Realignment Idea Proposal!

[AttackSound]

Each team travels to play each team at least *once*. Home and home for out of conference teams.

For points 2 and 3 there’s not much you can do. Couple minor moves to smooth out the travel more even but that’s based on a balanced schedule.

I’ll comment on Owen Sound’s, here’s the closest 9 teams (so Owen Sound’s perfect conference) in order;
Barrie
Guelph
Kitchener
Missy
Hamilton
London
Oshawa
Sarnia
Niagara

Purely travel wise they only want to travel to these team’s once;
SSM
Ottawa
Erie
Kingston
Saginaw
Windsor
Sudbury
Flint
NB
Peterborough

While Owen Sound hates the trek to SSM, it’s not bad if you play Sudbury and NB in the trip. Or if you do SSM-SAG-FLNT. Problem is that you can’t keep doing 3 game trips. Having Barrie in the same division and travelling there at least twice is OS’ dream. You could play that game on a Wednesday night or whenever and the kids wouldn’t miss much school since you could bus there and back on the day of.

There is no solution in the OHL that will benefit everyone perfectly. If you’re asking me what realignment I would do? I’d have to look at my data and put teams in divisions and conferences with the goal of reducing overall travel. I haven’t looked into that cause I got busy since making the spreadsheet.
+ even if I did make a better solution then what’s currently being done it’s not like the league is gonna change because a stranger on the Internet says to.

That would be an Attack fan's dream, as you pointed out M44 as if right now there really isn't any perfect situation on drawing divisions and conferences equally in any scenario.

However if you look from a league perspective the better option would be to scrap the divisions entirely as there really isn't any perfect division that could be made that every team would be happy in.

The best option would be tweaking the conferences around and especially the teams in around the midwest and central teams.

However I do agree that the only time the league would've seen significant changes is when Hamilton was awarded a team again and they opted to stay in the east. If they would've changed their minds and moved to the central I'm sure we would've seen a big change in where all the teams would end up. Unfortunately they chose to remain in the east and the league divisions will remain the same until either they they can't survive in FOC, and the league forces them to build a new facility or their lease expires and the league forces the Bulldogs to do a major overhaul of the facility.

Until such events occur the league is and forever will remain the same as it sits now. The only other way the league would have significant changes is if the they chose expansion in the league and increase teams in each conference to 11 or 12 making the league a 22 or 24 team league which will probably never happen

 

[Hammer9001]

Isn't it the nature of this league that there will always be questions surrounding a few franchises? eg. Fix Missy and Hamilton, and the focus turns to problems in North Bay or Flint, real or imagined.

No kidding. I mean, North Bay's attendance woes after 5 years does not bode well and Flint has numerous issues, in addition to low attendance.

Not to say Hamilton's arena issue isn't a big problem, it's just, if tomorrow it was announced in the Spec that a new 6,000 seater was being build in Hamilton for the Bulldogs, would anyone say Hamilton is struggling? I mean, the teams eight in OHL attendance despite the team clearly being on the downswing having just won the OHL championship, clearly has a competent staff and are one of the easiest locations in the OHL in terms of travel.

 

[Hammer9001]

This is precisely my point, and I believe we agree on this. Putting SSM and Sudbury in the same division, while good for SSM/Sudbury rivalry, makes league travel worse overall. The league keeps this rivalry alive by scheduling extra games between the two (6 times a season), even though they are in different conferences. It is important to note that my realignment proposal from a few posts back keeps Sudbury and SSM in separate conferences.

I am simply extending the same argument to Guelph/Kitchener. See my realignment proposal a few posts back. Splitting Guelph and Kitchener up would improve league travel overall. And the rivalry can still be kept alive by scheduling extra games between them.

If the goal of any realignment proposal is to minimize travel league-wide, as well as for the most traveled teams, it may mean a few of the least traveled teams have a slight increase in travel. This may be the case for teams like Guelph, Kitchener, Owen Sound, but that is to be expected with any realignment proposal and does not - in and of itself - mean the proposal is poorly designed.

Sorry, I misunderstood, I was under the impression that you felt a bit nettled that SSM wasn't in the same conference as Sudbury.

 

[Marj44]

Here is the spreadsheet I made regarding the 2018 OHL Travel.
These distances are from arena to arena using google maps (the kms change by 2-4 depending on the day you search them so please don't try to correct a few kms.
There's a legend at the bottom for the colours and two sheets.

Feel free to use it when suggesting realignments. It took many days to get this done so I'm confident it is accurate but can edit something if a flaw is found.

 

[Tarantula]

Awesome work, appreciate the time and effort you made to create this, then post it! You deserve some trophy points!

 

[Hammer9001]

What does uneven travel mean in your sheet? I'm guessing that one team played at that location more/less then the other team played at the team in question.

 

[Marj44]

What does uneven travel mean in your sheet? I'm guessing that one team played at that location more/less then the other team played at the team in question.

Correct. Each team plays each other the same amount of games home and home except for these 3. There’s an imbalance I’m assuming due to Gatineau playing vs Ottawa..? These are highlighted in purple and happen within 1 division.

Just something to highlight. You’d have to throw out the Gatineau games and fix those imbalances to have a proper balanced schedule.

 

[HockeyPops]

Since this turned into a big discussion about travel, I thought I would link to this thread discussing overall travel for all CHL teams. Puts the OHL travel in perspective.

Travel in CHL Leagues

In that thread, Otto posted a link to an older thread with total travel for each team.

 

[HockeyPops]

bump

(bumping this thread since it's resurfacing again in discussions. This way we can keep the discussion together instead of rehashing it all over again)

 

[O fan]

Travel distance is important, but geographic grouping needs to be factored.
The SOO fits in the west and no matter who they play they have a lot of driving to do.

OTT is the Eastern tip and until a franchise appears in Cornwall, they have lots of driving to do. Add, SBY and NB to a division with PBO and KGN.

HAM fits neatly with OSH, NIA, MISS and BAR. The geographic rivalry in a new CENTRAL division would be great.

 

[Otto]

Travel distance is important, but geographic grouping needs to be factored.
The SOO fits in the west and no matter who they play they have a lot of driving to do.

OTT is the Eastern tip and until a franchise appears in Cornwall, they have lots of driving to do. Add, SBY and NB to a division with PBO and KGN.

HAM fits neatly with OSH, NIA, MISS and BAR. The geographic rivalry in a new CENTRAL division would be great.

Except there is no way Peterborough and Oshawa get separated

 

[MatthewsMoustache]

delete

 

[Tarantula]

Northeast Division (Eastern Conference):
Kingston
North Bay
Ottawa
Sault Ste. Marie
Sudbury

So the team furthest East and the team furthest West in the same division?

Until a team moves, and it would depend where the location was, there is no way to re align without screwing with a rivalry or travel. Has Hamilton approved a new arena? I don't think they have. I can't see anything happening until a team moves.

 

[Otto]

For playoff seeding, I feel like there has to be an even amount of divisions. I doubt this is even on the mind of the OHL, but this is my realignment proposal:

Central Division (Western Conference):
Barrie
Hamilton
Mississauga
Oshawa
Peterborough

Northeast Division (Eastern Conference):
Kingston
North Bay
Ottawa
Sault Ste. Marie
Sudbury

Midwest Division (Western Conference):
Guelph
Kitchener
London
Owen Sound
Sarnia

Southwest Division (Western Conference):
Erie
Flint
Niagara
Saginaw
Windsor

This is way worse than it is now... just leave it alone

 

[MatthewsMoustache]

So the team furthest East and the team furthest West in the same division?

Until a team moves, and it would depend where the location was, there is no way to re align without screwing with a rivalry or travel. Has Hamilton approved a new arena? I don't think they have. I can't see anything happening until a team moves.

there’s just no way of reducing Sault Ste. Marie’s travel without screwing with the rest of the teams as well.

 

[Tarantula]

I wonder with all this debt governments are facing if there comes a time where a arena needs some major maintenance, such as a ice pad for example. Perhaps it just won't be possible to replace it if the community is hard hit with social costs, and a lessened tax base. How many OHL arenas are privately operated? Even those may suffer from financial losses and may have issues keeping their heads above water.

There could be some longer reaching implications going forward a few years regarding teams and owners.

 

[Tarantula]

there’s just no way of reducing Sault Ste. Marie’s travel without screwing with the rest of the teams as well.

I know, SSM travel is what it is and they have still managed to attract top players there. The problem is Ottawa travel goes up substantially with more trips to the NE. I know it is not perfect now, I just think there really isn't another way.

 

[MatthewsMoustache]

I know, SSM travel is what it is and they have still managed to attract top players there. The problem is Ottawa travel goes up substantially with more trips to the NE. I know it is not perfect now, I just think there really isn't another way.

yea that’s why I mentioned the OHL probably not even looking at it. you can’t fix one without breaking another

 

[Otto]

there’s just no way of reducing Sault Ste. Marie’s travel without screwing with the rest of the teams as well.

But in your proposal you are not reducing Sault Ste Marie's travel... you are grossly increasing it

 

[MatthewsMoustache]

But in your proposal you are not reducing Sault Ste Marie's travel... you are grossly increasing it

I never claimed to have reduced it?

I said there isn’t really a way to reduce it without screwing 2 or 3 other teams

 

[O fan]

You can't reduce SOO travel by looking East, 306km from Sudbury and 1000km to Kingston wouldnt work.

 

[AttackSound]

For playoff seeding, I feel like there has to be an even amount of divisions. I doubt this is even on the mind of the OHL, but this is my realignment proposal:

Central Division (Western Conference):
Barrie
Hamilton
Mississauga
Oshawa
Peterborough

Northeast Division (Eastern Conference):
Kingston
North Bay
Ottawa
Sault Ste. Marie
Sudbury

Midwest Division (Western Conference):
Guelph
Kitchener
London
Owen Sound
Sarnia

Southwest Division (Western Conference):
Erie
Flint
Niagara
Saginaw
Windsor

What your proposing is ludicrous Soo and Ottawa in the same division for that sake why don't you put Soo and Erie in the same division then. No one in there right mind would agree to this proposal. Right now even divisional games are x6 x6 x8 x8 so explain to me how in the world you'd manage to get a fair schedule out of this??

 

[Truthking]

I wonder with all this debt governments are facing if there comes a time where a arena needs some major maintenance, such as a ice pad for example. Perhaps it just won't be possible to replace it if the community is hard hit with social costs, and a lessened tax base. How many OHL arenas are privately operated? Even those may suffer from financial losses and may have issues keeping their heads above water.

There could be some longer reaching implications going forward a few years regarding teams and owners.

I’m really curious how these city owned arenas fare with no large events for the foreseeable future. Most are already on a pretty thin margin and now they won’t be making a dime. I know tax payers were already opposed to putting any money into arenas that they may or may not use, what’s going to happen when the bill gets even higher.

 

[djscooter]

The more posts I read, the more i'm convince people have no idea where North Bay and Sudbury are geographically.

 

[AttackSound]

I’m really curious how these city owned arenas fare with no large events for the foreseeable future. Most are already on a pretty thin margin and now they won’t be making a dime. I know tax payers were already opposed to putting any money into arenas that they may or may not use, what’s going to happen when the bill gets even higher.

That's really up to the cities who have bigger buildings and bigger expenses to figure. The real question will be how can places like Hamilton and Mississauga who are in markets they a very sparse interest in junior hockey. Yes these places have populus that should be jumping on the lower levels of sport but those two places will really be the ones who may not survive if the numbers have to be limited or reduced by X thousand of people. The places that can survive will be the ones who have had a solid footprint in the junior hockey community. For example Guelph, Kitchener, Owen Sound, London, Oshawa, Ottawa etc.

But keep in mind that the longer this health crisis continues those bigger centers with bigger facilities and larger staffs will eventually become the target for empty or sparse profit margins and further to that empty or sparse buildings that expect the majority of the buildings capacities full.