[NHL] Shorter Regular Season

M

mojotooth

Contributor
Veteran XV
I mentioned this in a previous thread but was unable to find any substantiating news articles until this morning. We were wondering why the owners would agree to it. Well, here you go.

http://cbs.sportsline.com/nhl/story/7290986

Both sides see potential benefits to a shortened season, Daly said. The union thinks fewer games would lead to less fatigue among players and provide for a better product, he said.

The benefit to the NHL would allow more flexibility in scheduling games on more attractive nights, such as weekends, which generally attract more fans. The Buffalo Sabres, for example, sold out 13 games last season, nine of which came on either a weekend night or holiday.
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So it basically reduces the number of games where attendance would probably be sucky. I guess that makes sense. It's going to lower the players' average salary, I would think. However there will be fewer injuries and suspensions would count for more.
 
By the way, I forgot to mention. They're talking about a 72-game schedule that would ELIMINATE cross-conference reguar season play. Basically you would play 8 games against each divisional opponent and 4 against non-divisional, conference opponents. And zero against the other conference.

I don't necessarily like that part.
 
I think it is a really good idea. Although I agree, I'm not nuts about no more cross-conference games. That means here in Buffalo we can never see the Wings, Avs, Stars, Canucks, etc. For teams in the east, that is a big deal. I'd rather they take away some division play and add at least one game against every out of conference team. The home and away could flip-flop each year. Nobody has cared about the divisions since they were named Adams, Patrick, etc anyway.
 
Shorten the season and start it one month earlier.
Have playoffs in Feb/Mar (the dead zone of sports).
They're crazy going head to head with basketball.
 
Oh and the Buffalo sellouts were much more likely due to the fact that we play Canadian teams. Leaf fans basically outnumber Sabre fans when they come into town.
 
It would suck for canadian teams who have big rivals that are cross confrence. Those games bring in alot of revenue for the teams.
 
mojotooth said:
By the way, I forgot to mention. They're talking about a 72-game schedule that would ELIMINATE cross-conference reguar season play. Basically you would play 8 games against each divisional opponent and 4 against non-divisional, conference opponents. And zero against the other conference.

I don't necessarily like that part.
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i dig it....except the 2nd part too cuz sometimes u have a lot tougher teams in your conference...oh wellz...they could try it...maybe do what baseball does now with interleague play vs one division in the other conference?

who knows....but 72 seems like a good idea!
 
i like the idea of shortening the season and getting the playoffs in that sports dead zone. Would probably really help hockey to be the major show in town.
 
I don't think that "shortening" the season really means the playoffs will start earlier though. Remember one of the reasons they're doing it is to get more Friday/Saturday/Sunday games relative to weekday games. If they actually shorten the calendar length of the season they don't reap that benefit. Unless they start the season earlier, which would be fine by me.

One problem with no interconference play is that the style differences between the conferences will really begin to widen. The West has had a tendency to play a more open style than the East ever since the Edmonton teams of the 80s, but it hasn't been an enormous gap because you can still win a good number of games against Eastern opponents even if you can't quite hang with the speed and flow of the elite West teams. Now every team in the West will be forced to focus on the style that personifies the West. And the East will have to muck and grind with the other teams in the East. Then when the Stanley Cup finals come around, it will be strange.
 
I'm VERY MUCH in favour for shortening the season. It goes too long, and the games are too crammed together. The game is too hard on guys now to play so many, and you see every year superstars out when it really matters, and if they aren't out, they are playing hurt. This isn't baseball or basketball where you can play every other night and maybe have to worry about a sprain or shin splints.

Can you imagine football played 82 games a year? :lol: Hockey compares more to football in what it takes out of you than other sports

And, no games out of your conference is good mostly I think. What makes hockey such a fun game to follow for the average fan? RIVALRIES

No one gives a shit when Anaheim plays here in Toronto, not if they only come around once in a blue moon but when Philly is in town, or Ottawa or Montreal or New Jersey or even Buffalo, the city lights up.

Less once a year visits from the Mighty Ducks, more hatred :)
 
mojotooth said:
One problem with no interconference play is that the style differences between the conferences will really begin to widen. The West has had a tendency to play a more open style than the East ever since the Edmonton teams of the 80s, but it hasn't been an enormous gap because you can still win a good number of games against Eastern opponents even if you can't quite hang with the speed and flow of the elite West teams. Now every team in the West will be forced to focus on the style that personifies the West. And the East will have to muck and grind with the other teams in the East. Then when the Stanley Cup finals come around, it will be strange.
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Sort of agree, but I don't see it as a bad thing.

I mean, was Canada vs Russia a bad thing? :) I think hockey looks good as a style vs style competition.

edit: oh yeah, and furthermore, the conferences would still be capable of producing different styles of teams. Look at the difference between the SE (who are more West-style than most West teams and seem to be becoming more so ;/) and the Atlantic
 
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Skibbi9 said:
I am expecting no regular season next year
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Well yeah, but this is a permanent thing. If and when the NHL does resume, it will probably be with fewer games.

Hmmm.... I wonder if that means that NHL Center Ice will be cheaper.
 
Magikal Groove said:
And, no games out of your conference is good mostly I think. What makes hockey such a fun game to follow for the average fan? RIVALRIES
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This is true. I mean, you could basically reconstruct the old Norris division at this point, minus Toronto and plus some scrub team like Nashville. Imagine:

Detroit
Chicago
St. Louis
Dallas
Minnesota
Nashville

That's a fucking kickass old-school Norris division right there, assuming the Wirtz family gets flushed out of Chi-town at some point so that club can regain its once-winning ways.
 
The gap in styles between East and West seems to be shrinking slightly (still got a long long way to go though).

The one good thing about the conference only schedule would be no huge opposite coast road trips. East coast teams always get that monster west coast swing where the basically play every other night of even back to back.

I'm all for the rivalries, but you are basically locking out fans from seeing half of the talent in the NHL. For someone like me in an Eastern Conf city, I want to see Naslund, Forsberg, Datszuk, etc. And just imagine if there were another "Gretzky" like player to come around. If he played in the opposite conference, then we'd never see him live.

Back in the day when Wayne was in town (which was rare) it was a huge event. We'd even get there early just to watch him warmup. Sure, there isn't someone like this now, but there might be again.
 
Kerosene31 said:
The gap in styles between East and West seems to be shrinking slightly (still got a long long way to go though).

The one good thing about the conference only schedule would be no huge opposite coast road trips. East coast teams always get that monster west coast swing where the basically play every other night of even back to back.

I'm all for the rivalries, but you are basically locking out fans from seeing half of the talent in the NHL. For someone like me in an Eastern Conf city, I want to see Naslund, Forsberg, Datszuk, etc. And just imagine if there were another "Gretzky" like player to come around. If he played in the opposite conference, then we'd never see him live.

Back in the day when Wayne was in town (which was rare) it was a huge event. We'd even get there early just to watch him warmup. Sure, there isn't someone like this now, but there might be again.
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Good point about the travel times, that alone is a huge factor.

But about fans missing half the talent, they already do really... with minor exceptions, are those few exceptions worth all the negatives already addressed here?
 
In any event, it sounds like most of the folks posting in this thread agree it's a good idea, with the exception that it's regrettable that western folks will never see folks like Marty Vermont play until the Finals, and the folks in the east will never see Datsyuk et al.
 
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