With regard to scheduling, whilst watching NHL playoffs I doodled away and found a scheduling formula which seems to work. If the regular season remains at 14 weeks (28 games) it would work like this:
- 9 weeks of a round-robin, i.e. one home or away series against each other team.
- The 5 weeks of extra series games would be regionalized;
- the teams would be split, and a 5-team round would also take 5 weeks;
- the teams from Alberta would be on one side, those from BC, Manitoba, and Sask on the other;
- the first 3 weeks would be 3/5 of a round-robin, which continues on a rotational basis every season;
- in those 3 weeks, the teams with the "bye" play each other;
- also in those 3 weeks, the Man/Sask teams play each other one series and the BC teams also play each other one series;
- the last 2 weeks are an "interlock", where an Alberta team plays one of the others, again on a rotational basis every season.
Here's what the 2021 chart would look like, indicating the number of games against each opponent:
I filled in the 10 teams into the subject slots, and here's that chart:
And here's the schedule for the extra series games:
Over time, the schedule would rotate annually, and here's the generic chart for a 5 year period:
After 5 years, the teams MS2 and MS3 (Regina and Manitoba in my example) would trade places for the next 5 years. If so, here's the generic chart for a 10-year period:
This is not the perfect schedule we get with 8 teams and one home series against team. But it is workable and economically viable.