Magnus

• • Hamilton Tigers*

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.

Lets put a NHL team in Truth or consequences, New Mexico

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.

August preseason games... opening season vs. NFL & NCAAF, playoffs vs. NCAAB... it's just not in the cards.

I don't mind a June Final. Sure it's hockey in June... except it is only the last 2-4x teams remaining to play. Besides, the NHL draft is this month which is great, & FA on July 1.

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.

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/

I don't get why people want balanced schedules with a division structure, it makes divisions entirely meaningless and arbitrary. Might as well not have divisions at all if everyone has an equal schedule. In a divisional structure you should always play your fellow divisional teams more imo.

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.

lol EA logic, Buffalo can hold 2 teams but Miami can't hold one WTF? That's why I haven't played a single Madden since 2010.

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....

They proved hockey belonged in the desert...

...Just don't ask them how or when.

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

You can't expect comprehensive public transportation when you live on the moon.

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.

Charging for parking encourages use of public transit, which benefits everybody.

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:

It's the same way with the mall in downtown Sudbury - and I believe that the mall suffers because of this. Many more shoppers in Sudbury visit the larger mall in the north end of the city because they have free parking.

I understand the bit about paying a fee if you intend to park at the mall but shop somewhere else downtown, in a way, but the problem with downtown Sudbury is that finding parking downtown is a nightmare just about anywhere except for that mall. I usually go downtown by bus when I need to/want to, but the bus system in Sudbury is, well, that's for another discussion entirely...

And don't get me started on hospital parking fees. When you're going to see a potentially dying loved one, how is it fair to be charged a fee every time you have to park your vehicle? All they should do is give you a free parking sticker to hang on your car when you go to the front desk, which would authorize you to be there. If you don't have one because you didn't go in and get it while at the hospital, that should indicate that you are not intending on going into the hospital.

With the Bills constantly at risk of moving out of Buffalo, we want to talk about moving a baseball team INTO Buffalo?

Just for fun...

A second team in the TO market would be better off in Hamilton so it can be in the big market but have its own indentity ala Anaheim.

Stupid question: Is Toronto called TO because it's TOronto or because it's Toronto, Ontario?

Second one. (Toronto. Ontario.)

Guess that kills the Ontario Beavers, then. Sorry, sparky.

Tampa Bay Rays of Orlando?