New divisions for 2017-18 season

[210]

My suggestion from years back was this...each year at the A.S. game have each of the teams in the league ,who were willing to travel to the other conference, let the league know. Then the league could start matching up the teams via the schedule.

They already do this. Not sure when the exact deadline is (it's around the time of the ASG or soon after), but teams submit a list of places they'll travel to along with preliminary arena black out dates and "want to play" dates for the next seson.

 

[ckg927]

As for the Amerks, they'll get 14 out of the other 30 teams as opponents next year...breaking down thusly:

North Div.:

-Binghamton, Syracuse & Utica: 5 home, 5 away
-Belleville, Laval & the Marlies: 4 home, 4 away

Atlantic Div.:

-Bridgeport, Charlotte & Hartford: 2 home, 2 away
(note: These will the first games the Checkers & Amerks have EVER played since Charlotte became a member of the AHL in 2010-11)

-Hershey, Lehigh Valley, Providence, Springfield & Wilkes-Barre/Scranton: 1 home, 1 away

Also, the Amerks announced 5 "guaranteed" home dates: 10/6, 11/24 & 12/30/17, as well as 1/12 and 3/9/18.

 

[ckg927]

Holy crap. Teams from the East are actually coming to play teams from the West?

Admirals play WBS, Hershey, San Diego, Stockton and Ontario. Still not a very diverse schedule but much improved from previous years.

Yep. Also, Cleveland has games with every team in the West except Bakersfield.

 

[wildcat48]

Lehigh Valley matrix is just crazy... 58 of their 76 games will be against Atlantic Division teams in 2017-18. Only 18 games against rest of league, basically East Division because they're not traveling.

 

[tigervixxxen]

Axe and I have heard the same thing. We heard that only one or two teams wanted to travel and you can't build road trips going to two places. Yet the AHL could afford to subsidize the trips to Abbottsford, St. John's, Saint John, Charlotte and others through the years.

Chciago was playing NINE out of a possible 29 opponents over the past several years. Really? NINE!!!

You people out east keep going "I'm not going to give up my 4 to 5 rivalry games" try when that is SIX rivalry games (12 total) against one team.

The eastern teams at least usually saw all the teams in their own conference at least once at home. Not for the western conference.

I think Ontario was playing 8 opponents before Tucson came in. They basically will play only their division and maybe 2 trips outside of that.

As far as the rivalry thing, it gets incredibly stale and boring after a point of seeing the same couple teams over and over again. The players get bored and when a team sees eachother that often the series trends to a split, that doesn't scream exciting rivalry to me. More than 8 games a year starts to get to that point. Now as a fan/follower of the Rampage, they play Texas 14x, which is a ridiculous amount but obviously understandable because they are the only two teams within driving distance of eachother. It's not so bothersome because it's coupled with playing every single other team in the western conference and none more than 6x total. I prefer that set up more than 3-4 teams 10-12x each.

 

[Theoriginalalex]

Relevant to this discussion, I figured out the entire West matrix.

- An improvement in variety overall, with a lot more Midwest-Pacific play.
- Are Chicago's 5 road games in the southwest another hint of LV affiliation?
- Moose prepping to move back to North division once 31st team joins? Playing all eastern Canadian teams.

Lehigh Valley matrix is just crazy... 58 of their 76 games will be against Atlantic Division teams in 2017-18. Only 18 games against rest of league, basically East Division because they're not traveling.

Where did you find their's? Trying to build the East matrix now but I'm lacking several teams, including the Phantoms.

I think Ontario was playing 8 opponents before Tucson came in. They basically will play only their division and maybe 2 trips outside of that.

The first year, yep, and that was ridiculous. Last year they jumped to 10, and this year to 12, though.

 

[Blue Goose]

http://theahl.com/2017-18-ahl-alignment-announced

So Charlotte Checkers are now in the Atlantic division.

- Moose prepping to move back to North division once 31st team joins? Playing all eastern Canadian teams.

I'm thinking they'll keep it all based on time zones, and it sets up nicely: Moose will stay in the Central, and Cleveland will move to the North since they're in the Eastern time zone. When Colorado presumably gets their new AHL team next year, they'll join the Pacific and the two Texas teams will move to the Central. That leaves all the Central Division teams (except Grand Rapids) in the Central time zone, and the Pacific Division would only span two time zones instead of three. Just my thought...

 

[wildcat48]

Relevant to this discussion, I figured out the entire West matrix.

- An improvement in variety overall, with a lot more Midwest-Pacific play.
- Are Chicago's 5 road games in the southwest another hint of LV affiliation?
- Moose prepping to move back to North division once 31st team joins? Playing all eastern Canadian teams.



Where did you find their's? Trying to build the East matrix now but I'm lacking several teams, including the Phantoms.



The first year, yep, and that was ridiculous. Last year they jumped to 10, and this year to 12, though.

It was on twitter.