Magnus

*fingers crossed*

In consideration of Columbus being forced back into the Western Conference, I would offer them the following caveat: All divisional games could be played at the starting time of their choice - so if they were to go to Chicago or Vegas, they could start the game at 7:30 ET instead of 7 Central or 7 Mountain (8 ET/9 ET).

Your format looks pretty cool and interesting. Oh, speaking of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), I have a curious but well-modified and proposed/suggested schedule format of the OHL so that every team can compete in a perfectly well-balanced way. And since there are 2 equal conferences of 10 teams (with 2 equal divisions of 5 teams each), here goes the following: Schedule Format (72 total games): a.) Conference play; Division play; Each team will play its other division rivals eight times – four home, four away – for a total of 32 Division games (4 * 8 = 32). b.) Conference play; Out-of-Division play: Each team will play the five teams from the other division four times – two home, two away – for a total of 20 Out-of-Division games (5 * 4 = 20). c.) Out-of-Conference play: Each team will play all 10 teams from the other conference twice – one home, one away – for a total of 20 Out-of-Conference games (10 * 2 = 20). Lemme know your opinions and thoughts about this. And hopefully it would be applied for the upcoming future seasons and many more years to come. Hi Jlog3000! I think it is important to note that major junior is a bit of a different beast than the pros. Major junior players are high school and college age. I actually shared high school classes with a couple of former Sudbury Wolves players. (Kevin Beech and Adam McQuaid) What I think we need to understand about the CHL is that many of these players often don't make hockey a paid career, and some have little to fall back on once that career is over. As well as I would like to see their weekly stipend increase (to where they could either afford a full college scholarship or earn a modest living), I would like to see the schedule reduced, personally. Using my model, instead of the 38 divisional games I listed earlier, knock it down to 30 (8+8+7+7), and keep the rest of the schedule at 30 as well, for a total of 60 regular season games. Keep the schedule to 2 or 3 games a week, largely on weekends, as they try to do now, and bump up the ticket prices to compensate if the team owners are really worried about gate revenue.

I have always had a problem with the OHL separating Sudbury from the Soo. I believe that the northern teams should all play together. I also made border crossings less frequent for Erie by removing them from a division with 4 Canadian opponents to the other one with US teams Flint and Saginaw. This chart represents divisional play. In order to minimize road trip distance, 38 divisional games would be played (I know this still screws the Northern Ontario teams, but what alignment wouldn't?), and 30 games would be played out of division - probably 3 road trips of 5 games each and 3 home stands.

Mindless: Valid points, all. It may very well be better to stick with 4 divisions of 8, with an optional crossover if the 5th place team in one division is better than the 4th place team in the other. I only grouped the Canadian teams all together out of curiosity. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if this was made a reality, assuming QC and Vegas enter the league. It would be touted as a great way to keep Canadian teams in the playoffs, while at the same time hindering their chances of winning it all - which would keep Bettman happy, since he only really cares about US TV ratings come playoff time. EDIT: An alternate version of it.

Why does everyone always make their Hamilton teams involve Tigers, Cats, or a combination of words involving "-Cats" at the end? Surely there's something else that's got to do with Hamilton. Hamilton Hammers. That's actually not too bad. My friend and I were joking about sports team names one night and decided that if Hamilton ever got an NHL team they should call them the Hamilton Hockey Players.

no Intercourse, Pennsylvania sounds better. For Satan's Kingdom, Massachusetts we can move the Devils there. What about Hell, Michigan?

Frankly, I'm just glad the CFL is on.

I think that while there is certainly some overlap in terms of sports fans following NFL/NCAA/NCAAB and hockey, there are large swathes of sports fans that are one or the other. Hockey is king in Canada and perhaps among some people in the northern states. If the league focused its attention on where the majority of hockey fans are, it would do better than if it focused on failed markets like Arizona and South Florida. I'll be curious to see what kind of attendance the Cup parade will have in Tampa if they end up winning the Cup. I would wager it will be unspectacular, and not even draw on local news outlets.

Who here thinks that the Stanley Cup Final should be held in a month when Canada still has snow? I do. Can't we shift the NHL season to accommodate this? Start the season in September, for one. Play an average of 16 games a month for 5 1/2 months (Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan) and have the playoffs run from mid-February to mid-April; providing two weeks per round. I know that those players who miss the playoffs or go out early like to hit the golf clubs, and perhaps can't do that when snow is on the ground, but they have money, right? If they really want to golf, they can go somewhere where they can. Now, I realize that a March Stanley Cup Final would go right up against March Madness, but as it stands, the NBA Finals and baseball are also playing, not to mention other things, like the Women's World Cup, Euro qualifying, etc. There's always going to be some competition for sports dollars on the calendar. Thoughts?

Thoughts on the Plymouth Whalers moving to Flint, anyone? As a Wolves supporter (although this season, not so much), I am happy to see the stinking Whalers cease to exist, but I'm wondering if importing a minor hockey team will do any good for a city that needs an economic boost, like Flint.

Not really a realignment more than just a simple adjustment to the playoff format. I was thinking about how MLB's two wildcards in each league face off to eliminate each other in the first round, and applied that to hockey. Plus it would allow Minny to face Winny in the opening round.

Sometimes the devil is in the details. Funny story - when I was in grade school, I had a teacher who was a big Devils fan. According to my best friend, whom I first met in this class, around the time the Devils won the Cup in '95, he and I started to hang out. It has turned into a 20 year friendship. So in a strange way, I have New Jersey to thank for that. In other hockey news: http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/john-tory-toronto-support-two-nhl-teams/

That's a very valid and logical argument. On the reverse side, one could argue in baseball for example, the Blue Jays, who haven't made post season since Bill Clinton still had dark hair, every year have to play about half of their games against only 4 teams, two of them being the high-spending Yankees & Red Sox. Meanwhile a team like Oakland gets cream puffs like the Astros and Mariners (although the M's are up and comers if their 2014 record is any indications). As for as baseball seeding goes, I don't think that really matters much anymore. The top seeds were once again eliminated in the first round of the playoffs this year. I rather liked the balanced schedule used by the A.L. from 1977 - 1993 and the N.L. in 1993 when they too expanded to 14 teams. The Yankees/Red Sox rivalry would be a bit more special I believe if they only met 4 times a year, 3 game series for 3 times and one 4 game series. Seems to me with all the games baseball has, a balanced schedule could certainly work. One disadvantage to that though would be in theory, more travel. But it was great once upon a time too, when the schedules were unbalanced. When there were just 12 NL teams, folks who live near Philly and who are Dodger fans would get to have 6 chances a year to see the Dodgers play. Now with 15 teams per league and so much interleague play and divisional play, the Dodgers (and all other teams outside of the NL East) come to Philly only once a year. I did a little number crunching a while back and it was easy to see that the current slate of 162 games is easily divisible by 3. This means to me that 3-game series can form the basis of a schedule where each team can see each other team in both leagues every couple of seasons, while still playing their divisional rivals more often. Start with a team playing each team in their league 9 times, plus one team from the other 9 times. That's 135 games. For the remaining 27, the team would play the 4 remaining teams in the opposite league rival's division 3 times, as well as 3 games against each team in one of the two other divisions - which would alternate each year. This setup would allow, say, the Cubs to see the White Sox 9 times a year, every year. As far as the postseason goes, I do like the strategy behind the Wild Card Showdown (to eliminate the use of the best starting pitcher on the wild card team that advances), but I also don't think that, given that wild card teams have proven they can go all the way year after year, we need to worry about letting more teams into the postseason. I think that 8 teams per league, as is done in the NBA and NHL, would provide a lot more baseball fans with reason to watch late in the season. You could make the resulting 4 playoff rounds shorter (best-of-5s, 3s, or single-game knockouts), but I think the time has come for this to happen.

I didn't think this question deserved its own thread, so I'll pose it here. Why are the NHL and NBA seasons 82 games? It just seems like such a strange number choice. Is it based on the maximum number of available arena dates or something? Some teams own their own arenas, so you would think that might not be the case. 82 just seems like such a strange number to choose. They could knock one home and road game off the schedule and make it an even 80, which would be ideal for marketing flex-packs of tickets in my opinion. (2, 4, 8, 20, or 40 games, etc.)

I'm not usually pro-Coyotes, but considering that it can actually get close to the freezing mark in the desert once the sun has gone down, if they held it at night, it might work.

Agreed. I guess the developers consider Orchard Park to be a bustling metropolis, or something. I mean, I've visited Ralph Wilson now, and it was a great experience, but given that Los Angeles hasn't had a single team since 1995, there's no way that (even virtually) Buffalo's metro area should be able to get 2 teams.

$7? Something's wrong, there. Wolves tickets are $20, and they're major junior (and not the best team, at that). Although the Wolves kind of have other problems....

Antarctica is a desert. Let's move the team there! I bet their attendance would skyrocket compared to being in Glendale.

Funny you put it that way. It isused to be pretty accurate. Oh, OnWis97 - thanks for the suggestion on the book. It looks like a good read. I found the first 20 pages online.

That would be nice in theory, but Sudbury's public transit system is garbage if you need to go out to or come in from the boonies.

I've never understood having to pay for the "privilege" of parking your car at a place you intend to spend money at. TANGENT WARNING: