Schedule Change Lost by 1 Vote - was 19-11. but 2/3s Majority Needed

[burstgreen]

Right. So do it, if you're going to claim it.

Takes a while (doing this manually, unless anyone has a better idea). And teams who more or less sell out most of their games, I'm not doing. These are last year's numbers, so this is post-new-schedule. NE & Atlantic, excluding sellout teams:

--------Div-----Conf---Other Conf
Bos....16254...16258...15675
Buf....17531...16846...16892
Pit....16110...15846...15703
NJ.....15449...14255...14049
NYI....12963...12664...12215

Avg 15661 15173 14907

So for at least two divisions, divisional games draw about 750 more fans per game than games against the other conference, and no team prefers seeing teams from the other conference over divisional teams. Conference games average somewhere in between.

I'll do the other divisions later.

 

[benji]

Same is true for the Atlantic, Northeast, Southeast, and Pacific divisions then, I suppose.

Well it is often known as the toughest division in hockey so...

 

[Novak Djokovic]

Same is true for the Atlantic, Northeast, Southeast, and Pacific divisions then, I suppose.

Pacific has three strong teams and two teams that can't win.

Central has three teams that can't win.

Southeast has alot of crappy teams..

Northwest and Northeast has the toughest teams and they have to face 8 times which makes them low scoring.

 

[Winger98]

I don't really mind the new schedule. Yeah, it needs some tweeking, the 8 games could be spread out a bit better, but it's really not that bad. The only thing I miss is playing Toronto. Seeing the Wings go up against the other original six would be nice, but the games against Toronto are the ones that I really miss.

 

[PecaFan]

--------Div-----Conf---Other Conf
Buf....17531...16846...16892

So for at least two divisions, divisional games draw about 750 more fans per game than games against the other conference, and no team prefers seeing teams from the other conference over divisional teams. Conference games average somewhere in between.

I'll do the other divisions later.

Where are you getting your numbers? I double checked Buffalo to start, and have totally different results. I used the NHL Game By Game report and got this:

Type|Total|Games|Average
Div|279,511|16|17469
Conf|328,352|20|16418
Other|84,466|5|16893

Also, the sheer unbalanced nature of the scheduling is going to hurt rational analysis here. There are 4 games in division, you get a nice sample there. 2 in conference, but 20 games total still counts for half the games in the season.

But you get just 1 game to try and judge how teams feel about inter-conference games, and even worse, just one division. Some years you'll have a sexy division visit, and other years a dud division. And they might not even be the same, IE to Vancouver the Northeast will be very popular, but all those Canadian teams might not draw well in Florida, etc.

 

[Street Hawk]

Injuries...

Where are you getting your numbers? I double checked Buffalo to start, and have totally different results. I used the NHL Game By Game report and got this:

Type|Total|Games|Average
Div|279,511|16|17469
Conf|328,352|20|16418
Other|84,466|5|16893

Also, the sheer unbalanced nature of the scheduling is going to hurt rational analysis here. There are 4 games in division, you get a nice sample there. 2 in conference, but 20 games total still counts for half the games in the season.

But you get just 1 game to try and judge how teams feel about inter-conference games, and even worse, just one division. Some years you'll have a sexy division visit, and other years a dud division. And they might not even be the same, IE to Vancouver the Northeast will be very popular, but all those Canadian teams might not draw well in Florida, etc.

The reason I feel teams should play each other every year, home and away is to ensure that you have a chance of seeing the top players each season.

I mean, as a Canuck fan, there was massive panic on the night that Ovechkin and the Caps played the Avs and he took that shot off the foot in the dying seconds and hobbled off to the bench. We were freaking out that we wouldn't see him until his 5th NHL season.

Hockey is a contact sport, so guys are going to be hurt or have the flu. Last thing anyone wants to see is a star player go down before an inter-conference game. Had the Pens played the west during Crosby's groin pull, can you imagine the fuming that would have been heard by the Pacific division teams the Pens were to play this year?

It's interesting to compare the NHL to the NBA, same # of games and location of the teams is pretty much the same, execpt for 2 more teams in Texas vs. Alberta and two in Northeast Canada vs. Central USA (Mil & Ind). NBA plays home and away for each team and at most they play their divison 4 times. NHL plays 10 inter-conference games and 8 divisional games.

I also believe that with a Cap in place, that by nature of business, a bad team one year can quickly turn itself around in the next year or two. Blues are bad now, but with the additions of a couple of prospects next season in Johnson, Okposo, etc. and signing a free agent or two and dumping of Tkachuk, Guerin, Dovarek, Brewer for youngsters, things can change quickly.

The Flyers, with Forsberg probably not coming back to Philly next season, Rathje possibly retiring, dumping of Esche, Nedved, Calder, and maybe waiving Hatcher, the Flyers free up a tonne of cap room to get better.

A team may not draw well this year, but next year could be intriguing to see, just like in the NFL.

 

[Hadoop]

I know, we need yet another New Schedule gripe-fest thread, but some specfics I haven't seen elsewhere.

At the BoG Meetings last week, there was a vote to change the current 8-games-within-the-division-unbalanced schedule. It lost by 1 vote.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/hockey/nhl/san_jose_sharks/16235761.htm

Let's see... 5 Northeast division GMs, 5 Atlantic division GMs and Brian Burke.... yup that makes 11 alright.

 

[burstgreen]

Where are you getting your numbers? I double checked Buffalo to start, and have totally different results. I used the NHL Game By Game report and got this:

Type|Total|Games|Average
Div|279,511|16|17469
Conf|328,352|20|16418
Other|84,466|5|16893

I got my numbers from ESPN, copied and pasted into a spreadsheet. Thought it would be the most efficient method--I left the abacus in the closet. The division was slightly off because ESPN had an incorrect # for the March 16 game against Toronto. (see http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/teams/schedule?team=buf&season=2006 if you don't believe me). Our conference #s are different because I included northeast teams in the eastern conference; you didn't. Our western conference number was the same (rounding difference?).

 

[Hasbro]

The talk of dispassionate play stems from the division heavy schedule to me. Instead of a chance to take on your rival it's more of too much of a good thing and rather rote.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Blues are bad now, but with the additions of a couple of prospects next season in Johnson, Okposo, etc. and signing a free agent or two and dumping of Tkachuk, Guerin, Dovarek, Brewer for youngsters, things can change quickly.

Unless you know something the rest of us don't, Okposo isn't a Blues prospect. Maybe you were thinking of Oshie?

The Flyers, with Forsberg probably not coming back to Philly next season, Rathje possibly retiring, dumping of Esche, Nedved, Calder, and maybe waiving Hatcher, the Flyers free up a tonne of cap room to get better.

Esche, Nedved, and Calder are all UFA so they'll drop anyway. Waiving Hatcher won't create cap space for them - buying him out or shipping him across the street will, and I doubt the Flyers want to pay him $3.5M for the next 2 seasons to play at the Spectrum.

 

[TheDanceOfMaternity]

What about for TV though? People physicially going to the game is one thing (and remember there will be more fans of the visiting team with a divisional game), but watching it on TV 8 times a year for one team is not as fun as seeing every team once a year.

Heck, it's used as a tool here for criticising people for not watching players on teams across the country, when maybe it is not actually possible in the first place.

Seeing the sharks host the Atlantic division has been my favorite part of the season.

 

[PecaFan]

Our conference #s are different because I included northeast teams in the eastern conference; you didn't.

You can't do that, it's a total mathematical fallacy that way. The Northeast teams are already accounted for in the Divisional category, you end up counting them twice that way. Doing it that way adds up to more than 41 home games.

 

[burstgreen]

You can't do that, it's a total mathematical fallacy that way. The Northeast teams are already accounted for in the Divisional category, you end up counting them twice that way. Doing it that way adds up to more than 41 home games.

I calculated it that way so there could be a simple eastern conference vs. western conference comparison. Most hockey-related websites do the same thing, without causing any major chaos or riots. Look at http://www.nhl.com/nhl/app?service=page&page=StandingsPage&type=XVE&season=20062007. Separate columns for East and each division. On that website, your point would be that a team such as the Thrashers has somehow won more games than games played, if you add up the east column and each divisional column. But the simple way to avoid that "total mathematical fallacy" is to not add up all the columns. Problem fixed! Games are counted twice, but it's not automatically some "mathematical fallacy"; it's just breaking down the record vs. the east as a whole and then vs. particualr divisions (which is what I did).

For other examples of "mathematical fallacies" that have not resulted in major protests or riots, see

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/expanded?conference=eastern
http://www.sportsline.com/nhl/standings/expanded/2006

to name a few.

 

[PecaFan]

My god, are you serious? You don't understand the difference between summary columns and the issue at hand?

'Vs East' is a summary. See how it adds up to the total of the 3 divisions?
'East' and 'West' are summaries. See how they add up to the total GP?
'Home' and 'Road' are summaries. See how they add up to the total GP?

Everybody else here including the NHL itself has consistently used three separate categories of games, Divisional games, Conference games (aka the *other* 10 team non-divisional teams), and Inter-Conference. You have mixed constituent columns and totals columns, and the result is deceptive.

The fact is that for Buffalo (and I suspect pretty much everyone else) Inter-Conference games are *more* popular than games against the other 10 non-divisional teams in your conference, not less as your miscalculated numbers try and show.

 

[GSC2k2*]

I calculated it that way so there could be a simple eastern conference vs. western conference comparison. Most hockey-related websites do the same thing, without causing any major chaos or riots. Look at http://www.nhl.com/nhl/app?service=page&page=StandingsPage&type=XVE&season=20062007. Separate columns for East and each division. On that website, your point would be that a team such as the Thrashers has somehow won more games than games played, if you add up the east column and each divisional column. But the simple way to avoid that "total mathematical fallacy" is to not add up all the columns. Problem fixed! Games are counted twice, but it's not automatically some "mathematical fallacy"; it's just breaking down the record vs. the east as a whole and then vs. particualr divisions (which is what I did).

For other examples of "mathematical fallacies" that have not resulted in major protests or riots, see

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/expanded?conference=eastern
http://www.sportsline.com/nhl/standings/expanded/2006

to name a few.

Is the standard for whether something is or isn't mathematically correct based whether it "result in major protests or riots"?

Just wondering.

 

[burstgreen]

My god, are you serious? You don't understand the difference between summary columns and the issue at hand?

'Vs East' is a summary. See how it adds up to the total of the 3 divisions?
'East' and 'West' are summaries. See how they add up to the total GP?
'Home' and 'Road' are summaries. See how they add up to the total GP?

Everybody else here including the NHL itself has consistently used three separate categories of games, Divisional games, Conference games (aka the *other* 10 team non-divisional teams), and Inter-Conference. You have mixed constituent columns and totals columns, and the result is deceptive.

The fact is that for Buffalo (and I suspect pretty much everyone else) Inter-Conference games are *more* popular than games against the other 10 non-divisional teams in your conference, not less as your miscalculated numbers try and show.

This is all sort of beside the point. I haven't seen any proposals for significant changes to the number of games played against non-divisional, same-conference teams. Virtually all of the complaints have been (a) too many divisional games, and (b) too few interconference games. My primary point was that divisional games are weighted heavily, and interconference games lightly, as a response to consumer demand. Whatever the NHL's rhetoric was concerning the rationale for the schedule change, the change in scheduling last year was calculated by the owners to maximize ticket sales, and if fans really want more interconference games and fewer divisional games, the best way to convince the NHL is to speak with your pockets--stop running up the ticket sales at divisional games and go to more interconference games.

 

[boredmale]

If the league is going to keep it's current schedule, they should use a few tricks to make it more entertaining.

Some things they should do is have both the first 10 games and last 10 games be against teams in your division. Pros of this are the first 10 games everybody is just happy to see hockey back and the last 10 games it will be great because teams are fighting for playoff position in key games. The middle part of the season you will still see your division opponent but only 12 out of the 62 games


Beyond that they should go out of there way to have alot of back to back games between 2 teams, because usually when you do this the second game is a bit more "intense" and makes for better tv. The back to back games will also limit the chances of feeling every other game seems to be against a certain team(ie when you bunch the games together you feel like it's 1 meeting instead of 2.

 

[burstgreen]

If the league is going to keep it's current schedule, they should use a few tricks to make it more entertaining.

Some things they should do is have both the first 10 games and last 10 games be against teams in your division. Pros of this are the first 10 games everybody is just happy to see hockey back and the last 10 games it will be great because teams are fighting for playoff position in key games. The middle part of the season you will still see your division opponent but only 12 out of the 62 games

Might want to make it first and last eight (two games against each team), lest the Bruins might have to face the Maple Leafs three times in ten games, leading to widespread discontent and complaint. Other than that, I think it's a good idea.

I would also like to see the NHL return to what it did last year: package most all of the interconference games in two, two-week stints, similar to how baseball has all their interleague games at the same time. This sort of highlights the intercoference games as something special, and it breaks up the season a bit, rather than the one long mess of randomness that is this year's schedule.

 

[boredmale]

Might want to make it first and last eight (two games against each team), lest the Bruins might have to face the Maple Leafs three times in ten games, leading to widespread discontent and complaint. Other than that, I think it's a good idea.

I would also like to see the NHL return to what it did last year: package most all of the interconference games in two, two-week stints, similar to how baseball has all their interleague games at the same time. This sort of highlights the intercoference games as something special, and it breaks up the season a bit, rather than the one long mess of randomness that is this year's schedule.

I guess 8 does sound a bit more logical when you think about it, as for the counter arguement about interconference games. i actually like the games spread throughout the season, it's not a all at once kind of thing, although they should have all of them done before the final 20-25 games or so.

The League basically has to find ways of maximizing the schedule to create the greatest interest for tv viewers, so they could save all the big Interconference matchups for NBC or VS, plus the back-to-back idea that usually creates interesing second games.