[blueandwhite]

skills on Tuesday night, game on Wednesday night, as we all either go into hockey withdrawal, or we sigh a big one of relief because our team is killing us.
The board of governors meet now and the big thing up for discussion is the how-many-times-the-east-meet-the-west problem.
For eg, leafs play western conference teams only 10 times this season (and I say thank god because vancouver embarrassed us) and play Northeast division teams 8 times each. overkill?
So how that works, is, the leafs play no teams from the Pacific Division and next year, no teams from the Northwest division.
Western teams don't like the travel and the wear and tear on their wellpaid employees, but after some fan polling - they are now willing to listen. They will discuss reducing the divisional play from 8 to 6 games which frees up 8 games and each team from one conference will meet every team in the other conference at least once.
Other topics? bigger nets- give me a break. maybe they should start mass producing smaller goalies.
also, a possibility of creating 4 divisions of 7and 8 teams instead of six 5-team divisions - Atlanta and Columbus could switch conferences if this happens.
And Pittsburgh looks like they'll get an arena in town, but it's not for sure and this puts everything on hold.
Funny note? When Bettman became commissioner of the NHL, Sidney C,rosby was 5 years old.

[Gotham Dark Knight]

Originally Posted by blueandwhite

skills on Tuesday night, game on Wednesday night, as we all either go into hockey withdrawal, or we sigh a big one of relief because our team is killing us.
The board of governors meet now and the big thing up for discussion is the how-many-times-the-east-meet-the-west problem.
For eg, leafs play western conference teams only 10 times this season (and I say thank god because vancouver embarrassed us) and play Northeast division teams 8 times each. overkill?
So how that works, is, the leafs play no teams from the Pacific Division and next year, no teams from the Northwest division.
Western teams don't like the travel and the wear and tear on their wellpaid employees, but after some fan polling - they are now willing to listen. They will discuss reducing the divisional play from 8 to 6 games which frees up 8 games and each team from one conference will meet every team in the other conference at least once.
Other topics? bigger nets- give me a break. maybe they should start mass producing smaller goalies.
also, a possibility of creating 4 divisions of 7and 8 teams instead of six 5-team divisions - Atlanta and Columbus could switch conferences if this happens.
And Pittsburgh looks like they'll get an arena in town, but it's not for sure and this puts everything on hold.
Funny note? When Bettman became commissioner of the NHL, Sidney C,rosby was 5 years old.

I think you put the teams schedule in a big lotto tumbler and pick out team by team...a bad pull would have you play Buffalo and the Wings 15 times a season...a good pull and you can play with the Blues or the Blackhawks ( I would have said Columbus but we are the verge...you got to believe the hye... )

[ThePundit]

I think every team in the West should visit every team in the east and vice versa, at least once. Then go from there. If they have to cut 2 games from the time they play their own division, then so be it. It seems like the Islanders play Pittsburgh, every night. They've already played each other 6 times. That's nuts.

[blueandwhite]

The BOG votes to maintain the current schedule. This sucks.
So next year, the Leafs will meet no team from the Northwest division. This is Vancouver, edmonton and Calgary, along with Colorado and Minnesota.
I hate this. Apparently, Toronto is trying to line up some exhibition games. Too little, thanks.
The vote had 20 teams agreeing to a change, out of 30, which is good enough for a go. but when it came to which schedule to pick, only 18 went for the "reverting to schedule before the lockout", which reduces divisional match-ups at 6 (down from the current .
We see boston, buffalo, Ottawa and montreal 8 times each a year. Too much.
And only 19 teams voted to reduce divisional match-ups to 7 each, which would see 4 extra games being played against western conference teams.
So not enough teams went for it. Is it the whole ":the players will be too exhausted" thing? for crying out loud, they are athletes, they are young, they can handle travel - they are doing it anyway.
This upsets me - not playing three canadian teams at all next season.

[ThePundit]

Gary Bettman was on Mike and the Mad Dog and the reason the schedule change wasn't passed, was because they were doing it on a 3 year rotation, and there was still one year to go. Some teams felt they were getting screwed by changing now. But he implied that this will be the last year of this very unbalanced schedule.

[blueandwhite]

I hope so.

[ThePundit]

WFAN - The Fan -
Here's the interview if you're interested.

[blueandwhite]

Hey thanks for that - i agree re crosby with those guys - the gretzkyization - give me a break, he's 20. Give him a few years first.

[ThePundit]

Mike and the Mad Dog know very little about hockey. Whenever they have a hockey guest on, that's what they usually do, read from a magazine.

It's scary to think that Crosby is only 20.