November 7th, 2006 by Phil Frangos
Conflict of schedule
What a start to the season for Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, and Sydney Crosby all of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Three of the games brightest young stars you’ll get to see play together this season, unless of course you live in these ten NHL markets.
It’s hard to believe, but there are ten, yes ten markets that will not be able to see these three stars. Why is this you ask? And who are these teams? Fans in Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Nashville, Columbus, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Colorado & Minnesota will all miss out this year. However, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Colorado & Minnesota at least get to see Alexander Ovechkin as Washington and the rest of its division visit the Northwest division.
Because of the way the NHL schedule is set up, Teams like the Pittsburgh & Washington have a loaded schedule within their divisions and when you add in games against other teams in their conference, that leaves all of ten games against the Western conference teams, split with the rotation of playing five at home versus one division and five on the road versus another skipping the third division. What kind of schedule is that?
With three divisions in each conference, the Penguins will play in Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Anaheim & San Jose this year and won’t return to these cities for another three years. I just don’t see how you can sell the game and the stars for that matter with a format like this.
So I’ve taken it upon myself to revise a schedule that will allow the fans in all markets the opportunity to enjoy a chance at seeing all the stars visit their city at least once.
Divisional games drop from eight meetings a year to six. This includes three home and three road. The rest of the conference you could play each team three times, rotating each year with two home, one road every other year and finally you could play the other conference twice, splitting home games. It’s that simple.
Just imagine if the NBA had this schedule. How bent would Jack Nicholson be if LeBron James only visited the Staples Centre once every three years?
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