 600, 000 become infected with tuberculosis every year in Nigeria.
Nigeria is having one of the lowest detecting rate in the world and she is only detecting just 17 percent of tuberculosis cases.
The wife of the President who lamented that so many Nigerians are dying from the preventable and curable disease, insisted that the government in collaboration with development partners will do all that is needed to change the situation.
Also speaking at the occasion, Prof. Lovett Lawson said since Nigerians were one of the most traveled in the world, defeating tuberculosis in Nigeria will translate to victory globally.
On his part, USAID Mission Director in Nigeria, Mike Harvey said the US has deployed $128million to fight tuberculosis in Nigeria since 2003 which is their biggest investment on the disease.
"In 2015, US government lunched both the 2015 and 2019 global TB strategy as well as national action plan to combat drug resistant tb and in these plans, we identify Nigeria as our priority country", he added.
While calling on more commitment from Nigeria, he lamented that 68 percent of the national tuberculosis project remain unfunded, adding that from the 38 percent that have been funded, only 13 percent came from domestic funding.
Guy Clark would never say it himself but plenty of others would - he was a legend among songwriters, a master craftsman of songs. Clark died today at his home in Nashville after a long illness. He was 74.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LA FREEWAY")
GUY CLARK: (Singing) Pack up all your dishes, make note of all good wishes, goodbye to the landlord for me. That son of a [expletive] has always bored me.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Three years ago, our colleague, Melissa Block, visited Guy Clark at his home. As an appreciation of his life and work, we wanted to hear that story again.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MELISSA BLOCK, BYLINE: If you want to learn how to write a song, one that"s built to last with vivid characters and images that plant you square inside a scene, listen to Guy Clark.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DESPERADOS WAITING FOR A TRAIN")
CLARK: (Singing) Well, he"s a drifter and a driller of oil wells and an old-school man of the world. He taught me how to drive his car when he"s too drunk to. And he"d wink and give me money for the girls.
BLOCK: Songwriters who revere Guy Clark will tell you he crafts songs with the same precision and attention to detail he uses when he builds guitars. But Clark has a simpler, blunter explanation, as he told me with a glint in his eye when I visited him recently at his home in Nashville.
CLARK: No bull [expletive] means no bull [expletive]. (Laughing) You know what I mean?
BLOCK: I"ve been listening to and admiring Guy Clark"s songs for many, many years now, songs that make me feel I know the honky-tonk queen or wino or Texas wildcatter he"s singing about.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DESPERADOS WAITING FOR A TRAIN")
CLARK: (Singing) And I was just a kid that they all called his sidekick. It was like desperados waiting for a train.
BLOCK: "Desperados Waiting for a Train," from Guy Clark"s first album, "Old Number One," which came out in 1975. That record made true believers out of pretty much everybody who heard it, among them Texas songwriter Lyle Lovett, who was in high school at the time. Now, he counts Guy Clark as a close friend.
LYLE LOVETT: In a big way, Guy"s first record helped tell me what a song should be, what a song could be. You know, a song that just - that leaps to mind is "Texas 1947."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TEXAS 1947")
CLARK: (Singing) Being 6 years old, I had seen some trains before, so it"s hard to figure out what I"m at the depot for. Trains are big and black, and smoke and steam, screaming at the wheels.
LOVETT: Immediately, you"re in the middle of a scene with a 6-year-old boy in West Texas, and you know something is happening. And so you"re drawn in immediately, and you"re waiting for that next line.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TEXAS 1947")
CLARK: (Singing) Look out, here she comes, she"s coming. Look out, there she goes, she"s gone, screaming straight through Texas like a mad dog cyclone.
BLOCK: Guy Clark is 71 now - a tall, imposing man with intense blue eyes, his hair gone silver. He smokes hand-rolled cigarettes as we talk. Clark has had health troubles in recent years - he has lymphoma, was treated with chemotherapy a few years back. And he moves slowly now, unsteady on his feet after two knee replacements and leg surgery.
CLARK: It affects your balance just being able to do anything other than walk around with a cane and complain about it. So (laughing) I love that part.
BLOCK: Guy Clark comes from the small, west Texas town of Monahans. He made his name as part of the vibrant Houston folk scene in the late "60s, moved to LA to write songs, then got a songwriting deal and in 1971, headed across the country.
CLARK: Without even thinking about it, I was heading to Nashville - you know, anyplace but LA. And I knew I didn"t want to live in New York, so packed up the VW bus and moved to Nashville.
BLOCK: And he"s been in Nashville ever since. In the "70s, if you were a songwriter, you wanted to be sitting at the kitchen table of Guy Clark and his wife, Susanna. Townes Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, many others, would gather around for guitar pulls - long, boozy nights spent swapping songs.
CLARK: Like Paris in the "20s, you know? The people that were here making music and playing music and hanging out. It was far out, you know? It was the best in the world.
BLOCK: And Guy Clark was at the heart of that scene, the inspiration for lots of younger writers, including Rodney Crowell.
RODNEY CROWELL: I had an audience of one, and that audience of one was Guy Clark. If I could write something cohesive enough, powerful enough, strong enough, true enough that I could play it for Guy and look him in the eye while I"m doing it, then that"s success. If he raised an eyebrow or, better yet, if he said, that"s a good song - well, then you could work off of that for six months running.
EMMYLOU HARRIS: You know, it"s just hard to imagine the world of music without Guy - you know, the world of language without Guy.
BLOCK: This is singer Emmylou Harris.
HARRIS: He really embraces the human condition. There is no judgment in Guy"s songs.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LET HIM ROLL")
CLARK: (Singing) It was white port that put that look in his eye, grown men get when they need to cry. And we sat down on the curb to rest, his head just fell down on his chest.
HARRIS: Everybody is equal. You know that everyone has been on a rough road.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LET HIM ROLL")
CLARK: (Singing) Well, he was elevator man in a cheap hotel in exchange for the rent on a one-room cell. He"s old in years beyond this time thanks to the world and the white port wine.
BLOCK: I"ve seen you say before that when you"re writing, what"s not in the song is as important to you as what"s in the song. I"m not given too much information.
CLARK: Yeah, over the years I"ve learned that less is more. It"s like, don"t clutter up the human condition - or don"t clutter up the English language.
BLOCK: Is it also a matter, if it"s story-song, of leaving gaps in the story, jumping over parts of the story to let the listener do some work?
CLARK: Yeah, well, you want to leave people with the ability to become part of its without every little stitch in your genes being delineated.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LET HIM ROLL")
CLARK: (Singing) Lord, let him roll. Bet he"s gone to Dallas, rest his soul.
BLOCK: How different is songwriting for you now, at age 71, than it was before?
CLARK: Well, I don"t write as much, I guess. But I know it"s still there to be done. I haven"t written my last song for sure, nor my best one.
BLOCK: Well, Guy Clark, thanks for being so generous with your time.
CLARK: Oh, believe me, all I was going to do was take a nap (laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CAPE")
CLARK: (Singing) Now he"s old and gray with a flour sack cape tied all around his head.
SHAPIRO: Guy Clark talking to our colleague, Melissa Block, in 2013. Clark died today in Nashville. Clark died today in Nashville. He was 74.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CAPE")
CLARK: (Singing) All these years the people said, he"s acting like a kid. He did not know he could not fly, so he did. Well, he"s one of those who knows that life is just a leap of faith, so spread your arms and hold your breath and always trust your cape.
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For Ciara"s NFL star fiance Russell Wilson told a room full of graduates his woman is way out of his league as he delivered acommencement speech at the University of Wisconsin on Saturday.
The jolly Seattle Seahawks star delighted the crowd by digging deep into his comedic bag of tricks to deliver a guffaw inducing, yet also inspiring, address.
Out of his league:Russell Wilson told a room full of graduates his fiancee Ciara is out of his league on Saturday
Super Bowl XLVIII champion Russell, 27, said: "If you"re dating a woman that"s way out of your league, ask her to marry you."
The quarterback, who played for the college"s Wisconsin Badgers team, also used his wit to great effect as he implored his learned friends to maximise their talents.
Russell said: "I love singing. Michael Jackson... Im Michael Jacksons Tito. Im Janet Jacksons long lost brother.
"My moonwalk cuts the rug, Dancing Machine, Smooth Criminal This guy.
Strong material: His witty lines had the college staff giggling with glee in the background
Badgering away: Somehow Russell managed to pursuade the RnB star to become his fiancee
"But no matter how badly I want to be a pop star, it would not matter how much self-confidence I had or have or how many hours I spend at the studio.
"Trust me on this. I cannot sing. So the question I asked when life told me no was, what am I capable of?"
"Once you know the answer do not be afraid to let everyone else know it too."
The loved up pair have been dating since early last year, and got engaged in March.
Ciara, 30, spilled the beans last year about how the dedicated pair are keeping the bedroom off limit.
The saucy singer, who posed t*****s for the cover of her latest album Jackie, said: "You go one day at a time and keep [the romance] going with each other. It"s alright."
Gridiron will: The NFL star has managed to resist sleeping with his lady despite her love of racy leather outfits
Her other half sounded far more enthusiastic when he discussed his domestic arrangements with the Dance Like We"re Making Love starlet however.
The ball-t****r told Rock Church: "For me, I knew that G*d had brought me in her life to bless her and for her to bless me.
""We"re not going to be perfect, by any means. But He"s anointed both of us and He"s calling for us to do something special."
Her resolve was surely strengthened last July, as he signed a mammoth $87 million contract extension with the Seattle Seahawks.
Big star: Ciara showing off her massive talents at a show in Chicago back in April
