McCall

Ok other than the geographical fact that an eastern TZ team would have to be in the west, which is an obvious thing stated multiple times, everything else you say is strictly opinion that you acted like is fact. From what I've seen, I think Detroit fans favor going east, an an older team, they should get preference over Nashville and Columbus, who going to the East and pushing Toronto out west makes no sense. Columbus should be the only east team in the west.

Divisions that stretch from Vancouver to St. Louis and the pacific coast to Nashville?

Ok, this same plan seems to keep repeating over and over, the only difference here is Columbus in the East and Detroit in the West.

Well that settles it then. That's all that needs to be known. End of discussion. Sorry, but Columbus has not been around long enough to get any type of preference in the league. If Detroit wants to go to the East, then they should have priority over Columbus. I mean we don't even really know how much longer they'll even be in Columbus.

Thanks for putting my plan into illustration. No but seriously, I think that multiple people have come up with this idea shows that this is a very obvious no brainer plan... Which means they'll screw it somehow.

Same reason this wouldn't work in baseball; who's gonna want to go watch a 15th place team? A number of teams would be out of contention a lot earlier in the season. Divisions allow teams to be competitive, or at least feel like they have a shot, deeper into the season. 7 or 8 team divisions are still kind if high numbered, especially for a 30 team league, but they're still much better than a single 15 team conference/division.

This is a new NHL realignment relative to what they're talking about, according to time zones. Except this one has Phoenix, Columbus and Florida replaced with Houston, Kansas City and Quebec, three locations that many around here seem to mention as possible locations to get a team. With this set-up, the time zone thing actually works out even better. The article on espn.com just said four divisions, two of 7 teams, and two of 8. Not sure if the intention was to keep conferences or just go four divisions, which I think could work for the NHL. I put what the conferences would be, but named them as if they were just divisions: (Western Conference) WEST/Pacific (7): Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vancouver (All 4 Pacific TZ teams and all 3 Mtn TZ teams) CENTRAL (8): St. Louis, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Minnesota, Nashville, Winnipeg (All 8 Ctrl TZ teams) (Eastern Conference) NORTH (7): Boston/Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Detroit, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Toronto EAST/Atlantic (8): Carolina, New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh/Boston, Tampa Bay, Washington In this scenario, only the "West" division would involve multiple time zones, the two most western. Every team in the central time zone fits into the central division. And every eastern time zone team would fit into the Eastern Conference (if there is one), so this actually is a pretty well layed out alignment by time zones. Also, Pittsburgh and Boston are pretty interchangeable. Boston is on the Atlantic which would work in the "East" division in which all the teams are basically on the coast, and Pittsburgh works with relativity to Buffalo, Toronto and even Detroit. But if you look at a map (which I do when planning these and I would advise anyone to look at one to see the geographic structure of a realignment plan), Pittsburgh aross to NYC makes a pretty good seperation line between the Atlantic teams and the northeast teams, so with that I'd probably go Pittsburgh in the East(Atlantic) and Boston in the North.

I see you like my realignment idea I wouldn't be surprised to see the league just drop conferences all together and just be one league with 4 divisions. Hadn't even seen yours. But my is a little different in some areas due to the contracting of 2 teams. I think the 2 divisions per conference scenario really only works with 28 teams. I don't see them going unbalanced with 2 of 7 and 2 of 8. If they're at 30 teams, they'll at least do 6 divisions of 5.

Well according to espn, the NHL is planning on realigning according to time zones after this next season. If they mean splitting the conferences that way, all it would do would guarantee Nashville in the Western Conference, but either Detroit or Columbus into the East. Doesn't solve much, unless they plan to go 14-16, which would allow the west to have 2 divisions of 7 and the east 2 divisions of 8. Don't know if that's what they have in mind. It got me thinking, what if you took the 3 likely possible candidates for relocation, Phoenix, Columbus and Florida (I'm assuming Nashville has leveled off and is currently pretty safe), and contracted 2 of them while relocating the third to Quebec (don't know or care which team would be relocated and which 2 contracted, but for the purpose of this realignment, it doesn't really matter). That would give each conference 14 teams, which would require 2 divisions of 7, probably more appropriate than to mimic the AL and go 5-5-4. So here's how I see it going then: Western Conference Pacific/West: Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vancouver Central: St. Louis, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, Nashville, Winnipeg Eastern Conference North: Buffalo, Boston, Montreal, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, Quebec, Toronto Atlantic/East: Carolina, New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Washington As far as scheduling, the best I could come up with is 4 games against each conference team and 2 against each team in the other conference. Simple, but would only total 80 games. Kind of hard to figure out where to put those 2 games in unless they just add a game to 2 teams in the opposing conference. That would just be odd. So I don't know how others would feel about an 80 game season. I'm not a big NHL fan, so I really have no insight as to what most would want. But this is just something I came up with. Enjoy. Or don't.

Shows how much you know. The St Pete Times Forum was opened in 1996, and is going through new renovations now. The Honda Center was opened in 1990. Also, the Lightnings' new ownership improved the Lightning 12th seed to the Eastern Conference Finals in one season. I think he was talking about when the franchises were handed out in 1993, Tampa Bay had no arena and a much weaker ownership group at the time, not today in 2011. I apologize if I didn't clarify things a little better but McCall is right in what I meant. What did I say?

The most viable markets aside from Charlotte are probably Portland and San Antonio. Then probably Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Norfolk, New Jersey ( yes a 3rd NY team) and some others would be ahead of Omaha, though they're not necessarily top market choices. Pretty much Omaha's only chance would be via relocation, and I just don't see any team picking them over some other cities.

Omaha? Never gonna happen. If MLB were to expand there are a lot more markets ahead of Omaha. People love baseball there. You know, the College World Series. In Nebraska, it's corn husking, wrestling, and then baseball, you know? The CWS is not 81 MLB games. Omaha does not have the market size to support a major league team. Nor the stadium. The new one is in no way equipped for MLB. This is not a Packers situation.

Omaha? Never gonna happen. If MLB were to expand there are a lot more markets ahead of Omaha.

My MLB Realignment: Stay 16-14. Swap Colorado and either Texas or Tampa Bay. NL goes to 4 divisions of 4 (no wild card), AL stays 5-5-4 with one WC. NL West: Arizona, LA Dodgers, San Diego, San Francisco Central: St. Louis, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati, Milwaukee South: Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Tampa Bay or Texas East: NY Mets, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington AL West: Colorado, LA Angels, Oakland, Seattle Central: Chicago Sox, Cleveland, Detroit (or Texas), Kansas City, Minnesota East: Baltimore, Boston, NY Yankees, Tampa Bay (or Detroit), Toronto

And a team's success is not guaranteed, unlike they're geographical location. In a few years the Phillies could suck and Pittsburgh could be winning 100 games. Players change, geography doesn't.

Why is Philly in the Central and Pittsburgh in the East when Pitt is in western PA and Philly is in the east part of the state? And Baltimore should be in the east with Cleveland or Toronto in the central. I'm guessing geography wasn't your strongest subject in school.

I do agree that the NHL overexpanded and that Houston would have been a better destination than Phoenix. Any particular reason you went with Anaheim over Tampa Bay? Or why Winnipeg moved to Houston when Winnipeg should have a team?

There won't be expansion in MiLB unless there's expansion in MLB.

Minnesota would most likely go to the central with Winnipeg to the northwest. Dallas and Corado stay where they are.

And Nashville is more of a cultural fit in the Southeast than Columbus. /What good is ease of travel when your fans don't travel anyway? Meh I've never thought of it being a cultural fit. I've always thought of it as a locational fit. And Columbus clearly fits in better with the rest of the East. /Columbus fits in better with Washington and arguably Raleigh anyways. What's Raleigh like culturally? //Still thinks everyone's thinking of the Southeast Division as including Atlanta as far as Nashville fitting better... Nashville is a geographically southeastern city. Columbus is a northern Midwestern town. Which makes more sense? Plus as shown above, the overall and average mileage shows that Nashville makes more sense in the southeast division than Columbus does. I wouldn't call Nashville a geographically southeastern city any more than I would call Columbus a geographically northeastern city. Columbus is further East than Nashville. Nashville in the Western Conference, Columbus in the Eastern Conference. How is Nashville NOT a southeastern city? It's in Tennessee for crying out loud. The Southeastern US, one of the more populated regions of the country, is always considered to include Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida. Kentucky, Virginia, Arkansas and Louisiana are usually also, but not always included (I personally add them in). Tennesse is ABSOLUTELY a southeastern US city.

And Nashville is more of a cultural fit in the Southeast than Columbus. /What good is ease of travel when your fans don't travel anyway? Meh I've never thought of it being a cultural fit. I've always thought of it as a locational fit. And Columbus clearly fits in better with the rest of the East. /Columbus fits in better with Washington and arguably Raleigh anyways. What's Raleigh like culturally? //Still thinks everyone's thinking of the Southeast Division as including Atlanta as far as Nashville fitting better... Nashville is a geographically southeastern city. Columbus is a northern Midwestern town. Which makes more sense? Plus as shown above, the overall and average mileage shows that Nashville makes more sense in the southeast division than Columbus does.

Leave Columbus in the Central and Pittsburgh in the Atlantic. Move Nashville to the Southeast. That's all that really needs to be done aside from Winnipeg to Northwest and Minnesota to Central.

For the mileage guys out there, if you want to do one I plan on doing but not sure when I'll have the time, take Columbus's mileage to EACH of the other 4 SE division teams, and figure the total combined mileage and average mileage to opponent and then repeat for Nashville. That would better give a picture of who fits better in that division by distances. Like I said, I plan on doing it, but am scheduled to work all day for the next few days so I'm not sure when I'll be able to get to it.

What are the divisions? Or did you mean conferences? And if you did, I think 2 of the conferences take up more than 1 timezone. Western: Edmonton, Calgary, Colorado and Arizona (depending on where they stand with the Daylight Savings Time) are in the Mountain Time Zone while the rest of the conference is in the Pacific. Central: Detroit is in the Eastern TZ while the rest is in the central.

Exactly. If it were Detroit, being an original 6 team, WANTING to switch to the East then I'd understand. I think they could make some concessions for them over 2 teams who have been around less than 15 years. However as was pointed out you have to look at what best aligns each of the divisions involved. Columbus is just fine geographically with the teams in their current division and if you were to add Minnesota. Nashville fits in great with the Southeast (Washington fits better with more northern teams but you gotta get the best alignment possible with the locations you have and unfortunately that puts them into the south).