What Happened To The 72 Game Season?

[helicecopter]

Here you reference the World Cup, but when I asked if that was what you meant you seemed confused...?

Because for other competitions i meant any other traditional competition, first of all the ordinary pro leagues..

Hockey could create their own World Cup and build it up. FIFA had to start the soccer/football World Cup one day as well, and it did not always have the stature that it has today.

The Olympics never were THE international event for soccer, while the Olympics are and were THE international event for hockey. That's a major difference that should draw different consequences..

 

[Montrealer]

This notion that the quality of play would go up substantially, and that it would cause so many more people to go to games that it would compensate for 5 fewer home dates is a strange one.

The NHL regular season goes for almost 7 months. Cutting 10 games would cut the schedule by 1 game every 3 weeks. Is one less game every 3 weeks really going to make a stunning difference in the energy of the players and quality of the games? I find that pretty unlikely. This effect might occur if the season was cut to 30 games (1/week), but a 72 game season is not going to make a huge change to players' health and energy.

 

[helicecopter]

Good..maybe we should cut down to 62 regular season games!!

 

[Montrealer]

Good..maybe we should cut down to 62 regular season games!!

I say we go back to 44.

 

[Tekneek]

I say we go back to 44.

I say 58 is the minimum, consisting of 2 games against each team.

 

[helicecopter]

..consisting of 2 games against each team.

Agree on the minimum of two games against each team but...

I say 58 is the minimum..

...we could still reduce the number of teams!

 

[ceber]

Considering the apparent financial realities of the league, there's sure to be a % capacity number where it becomes a money losing operation to put on a game, even under a new CBA. If you cut out some mid-week games that likely often fall into that category, it doesn't seem outrageous that your profits could go up regardless of the effect on revenues.

I'm not sold on the idea that the quality of play would go up. I have read though that there are players and coaches who think fewer games would be a good idea, and they often talk about rest and injury avoidance as justification. I'm not opposed to a shorter schedule, but I think you'd want to keep it right in the 70s. I think the argument that it would cost teams money simply because there are fewer games for people to attend is too simplistic.