(Ed. Note: As the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue, we’re bound to lose some friends along the journey. We’ve asked for these losers, gone but not forgotten, to be eulogized by the people who knew the teams best: The bloggers and fans who hated them the most. Here is Kung Fu Canuck, last year’s Dallas Stars eulogist, fondly recalling the 2016-17 St. Louis Blues.)

(Again, this was not written by us. Also: This is a roast and you will be offended by it, so don’t take it so seriously.)

By Kung Fu Canuck

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to bid farewell to the 2016-17 St. Louis Blues.

The team went tragically before well after their time, falling in six games to the Nashville Predators, who now finally assume the mantle of the NHL’s Most Relevant Flyover Country Team, at least until the Kansas City Scouts are restored to their rightful place.

And yes, I can hear all you Blues fans moaning right now about how you got stuck with the off-brand no-name eulogizer instead of someone cool like the Committed Indian or even someone from Hockey Wilderness.

Well, all I can say is rest assured I asked for the Blues directly.

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Or, you know, indirectly.

Anyway, don’t take it too harshly that all the good bloggers forgot about you guys, it’s just that the Blues really didn’t matter at all this year. Hardly a change from tradition, if I’m being fair, but this year was a special kind of slog. At least in the past, the Blues’ boring, unwatchable style of play led to a team that we all had to worry might accidentally contend for a Stanley Cup – luckily Doug Armstrong put us all at ease by declaring this a wasted transition year and boy did he stick to that promise.

The result was a Blues team that was an afterthought to the Syracuse Crunch – in terms of relevancy, on a scale of 1 to 10, this team would get lost. It was one amazing Russian winger surrounded by a bunch of guys, like a knock-off Washington Capitals except without the likability or winning pedigree.

Maybe that’s fitting way to cap the 50th year of a franchise that was never supposed to be in the NHL in the first place in honour of a city that was only granted a team so that Arthur Wirtz could criminally own two franchises. The Blues have spent their first 50 years in the league graciously living up to these auspicious beginnings, both by achieving absolutely nothing of note outside of tripping Bobby Orr once, and by continuing to be owned by the Blackhawks.

And while Blues fans thankfully don’t have the audacity to copy their awful Cardinal’s brethren and call themselves “The Best Fans in Hockey”, there are only two bright spots in their entire fan base: Tony X, who taught us that hockey is indeed lit, and Jon Hamm, who only became successful because he managed to fulfill the ultimate St. Louis dream of fleeing the city for Los Angeles.

Although I’m probably not giving enough credit to the city of St. Louis —a beautiful and vibrant town that offers people all the thoroughly entrenched racism of the Deep South combined with the soul-crushing boredom of the Midwest. And as long as we’re embracing the history of the Blues here, I can’t think of anything that epitomizes the city of St. Louis better than the fact that the US government once used the city to test biological weapons, because it was the most similar town in the country to a Russian target city.

Mark that down as the only time anyone has ever chosen St. Louis for anything, and also as proof that the US government found a more beneficial use for the city than the NHL ever has.

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