Hockey

Can't do anything about the export thing... The league drafts players from Canada. Only way to change that would be to sign more undrafted players (an unlikely strategy for winning).

The dysfunction in the Leafs front office (or Ottawa under Melnyk) doesn't change the fact that other teams have a functioning front office. The Jets clearly do. Vancouver and Edmonton had meddling owners, but they're generally doing okay these days. I reject the front office as being the issue, nationally.

These days, you'd expect 3-4 Canadian teams to make the playoffs -- half the teams make the playoffs and there are 7 Canadian teams. And this has more or less been accurate. So, it isn't the problem of competing in the season, or making the playoffs -- it's playoff success.

Since 93, there has been 6-8 Canadian teams, of 26-32 teams -- or about one quarter of the teams. All other things being equal (it wasn't actually equal until the salary cap in 2005), Canadian teams should have won about 7 cups, and made about 14 appearances.

There have been six Canadian teams to make the final, so this is underperforming that expectation, and none of them won. If the finalists were evenly matched (and you would assume so since they made the finals), then coin flips say they should have won three(ish).

And I suspect the media spotlight has a major part in that, because it's the only real major difference. So I'll accept that part of your hypothesis. Pressure to perform.