Re-Alignment

[kabbott50]

Don't be scared or mad...and don't think I'm editing a database, because I suck at those things. I was reading an article today about some re-alignment scenarios and wanted to ask the question that I'm sure has been asked a dozen times, but I couldn't see it...if the NHL were to re-align into four divisions, would that be possible to do in EHM? There would be two eight-team divisions and two seven-team divisions.

One eight-team division would consist of only Pacific and Mountain Time zone teams -- Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, Phoenix, Colorado, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary.

One seven-team divison would consist of all Central Time zone teams and one Eastern team -- Dallas, Nashville, Chicago, St. Louis, Minnesota, Winnipeg and one of Columbus or Detroit

Another seven-team division would include one of Detroit or Columbus plus Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Boston.

The other eight-team division would be the three New York area teams -- Rangers, Islanders and Devils -- plus Philadelphia, Washington, Carolina, Tampa and Florida.

Every team in the new four-division NHL would play every other team in the league in a home-and-home regular season series for a total of 58 games (2 x 29). The remaining 24 games (assuming the 82-game schedule remains intact) would be against only division rivals, so travel would be minimized and geographic and time zone rivalries would be enhanced.

But in order to do that in the regular season, there is no choice but to scrap the 1 vs. 8 and so on Conference playoff format. Because there would be so much empahsis on divisional play, the point totals in one division could not be compared equal to another division, so the playoffs would absolutely have to go back to divisional matchups (1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 3) for the first two rounds of the playoffs.

[Primis]

There have been 32890480945203 different realignment scenarios floated, and almost all of them have exactly 0% of ever happening.

I don't see the eventual realignment (if any) messing up EHM too badly. And even then, the .EXE is basically fair game now... someone will figure it out eventually and modify the hard-coded league alignments.

[archibalduk]

Perhaps one day some limited realignment might be possible. Both Lazion and Hobbit13 have touched upon this possibility but it's still very much in its early stages. Try looking at the following posts:

1) http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... 04#p127504
2) http://www.thebreakaway.net/forums/show ... ost1554064

[batdad]

all that is going to happen. Detroit to East, Winnipeg to west. Will be divisional realinment, and scheduling changes but there will not be 4 divisions. I bet on it. For example...Canucks will not want to play Carolina the same number of times that they would play Chicago (1 at home) under this 4 division stuff.

[Midas]

About as far from settled as it could be.

Detroit has been complaining about it's place in the East for awhile but Chicago's not going to be very happy about substituting their games with them for another team. Columbus has a much better geographical claim to divisional-grief than Detroit does, while Dallas and the Canucks have by far the worst travel schedules in the league. There's also the question of where Detroit would move; certainly not the Southeast. Northeast? Full, no feasible way to split the Atlantic without aggravating a team there. The most sensible relocation in my opinion would be Winnipeg > Northeast, Colorado > Pacific, Dallas > Central, Nashville > Southeast but there's no consensus on what's best.

Give HF a gander for some perspective, it's already 60+ pages into a discussion on the irl topic iirc .

[Primis]

About as far from settled as it could be.

Detroit has been complaining about it's place in the East for awhile but Chicago's not going to be very happy about substituting their games with them for another team. Columbus has a much better geographical claim to divisional-grief than Detroit does, while Dallas and the Canucks have by far the worst travel schedules in the league. There's also the question of where Detroit would move; certainly not the Southeast. Northeast? Full, no feasible way to split the Atlantic without aggravating a team there. The most sensible relocation in my opinion would be Winnipeg > Northeast, Colorado > Pacific, Dallas > Central, Nashville > Southeast but there's no consensus on what's best.

Give HF a gander for some perspective, it's already 60+ pages into a discussion on the irl topic iirc .

DET's gripe isn't so much regular season as it is that come playoff time, they're pretty much guaranteed to play outside their own timezone until they reach the SCF's. And here's the thing: nobody outside of DET will get it because they don't have to experience it. It's rough to be a fan in this type of scenario...

Imagine 2 or 3 rounds in a row even of 10pm or 10:30pm local start times, or occasionally 11pm even. DET fans are HARDCORE come playoff time because we stay up and endure it, and quite frankly I don't think most fanbases would or could. You should see some of local ratings on FS Detroit for those late playoff start times... it's impressive considering the sacrifice. Someone in LA, Dallas, Denver, Chicago... they can't honestly get it because they don't have to experience it. Same for anyone in the East, that don't ever have to leave their timezone unless they reach the SCF. And CBS really is irrelevant to this because they don't ever reach the playoffs and have to endure it.

DET's travel and timezone switching is brutal, but on-ice they haven't cared and won Cups anyways. I think DET is pushing this more for their fans than anything, because DET fans have complained about this loudly for a long time...

[Manimal]

Try being a fan in Europe...
Then you can talk about staying up late

[batdad]

Detroit will move. They have the "power" to make it happen. There can be 10 million discussions about Columbus, Nashville, Dallas...whoever? But Detroit is the one team that has the power to make the league do what it wants. Just does. I know geographically Columbus or Nashville make more sense. But...Detoilet is the one team that has waited and waited and waited. The others are all Johnny come latelies...and they will have to keep waiting.

The problem with realignment is going to be in the future when Phoenix moves to Quebec. Then whoever goes now to the East is going to have to come back to the west!!!

Check out HF Boards? Hah. They can have every 12 year old in the book discuss it all they want. I have a little more connect with real life here. I mean.I am sure they probably have a team on the moon playing in the Western conference somehow, and the conversation at one point probably mentions how Sidney Crosby is hurt, and how he is going to be traded to Saskatoon for Bobby Nystrom and the obligatory 4th.

Reality of the political landscape in the NHL: Philadelphia, Boston, Detoilet, Toronto, NY Rangers, New Jersey, Carolina (yes Carolina...Karmanos wields alot of power), and Montreal...in that order get what they want from the NHL. The only two guys who could stop Detroit from getting what they want...Snider and Jacobs. The rest...Detroit gets what they want. Detroit has been told for a decade they would be the next team (after TO) to move to the East should it be needed. The rest are in a waiting list behind them (however informal it may be)

Four divisions...Could happen. League wants it, but Jacobs and Snider do not. So guess what? No immediate need to worry about how it will affect EHM, since it is not going to happen. Not until we have 2 more expansion teams (Phoenix and Atlanta...heh)

[Midas]

<snip>

I'm not delegitimizing the claim they have to belong in the East, but the reality of the NHL is the Conferences are arbitrary decisions. Yes, you have to stay up late; so does Dallas, and they travel further than any American team in the entire league. And neither you nor batdad addressed any of the points I made about realignment problems; where exactly is Detroit going to go? The Northeast? No, fat-chance you're going to convince teams there to move. The Atlantic? They're all full. The Southeast? That's marginally better than where they are now and while time-zone wise it's going to be easier on them it'll be frustrate the owners of those franchises who already have a hard enough time making the playoffs year-in and year-out, as well as the fans in Detroit who are suddenly going to be seeing Chicago twice a year and Florida six times.

Try selling that!

<snip>

No it doesn't; just repeating it doesn't make it true. Mike Illitch is a rich, powerful and successful owner; but the owners in the Northeast and Atlantic easily make up the largest chunk of the NHL's core owners. He doesn't have some magical sway over the board- he has a very well run team in an otherwise moderately volatile sports market. Toronto, Montreal, the Rangers, Boston, Chicago; they've historically been worse on-ice, but they as much or more money and resources than Detroit does- and there's a serious incentive there to prevent Detroit from moving over. Do you think any of them want Detroit in their division? Competing against their teams year-in and year-out? Yes they were informally promised to get first dibs on a move by the league; Atlanta was also touted as a successful franchise by the same league and Bettman told us relocation plans to Winnipeg were all fabricated by the media. There's no central axis of power in the NHL; Detroit isn't at the top and there's enough collusion and opposition amongst owners that it can't unilaterally just 'get what it wants' because it wills it'.

And again, the question goes unaddressed; where do they move? What division would make any sense to fit them? The only reasonable proposition is going to be the Southeast- and I hardly see that as a substantial improvement from their current situation; especially when Detroit season-ticket holders are suddenly on the hook for selling 6 Florida Panthers or Carolina Hurricanes tickets instead of 6 Chicago Blackhawks or Minnesota Wild tickets.

I get the humor with hfboards and it certainly is overflowing with trolls (I stay far away from the main boards), but even hyperbolically that's just way off from what goes on elsewhere. The convo's in the Business forum not the Trade section, which second to the History forum is the most reputable bit on the site.


Aside from all that, the most reasonable proposals coming out of there is to abolish the conf's altogether and have teams 4 divisions of 8; since 16 teams are in the East, 6 in the Central, 4 in the Mountain and 4 in the Pacific. 1 division of 8 and another of 7 from the East/Central, 1 7 division from the South (East/Central) and 1 8 division from the West (Mountain/Pacific).

[Primis]

I'm not delegitimizing the claim they have to belong in the East, but the reality of the NHL is the Conferences are arbitrary decisions. Yes, you have to stay up late; so does Dallas, and they travel further than any American team in the entire league. And neither you nor batdad addressed any of the points I made about realignment problems; where exactly is Detroit going to go? The Northeast? No, fat-chance you're going to convince teams there to move. The Atlantic? They're all full. The Southeast? That's marginally better than where they are now and while time-zone wise it's going to be easier on them it'll be frustrate the owners of those franchises who already have a hard enough time making the playoffs year-in and year-out, as well as the fans in Detroit who are suddenly going to be seeing Chicago twice a year and Florida six times.

Do you know who the most-powerful owner in the current Southeast Division is? The only owner there with any real power in fact?

Karamanos, Carolina's owner.

Do you know which franchise Karamanos loathes more than any other?

The Red Wings. Goes back to youth hockey programs and when Detroit dumped the relationship with his OHL team that was then playing out of Cobo Hall.

For that reason alone, Detroit will NOT be going to the Southeast, because they'll actually be making even more people upset than now.

Dallas does not have to "stay up late", they do not have to endure 10pm and 10:30 pm start times. They are in the Central timezone. If the travel to St. Louis, MInnesota, Chicago, Nashville, or Winnipeg they are still within their own timezone. Their travel sucks miles-wise, but there is not a scenario where they could be realigned and it would really be any better because they are unfortunately on a geographic island. Move them to the Central division and they still have to fly to Detroit, Chicago, Columbus, St. Louis... and even if you take Detroit out for that and replace with Winnipeg, that's no improvement. Dallas is going to have a sucky schedule until some new relocations/expansion teams present better, closer options.

As for Detroit, I didn't propose anything because it's not my problem. I'm not the one that promised them a move. The league did, so if they did they then are going to have to figure it out. All I stated was the case for WHY Detroit is so keen to move, and the unique challenges Detroit fans have to undertake just to watch their team.

[Midas]

Hah, looks like I won this internet tustle