As far as the hockey goes, we had to dilute the NHL by expanding with teams from Florida and SoCal, who immediately had to put on a Disney show to attract some fans (where do you think "Mighty Ducks" came from anyway?)..... who never knew what the puck was, so the TV networks invented the blue vapour trail so they could follow it on TV.... thankfully the blue streak died a natural death. One side benefit however was that most of those 'southern' teams have some awesome cheerleading squads, which is what guys like Papa Chuy look at when at the games sipping Canadian beer. No idea what happened or what the score was, but the eye candy keeps them entertained. However, some of that has migrated north.... the ice girls and cheerleaders they have now in Chicago are hawt!!
Go Wings!!