TSN : Unbalanced Schedule

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bcrt2000

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Feb 17, 2005
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HockeyCritter said:
I like this proposed format a lot --- I think it will go a long way to developing rivalries within divisions (where it should be).

you can't contrive rivalries.. they are born and take a life on their own
 

Spungo*

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PecaFan said:
If you call a tail a leg, how many legs do most dogs have?
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Answer: Four. Because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it so.

Exactly, so stop calling a tail a leg. Stop calling a 3 game series to determine who akes it into the playoffs as "the playoffs" because IT ISN'T. That is a stone cold fact. The Western Final isn't the Stanley Cup Final either, in case you didn't know.
 

HockeyCritter

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bcrt2000 said:
you can't contrive rivalries.. they are born and take a life on their own
And don't you think playing the same team eight times a year (espeically if there are home and home series) will go a long way to developing new ones?

Kinda hard to have a rivalry with a team you're not playing.
 

Spungo*

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helicecopter said:
Call it the way you want in your effort.. 20 teams will enter the post season, 82 games to eliminate 10 teams out of 30. Got it?

Nope. 6 teams from each conference make the playoffs. 4 teams are forced to play a 3 game mini series to advance into the playoffs. Those are just the facts. You can call a 3 game mini series the Stanley Cup final for all I care, but that doesn't make it so.


helicecopter said:
Is your IQ so low that you can't realize the Edmonton playoff runs are not in any way related with the subject we were discussing?

Hey Einstein, you said the 1980's playoffs sucked. The Oilers Stanley Cup runs (with the exception of one in '90) were during the 80's. They didn't suck. Nor did the playoffs during the 1980's. Get it yet? Good. End of discussion.
 

helicecopter

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Mar 8, 2003
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Spungo said:
Hey Einstein, you said the 1980's playoffs sucked. The Oilers Stanley Cup runs (with the exception of one in '90) were during the 80's. They didn't suck. Nor did the playoffs during the 1980's. Get it yet? Good. End of discussion.
This answer seems to prove your IQ is indeed too low to realize. :(

It's the fact 66% of the teams make and made through to the playoffs that suck and sucked, not THE PLAYOFFS.
 

Spungo*

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helicecopter said:
This answer seems to prove your IQ is indeed too low to realize. :(

It's the fact 66% of the teams make and made through to the playoffs that suck and sucked, not THE PLAYOFFS.

If the result (the actual playoffs) didn't suck, then what you are saying makes no God damned sense, boy. Are you saying the regular season during the 1980's sucked, because you are just as wrong as you were about the playoffs.

And it was 76% in the 80's.

And my IQ is probably a good 20-30 points above yours, that is if you have an average IQ.
 

HockeyCritter

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The Messenger said:
Tampa Bay verses their div 8 times = Playoffs by Mid Season and Stanley Cup Fav ..

With Lunogo, Bouemeester, Staal, Oveckin, Semin, Heatley, Kovalchuk, Lecavalier, Richards and a slew of others I think the SE is going to be a real bear to play in and against . . . . The SE holds some of the best young talent in the league and it's only going to get better.
 

bcrt2000

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Feb 17, 2005
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HockeyCritter said:
And don't you think playing the same team eight times a year (espeically if there are home and home series) will go a long way to developing new ones?

Kinda hard to have a rivalry with a team you're not playing.

well first of all, you don't think that 6-7 games wasn't enough to create "division" rivalries? i think the leafs and sens had a big enough rivalry last season

secondly, teams like the avs and wings, pens and caps, devils and leafs, and oilers and stars aren't even in the same divisions, yet they have rivalries

and this concept will also kill hockey in the southeast because, who wants to see carolina, florida, atlanta and washington play each other over and over and over?

the other thing is... you don't just create rivalries.. they are supposed to be special... i don't want the nhl to set in stone which rivalries the leafs have, or the rivalries that the rangers have... and at the end of the day... you don't NEED rivalries to survive...

also it just makes me cringe to think they want to be like baseball, because i find it boring that you see the same teams play each other so many times...
 

Spungo*

Guest
bcrt2000 said:
and this concept will also kill hockey in the southeast because, who wants to see carolina, florida, atlanta and washington play each other over and over and over?
...

Maybe people living the in south east? Most southerners couldn't even point to Ottawa on a map and I doubt any care in the least that the Sens won't be playing in Georgia next year.
 

bcrt2000

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Feb 17, 2005
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Spungo said:
Maybe people living the in south east? Most southerners couldn't even point to Ottawa on a map and I doubt any care in the least that the Sens won't be playing in Georgia next year.

in markets where hockey isn't a priority, its the stars who bring in people to the game during the regular season, not rivalries
 

Realm

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Jun 5, 2005
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my suggestion would be go with 8 in the divison 3 against other conference opponents and in the other conference you still alternate every three years with the divisons playing twice but the other 10 teams you would play 1 time each. That way you will at least play everyone 1 time a year and they will at least be in your arena every 2 years. I do love the 8 in division games though!
 

HockeyCritter

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bcrt2000 said:
<<< snipped >>>>

and this concept will also kill hockey in the southeast because, who wants to see carolina, florida, atlanta and washington play each other over and over and over?

<<< snipped >>>
I dunno, how about fans of the teams from the SE ---- how about hockey fans that want to see some of the best young talent the NHL has to offer.

I'm all for nostalgia --- but sometimes when looking back one really doesn’t see it for what it truly was. The game needs to evolve to survive, if evolution means realignment and a completely unbalanced schedule so be it. I am not going to condemn it as a colossal failure until it actually fails.
 

HockeyCritter

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bcrt2000 said:
in markets where hockey isn't a priority, its the stars who bring in people to the game during the regular season, not rivalries
Aren't you arguing both points now?
 

PecaFan

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Nov 16, 2002
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Spungo said:
Exactly, so stop calling a tail a leg. Stop calling a 3 game series to determine who akes it into the playoffs as "the playoffs" because IT ISN'T. That is a stone cold fact. The Western Final isn't the Stanley Cup Final either, in case you didn't know.

Main Entry: play-off
Pronunciation: 'plA-"of
Function: noun
2 : a series of contests played after the end of the regular season to determine a championship

How you can continue to insist these games aren't playoffs is beyond me.

It's an extra round of playoffs, and will be priced accordingly.
 

codswallop

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Aug 20, 2002
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Spungo said:
Maybe people living the in south east? Most southerners couldn't even point to Ottawa on a map and I doubt any care in the least that the Sens won't be playing in Georgia next year.

Until rivalries start to blossom with other SE division teams, it is good to see other teams and other star players come here. But I do agree that it's better to try and build up those rivalries with other divison teams, will make the games much better over the years.

I'll ignore the geographical insult. You may not have meant it that way, but that's certainly what it looks like. But I've got thick skin, so it's not a big thing. Beware of others from around here who are a bit thinner in the epidermis, they probably won't display that southern hospitality.

Truth in point, a good deal of the hockey fans in Atlanta weren't raised here. Hell, almost half of the city comes from somewhere else. Many of the fans here were exposed to hockey in places other than Atlanta before we got a team back six years ago. So a true hockey fan in Atlanta is as knowledgeable as anywhere else. Some do give a damn that we won't play certain teams with this unbalanced schedule, but that's par for the course with a lot of fans everywhere it seems. Personally, it doesn't bother me much.

And the Sens will come here twice a year, just like usual. Same conference and all. I think I get where you were trying to go with that, but maybe you just picked the wrong team as an example. At least I hope you did, otherwise the above insult just gets bigger.
 

Nash

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Jul 23, 2004
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I'm not a fan of this new schedule at all.

I'm a Vancouver Canucks fan and every time that the 3 eastern Canadian teams play in the West, the games are always great. I love seeing how my team matches up against a great team like Ottawa. There are so many people in Vancouver from Toronto that home games seem to be half filled with Toronto jerseys when they come to town. Not only is that a great East/West rivalry, it is a huge fan rivalry. Same thing for Montreal.

Every year, I want to see how my team stacks up against each team in the league. Not facing 10 of them sucks. Not seeing potential superstars on teams for 2 years sucks. Not facing the best teams in the other division for 2 years sucks.

Just playing a team more doesn't instantly make it a rivalry and one of the best things about a rivalry is the anticipation of the next time they meet. That build up of tension finally being released is great. I'm not saying 8 is overkill, but 6 division games worked just fine in my opinion.
 

Montrealer

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Dec 12, 2002
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HockeyCritter said:
I'm all for nostalgia --- but sometimes when looking back one really doesn’t see it for what it truly was. The game needs to evolve to survive, if evolution means realignment and a completely unbalanced schedule so be it. I am not going to condemn it as a colossal failure until it actually fails.

I agree 100%. Excellent post.

:clap:
 

IceDragoon

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Jun 25, 2003
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helicecopter said:
Yeah, so those 3 game series are regular season games!! :joker:
Actually, I would consider them 'wildcard' games.
These games would allow a middle-of-the-pack team in a tough division, an opportunity to beat out a middle-of-the-pack team in a weaker division and make the playoffs.
Call it a bit of an equalizer for extra divisional play.

And of course, it would give at least one more gate for 8 teams.;)
 

SENSational

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Mar 26, 2004
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I love it when Leafs fans and Vancouver fans duke it out. Its just extremely fun to watch. Hopefully that doesnt go away.
 

kdb209

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Jan 26, 2005
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blitzkriegs said:
It's NFL style.

Each team In Division 8 times

Atlantic vs. Atlantic Division teams, etc...

Other teams in Conference 4 times

Atlantic vs. Northeast, Atlantic vs. South

Teams from one Division of the Other Conference 2 times.

Atlantic vs. West playing each team in west 2 times. So, the teams in the Atlantic would not play teams in the central until the next season. Assuming this goes as planned, it would be on a rolling basis. This year: Atlantic vs. West, Next year: Atlantic vs. Central, etc...

Reduces travel time/cost to go to the same location twice then all over the map on east/west coast trips.

I hate the unbalanced scedule and not seeing every team every year.

The NFL has to have a schedule like that - obviously every team can't play every other in a 16 game schedule. The NHL doesn't.

Look at the NBA. It has the same scheduling problem (30 teams, 2 conferences, 3 divs/conf, 82 games) but every team plays every other team at least twice a year (home & away). Imaging the outcry in the NBA if fans in one city were told, sorry, but you can't see Shaq or LeBron this year.

The NBA schedule has:
In Division: 4 games (2 home / 2 away) x 4 teams = 16 games
In Conference: 3 or 4 games (2/2, 2/1, or 1/2) x 10 teams = 36 games
Other Division: 2 games (1/1) x 15 teams = 30 games.

Imagine the outcry when half the NHL fans find out they will only see Crosby (if he indeed is the Next One) once every three years.

Even if you want more inter division games than the NBA, there are still better options than the proposed NHL one which still allow for playing every team home & away - 6 games in division (24), 2 or 3 in conference (28), 2 out of conference (30).

IMHO, any of these would be better than the path the NHL seems to have chosen.
 

kdb209

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Jan 26, 2005
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Spungo said:
Exactly, so stop calling a tail a leg. Stop calling a 3 game series to determine who akes it into the playoffs as "the playoffs" because IT ISN'T. That is a stone cold fact. The Western Final isn't the Stanley Cup Final either, in case you didn't know.
Well I hate to bring facts and history into this debate, but 16 teams making the playoffs is not some magic number. Neither is best 4 out of 7 in early rounds.

When the league expanded in '68, the number of playoff teams went from 4 to 8.

In '75, they expanded to 12 teams, 4 byes, and best of 3 first round.

In '80, they expanded to 16 teams and best of 5 first round.

Finally in '87 they lengthened the first round to best of 7.

They have increased the # of playoff rounds from 2 to 3 to 4 and changed the playoff seeding format many times among division, conference, and whole league schemes.

And guess what. Every game played after the regular season ended was a playoff game, and the stats counted as playoff stats.

So it is rediculous to call the new #7 vs #10 and #6 vs #9 series as anything else but playoff games. They are not a new breed of "play in" games. They are not additional "regular season" games like the 1 game playoffs in MLB. They are Stanley Cup Playoff games - like it or not.

The Stanley Cup Playoff format has changed many times over the years. This is just one more minor change.
 

blitzkriegs

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kdb209 said:
Imagine the outcry when half the NHL fans find out they will only see Crosby (if he indeed is the Next One) once every three years.
.

I can hear it now... :biglaugh:

Do the fans in AZ 'cry' that they don't get to see ARod, Tejada, Ramirez, Jeter, Guerreo, (ahem...players 100 times more well known than Crosby will ever be)? Nope. When interleague play happens, that's it...
 
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