Personally , I don ' t think you need an emotional connection to a team to enjoy watching . I grew up in Vancouver and I would say that I was pretty emotionally invested in the Canuck ' s success growing up . In the past few years , management has been making bad decision after bad decision and they are pretty awful to watch . As a result , I have just been enjoying watching the NHL in general . I like watching close games between two really good teams . Every night , I watch the best game of the night I have NHL gamecenter which makes it easy to do this . If the Penguins and Capitals are playing , I ' ll watch that and if that game is a blow out I ' ll switch to another game . I like watching the different styles that teams play and I like watching how different players play the game . I have found that I have become a fan of certain players now more than I am of specific teams even . To make it fun , I try to pick a team to kind of be a fan of in the fall . I know bandwagon fans are looked down upon , but its really fun getting to choose a team whose players that you actually like , instead of being forced to support a mediocre team . Then I support that team through the playoffs and get quasiemotionally invested for that year . I think the emotional connection to hockey comes from watching a team a lot , not necessarily from being in the same city as that team .