I have six principles guiding a much-needed, rigorous realignment of NHL teams for the 2009-10 season. They are:
(1) There is widespread support among general managers, owners, players, media, the presidential candidates, and hockey fans to have the Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby rivalry, such as it is, coronated formally in a largely reconstituted Patrick division. In so doing, one of the league’s fiercest set of division rivals would be getting back to hating one another nightly as they should. April’s Washington-Philadelphia seven-gamer offered a powerful reminder of the Patrick’s lasting legacy. This would also right the grievous wrong the league perpetrated on the Capitals a decade ago in removing them from one of sports’ best divisions.
(2) Expansion — to 32 teams — is inevitable. The revenues the league has enjoyed in three successive post-lockout seasons indicate it. My new-look league, initially unbalanced by 16 teams in one conference and 14 in the other, is perfectly structured to accommodate the new arrivals. This inevitable expansion is virtually certain to be located out West, be it in Houston, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Seattle, Portland, or Winnipeg.
(3) Geographic region names for divisions and conferences are for sucks. They are characterless. The NHL had it right pre-Bettman, honoring the game’s builders by affiliating their names with individual divisions, and just as importantly, the league’s gained nothing by vanilla-ing their identity away from it. So Norris, Patrick and Smythe are returned. But in a tip of the hat to the new, the two conferences aren’t rigidly structured by East and West and instead are designated under perhaps the two greatest player names in hockey history: Howe and Orr.
(4) There is something unrivaled in all of professional sports with the cache of the NHL’s Original Six teams, and so those six clubs, housed together for the first time since pre-’67, become the centerpiece of my alignment overhaul.
(5) Forever has Detroit wanted to move to an Eastern time zone conference affiliation, and with this overhaul the Wings will.
(6) A largely balanced schedule is in the best interest of the sport. There would be home and aways with every team in the league, every season. That would mean about 50 games out of your division and about 30 within. The majority of games within conference. This seems about right. Everybody sees Sidney, everybody sees Alex, everybody gets to see every star every season. Out of principle. What has been in place under Bettman has bred numbing repetition and indifference, and indefensible geographic isolation.
Other Benefits. Mercifully, the NASCAR division — since it can’t be uniformly euthanized — is coherently structured with Washington’s removal and Nashville’s addition. A half dozen genuinely hate-based rivalries of today, in a 30-team league, would be doubled or even tripled in this new configuration. The Patrick and Original Six divisions would likely play their division foes to near 100 percent attendance capacity each night, every season. The addition of a team in Las Vegas — a Sin City locale for a league full of sin on every shift — would create instant buzz generally and especially pizzaz within a West-configurated division named after Foster Hewitt.
This realignment would be executed in time for the 2009-10 season, with the Orr and Howe conferences unbalanced in number of teams for a year or two to allow time to expand in two more markets, both of which would join the Howe conference.
We can quibble on the reorienting of one or three specific franchises, but the heart of this matter is getting Sid and Alex and the Atlantic region reconfigured together, Detroit appropriately accommodated to a largely Eastern schedule, inevitable expansion seamlessly slotted in, and the Original Six ascending to a perch known by no other division in the entirety of the professional sports landscape.
| Orr Conference | ||
| Patrick Division | Original Six | Norris Division |
| Washington | Boston | Atlanta |
| New Jersey | Chicago | Carolina |
| NY Islanders | Detroit | Florida |
| Philadelphia | Montreal | Nashville |
| Pittsburgh | NY Rangers | Tampa |
| Toronto | ||
| Howe Conference | ||
| Adams Division | Smythe Division | Hewitt Division |
| Buffalo | Calgary | Anaheim |
| Columbus | Colorado | (Las Vegas) |
| Minnesota | Dallas | Los Angeles |
| Ottawa | Edmonton | Phoenix |
| St. Louis | (Houston) | San Jose |
| Vancouver | ||
32 Comments
All of it sound awesome…except the picky-fan thought of naming a conference after a player whose primary team would be moved to the opposite conference; or, more simply, naming a Howe conference and moving the Wings to the Orr conference.
The O6 in their own division?! Why bother watching any of the others then?
Mule, it’s a glamor divison to be sure, by design, but easy for me to follow at least one other in light of the fact that the world’s two best players would be in the Patrick.
With all do respect, I don’t think the NHL should expand. If anything, I’d say they should contract a few teams (but I know that wont happen, and which teams is a bigger issue). Just because the league is succeeding, doesn’t mean they should expand. This will mean more Jason Doig’s in the league. Really, do we need anymore Jason Doigs in the league? I think the smaller they keep the league the more successful it will be.
But if there is any possible way for realignment without expanding and the Caps move back to the Patrick division, I’m all for it.
Interesting but you would be losing out on a lot of the traditional rivalries. All three NY teams hate playing each other (four if you include NJ).
I would actually like to see the league go back to the two conferences, four divisions model. That would allow one more team to fight for the remaining six spots with only two division winners taking two top spots. Four divisions would also break down to eight teams per division with the addition of two teams.
I don’t know about Seattle, already have two or three CHL teams there and it is fairly close to Vancouver. I could see a team going to Portland.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a 6-division NHL with the O6 division, but I think it may make more sense to move to a 4-division/8-team set-up. And if that happens, I would expect WSH, TB and FLA to move back in with their old Patrick division roommates. Bettman has more of a chance of getting that to pass than a re-aligned 6-division set up.
Only two huge problems with this scenario. First, Buffalo and Ottawa will never agree to go to what is ostensibly the Western Conference. Second, withh Boots perhaps declaring bankruptcy in Nashville and Jim Balssille (sp.) perhaps back in that picture, Nashville may still end up in Hamilton.
I know you already realized this, but with an O6 Division, you would never get the classical Original Six Team Stanley Cup final.
For the most part, I like it. Hovever – expanding in Las Vegas and Houston? Both moves would be foolish and short-sighted. I’ve been to Vegas plenty of times, it’s not a pro sports town.
And Houston? Houston: HELLO?
Some reactions to some excellent reactions: suggesting that Ottawa and Buffalo could nix such a realignment presupposes those organizations to have significant clout. I’ve tallied the post ‘67 Cups won between them and come up with zero. One’s Canadian, one’s most famous son is Tim Russert, both are seriously small markets. MulletMan: I actually think you could get an all O6 finals under such an overhaul — you’d just have to revert to the 1/16 seeding that produced an Isles-Flyers finals a couple of decades back.
I love the idea of realignment and I think you have some good ideas. VT Caps Fan said about avoiding expansion…I think all fans agree that expansion is not necessary and contraction would be better (florida, nashville?) but that is not going to happen. And because of the leagues success recently expansion is likely.
I actually did this a little while ago and had a few differences. Check it out.
http://callingaudibles.blogspot.com/2008/02/high-sticking-23.html
There are some things that need changed in my plan but I think it is similar in nature.
I would like to see Seattle get a hockey team, especially after they lost the Sonics. Then I can move there and watch Vancouver and Seattle build a heated and bloody rivalry. Of course it would be ruined when Howard Schultz buys the team and names them the Seattle Starbucks.
I can appreciate what you’re getting at but I think there are a few problems. One is that the NHL is never going to go back to a format where divisions and conferences are not based on geography because it makes it too difficult for the average fan to follow, especially with every other sport using general “East”, “West”, “North”, “Central”, etc.
The other is that having the original six all in one division isn’t something the league would want. Those teams generally draw very well both at home and on the road, so I think the NHL is going to want to spread them out more.
Honestly, I think the NHL’s current format is fine…even if it means the Capitals are stuck with the lamest division is all of sports (though that should changed with time, as rivalries grow and hockey gets bigger in Carolina, FLA and Atlanta).
I like the idea….It seems like a forgone conclusion that expansion and re-alignment with Las Vegas and Kansas City getting a team sooner than later. So I’d drop Houston and plug in KC.
For travel considerations I’d probably toss Dallas in the Hewitt division and let them be the six team division in that conference…Can’t see the Western Canadian teams happy being in a division with a Texas team.
Interesting ideas, but I agree with dmg that the Original Six can’t and won’t be in their own division.
All I really care to see is the Caps move back into the Atlantic Division and Nashville take our spot in the SE. (Bump Isles to Northeast, Toronto back to the West).
Gary Bettman ripped the heart out of hockey in Washington when he plugged us with fake hockey teams like Tampa, Florida, Carolina, Atlanta. In fact thinking ahout it makes my blood boil. I hate you Gary Bettman. HATE.
I’m interested in what changes you’d make with the postseason. I like the ideas a lot.
By postseason, I meant the points system, and how it would be seeded.
Sorry, but Buffalo and Ottawa doesn’t make any sense in any way shape or form, whether they have a veto or not. Of the sixteen teams you have in the “East” 10 are further west than Ottawa and 8 are further west than Buffalo.
The 10 teams west of Ottawa: Washington, Raleigh, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami, Nashville, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Toronto. Only Washington and Raleigh are further east than Buffalo.
Plus Ottawa is about 4 hours from Toronto and 2 hours from Montreal and right inbetween the two “East” teams.
Ok, I do like the realignment, at least the “Orr Conference.” That’s just beautiful. As a Caps fan since the ’70s, I still can’t bring myself to hate any of the Southeast teams anywhere _near_ as much as Philly or Pittsburgh, incarnations of evil that they are.
The problems are in the “Howe Conference.” The “Adams Division” is a mess, with serious travel time between all those cities. And why not move Vancouver into the “Hewitt” with all the other Pacific-coast teams?
Plus, I’m not sure expansion is inevitable or desirable at this point. But, if it happens, I’d rather Portland/Seattle in the “Hewitt” and Winnipeg in the “Smythe.” Still, we’re probably more likely to get K.C. and Houston or Vegas. Sigh.
Oops. Meant to say “serious travel time and no natural rivalries” about the “Adams.” My bad.
If I’m not mistaken, DC is EAST of Ottawa, right.
Not a bad alignment, but I question your primary reason — the Crosby vs. Ovie rivalry. Aligning divisions around players is short-sighted. By that logic, Pittsburgh and Edmonton would today be in the same division, so people could have watched Gretzky play Lemieux more often.
Mark, there was no single overriding reason for my realignment but rather 5 or 6 pretty compelling ones, I thought I conveyed. But the fact that you have, in all likelihood, Sid and Alex locked up in their present organizations for their careers is not a trivial consideration. Instead I really am enamored with the idea of an O6 division — I can’t think of a single reason for any serious hockey fan not to support it. It opens so many remarkable marketing opportunities, particularly in terms of involving all-time greats for those franchises. I could even see the Rangers taking trains to play Boston, that kind of thing.
Instead of Las Vegas and Houston. Quebec and Baltimore. (you want heated rivalries? put Baltimore and Washington in the same division) And Quebec definatley deserves a team after the nordiques moved to colorado.
Sure, works out great for the Caps, but not so much for Buffalo and Ottawa, who are removed from all their natural rivals. The fact that they don’t have “clout” doesn’t seem to be a good reason to screw them and their fans over. Love the original 6 division, but fact is that those teams all have developed other rivalries (such as Boston-Buffalo and Rangers-Devils) over the last 40 years, so it’s probably best to keep them spread out.
I think going back to 4 divisions instead of 6 makes a lot of sense. Not sure how you’d divide up the schedule though.
“Fash13 wrote:
If I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m not mistaken, DC is EAST of Ottawa, right.”
Ottawa has a longitude of 75 degrees 43′ West
Washington is at 77 degrees 02′ West.
Washington is slightly west of Ottawa. Maybe we should go back to the western conference and re-join LA in a division!
freakin: right you are! Back in the day, the Caps kept company in the Norris division with Pittsburgh, Montreal, Detroit, and LOS ANGELES. So these folks today who’d have you believe it’s an unconscionable consideration to require the vaunted Senators travel out West aren’t fluent with league history. At the end of the day — especially because of expansion — somebody’s Ox has to get gored. Ours did 10 years ago. Time to spread the misery, and I say target one or two small market, non-Cup holders.
More importantly, can we get rid of this asinine overtime loss point? And how about 10 minutes of 4-on-4 for OT? Could two NHL teams possibly play 10 minutes of 4-on-4 and not score?
Bring back the Norris Division (1974-1979), where the Capitals finished as many as 95 points behind the Canadiens and finished in last place except the two seasons when Detroit (!) took that honor. Montreal, LA, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Washington — how random.
This is fun.
As much as I’d like to bury all of the southeastern teams into their own hole of a division, I think the league needs an “anchor” of a team that’s more established in each division. In your “Norris,” maybe Carolina’s Cup win makes them so, as the Caps were in some sense the anchor, the team with the longer history, for the Southeast as it exists today.
I would also favor the 8 team / 4 division approach, with all of the old Patrick teams plus Carolina and TB (seeing them as the most solid Southeast teams other than the Caps) – I think Vogs offered a plan like this sometime a year ago.
Then I would push for intra-division playoff matchups in rounds 1 and 2 – #1 vs. 4 and 2 vs 3. That’s what I really miss, especially after enjoying the Flyers series this season. Its a tired cliche but true – its the playoffs that build rivalries, not times played vs. each other in the regular season.
While I really like the idea, I believe the more progressive, and realistic realignments, will be the ones which minimize travel. With fuel expenses doing nothing but going up, I think the Caps playing Phil/NJ/NY/Boston will mean more trips by train or bus. The airlines tickets are already nearly doubled over last year.
Think about it — but I’ll bet the “energy savings schedules” will be the winners.
With the Original 6 division, you couldn’t have the true Patrick Division back. The most heated rivalry in hockey has to be Rangers Islanders. Then you also lose Rangers vs. Devils, and Rangers vs. Flyers. I do feel bad for Caps fans being stuck in a division with teams that no one even cares about.
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