The real reason Safeway abandoned the Club Card.

Canada Safeway announced this week that it is removing the Safeway Club Card loyalty program. It's the end of an era, Safeway's loyalty rewards program has been out for quite a while, and its departure definitely is not on this list of 2014 trends in loyalty programs!

The big thing to notice though is that this news comes around the same time as Taylor Hall has passed Alex Ovechkin to have more points than any other left-winger in the league (a fitting irony, really).

Which means, if you want to put on your special aluminum conspiracy hat, you can figure out the real reason Safeway abandoned the club card: they were worried next season Taylor Hall would regularly start scoring 5 goals a game.