Southeast Division in 2012
by tankerkevo on Nov 7, 2011 12:35 PM EST
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So my pops wrote me an email asking what the NHL blogosphere is saying about the realignment of the divisions next year. Well, honestly, I haven't really paid it too much thought. After reading his email, I figured it was the perfect post to get the topic started, so I've posted his email to me in it's original form below the jump.
Kevin,
What are the bloggers theorizing about team realignment of the NHL Divisions next year to accommodate the Atlanta-to-Winnipeg Jets move?
Normally, the NHL tries to keep division teams in the same time zone, so that most of their games are played against teams in the same time zone to maximize local TV exposure for both division teams when they play each other.
That being said, Winnipeg is located in the Central time zone. So, you would think the Jets would be moved into the NHL Central Division. On the other hand, all of the other teams in the Southeast Division are in the Eastern time zone.
But, there are currently 2 teams in the Central division that are actually in the Eastern time zone - Detroit and Columbus. If the NHL were to move one of these teams into the Southeast Division, it would make sense.
Since Detroit is one of the "Original 6" teams and they have a VERY traditional rivalry with another Central Division "Original 6" team (the Chicago Blackhawks), I don't think Detroit is a viable consideration to be moved.
So, that leaves the Columbus Blue Jackets who are located in the central Ohio capital city. Columbus is also very close geographically to Washington DC which would make good sense for "economics" relative to minimizing travel costs for the existing Southeast Division teams.
Columbus is my best guess.
Dad....
This post was written by a member of the Raw Charge community and doesn't necessarily express the views or opinions of Raw Charge staff.
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I cleaned this up for you a bit – paragraph spacing had an extra space & “Southeast” is one word. That’s it, really.
Anywho, this is assuming that the NHL doesn’t decide to blow everything up and restructure the entire league. There’s been talk about going to four divisions and no conferences, after all. Hopefully, they’ll avoid those old names. They were all so confusing to me.
"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." -Herb Brooks
Raw Charge, an SBN Tampa Bay Lightning community. Follow me on Twitter: @dagmar27.
by Cassie McClellan on Nov 7, 2011 1:39 PM EST reply actions
the ACC asks whether you'd rather be in the Coastal or the Atlantic?
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 7, 2011 1:51 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
I'm a huge cfb fan and I still couldn't tell you who's in what division
That was an EPIC fail by the ACC
October 28th, 2011-- a date which will live in infamy--
OTTOTD.com
same here
I could tell you if I sat and thought about it for a while, but it’s seriously terrible. Even worse than the B1G, which is pretty bad.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 7, 2011 4:53 PM EST up reply actions
The who? You’ve got the wrong coast, my friend. That isn’t the Pac-12.
"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." -Herb Brooks
Raw Charge, an SBN Tampa Bay Lightning community. Follow me on Twitter: @dagmar27.
by Cassie McClellan on Nov 7, 2011 10:13 PM EST up reply actions
if it were the Pac-12, how would I joke about nonsensical division names?
“North” and “South” are reasonable. Now “Atlantic,” “Coastal,” “Legends,” Leaders" . . .
insertfavoritefail.jpg
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 7, 2011 11:50 PM EST up reply actions
Damn the Pac-12 for being relatively logical, anyways. ;o)
"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." -Herb Brooks
Raw Charge, an SBN Tampa Bay Lightning community. Follow me on Twitter: @dagmar27.
by Cassie McClellan on Nov 8, 2011 7:50 AM EST up reply actions
There's talk...
Of vast restructuring and re-alignment. There’s also the possibility of a band-aid fix to things — Winnipeg to teh central, Detroit to the Southeast.
I am not the only one who has been in favor of scrapping the East/West division split in favor of two cross-continent conferences divided into three disions (East, Central, West). The problem with the current alignment, besides the horrible geography, is that it lumps regiosn together and shuns the idea of trying to grow the league.
In the end, I expect the NHL to take the easy way out. They always have, always will.
Typing is an adventure, and reading should be, too!
Raw Charge.
I think East vs. West will stick around, if only because it maintains some semblance of the other sports in the countries (U.S. and Canada). All the leagues are organized East vs. West—I expect the NHL to maintain compliance with the others. The Gary thinks too little of Joe Sportsfan’s intelligence to go a different route.
If they didn’t continue with East and West, we’d have to suffer through a “Team Ovechkin vs. Team Crosby” All-Star Game—that’s almost a guarantee. None of us would survive that level of over-marketing those individuals.
"The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect"
- Smith in Orwell's 1984
all leagues other than the NFL and MLB
but who cares about those two?
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 7, 2011 4:54 PM EST up reply actions
Doh!
You’re right, of course. I really need to start taking my Gingko. #senilitysetsinearly
Still: the point is still the same. Both have two conferences (yes, I do realize MLB calls them something different) that are seperate during the season and during the playoffs.
"The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect"
- Smith in Orwell's 1984
I think the MLB model is perhaps not a bad idea
Because it spreads out the travel issues a lot more evenly. Have an East, Central, and West in each conference.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 10:02 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Conversely, I think the NFL model could be the best: two conferences, four divisions.
Oh, wait, that’s what we have now (more or less). :-)
"The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect"
- Smith in Orwell's 1984
if we added two more teams
that might not be terrible. but with 30, you’re right, it’s crazy
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 10:37 AM EST up reply actions
If they go that way, then I’d expect them to add two more teams. Why bother otherwise? The owners and the league get lots of money on expansion fees, so it wouldn’t be that surprising to see them want to add more teams.
Now, whether they should or not is a completely different thing.
"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." -Herb Brooks
Raw Charge, an SBN Tampa Bay Lightning community. Follow me on Twitter: @dagmar27.
by Cassie McClellan on Nov 8, 2011 11:19 AM EST up reply actions
there's a lot of alignment problems that could be solved with two new teams, strategically placed
but can the league support 32? Can the league even support 30?
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 12:09 PM EST up reply actions
It’s not a matter of support. It’s a matter of putting more money in owners’ pockets.
The NHL’s interested in putting a second NHL team in Toronto – assuming that the Leafs would go for that, which they probably would. Their problem with southern Ontario has been relocation, not expansion. The Leafs would get a lot more money from expansion than they would from relocating a team.
The other sites that the NHL would like is to put another team in the Western Conference – Kansas City, Seattle, Houston, whatever. Phoenix potentially moving to Quebec City may not be much of an issue. Not with the NJ Devils probably declaring bankruptcy. The Devils could go to one of the aforementioned cities – as could the Islanders.
This could be much messier than people expect – and I ain’t talking Mark Messier, either.
"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." -Herb Brooks
Raw Charge, an SBN Tampa Bay Lightning community. Follow me on Twitter: @dagmar27.
by Cassie McClellan on Nov 8, 2011 1:31 PM EST up reply actions
what I mean to ask
is will two more teams just mean two more money pits, or is there a way to make it profitable?
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 1:41 PM EST up reply actions
Putting a second team in the Toronto area will likely be another money pit. After that, it’s hit or miss. But that’s how it always is. For instance, Pittsburgh may be a powerhouse now, but it wasn’t that long ago that they almost moved to Kansas City.
"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." -Herb Brooks
Raw Charge, an SBN Tampa Bay Lightning community. Follow me on Twitter: @dagmar27.
by Cassie McClellan on Nov 8, 2011 3:06 PM EST up reply actions
I'm not talking so much about the particular city choices as the number of teams in general
is a 32-team setup more apt to have financial problems than a 30 team setup? Are those two new teams taking revenue from existing teams that may already be struggling, or are they tapping new markets? Of course, this depends in part on what cities are chosen, but this is the key question.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 3:11 PM EST up reply actions
Other than a second team in Toronto, it’d be tapping new markets. Or old ones, if you’re talking about Quebec City. There shouldn’t be any cannibalism going on in regards to crowds & merchandise.
"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." -Herb Brooks
Raw Charge, an SBN Tampa Bay Lightning community. Follow me on Twitter: @dagmar27.
by Cassie McClellan on Nov 8, 2011 3:46 PM EST up reply actions
Comparison to the NFL
Should only be the fact that they’re using two cross-continent conferences. Complaining aobut division alignments in the NFL or how they should be designed is besides the point.
It’s a hell of a lot better system than placing Detroit and Columbus in the West, and Dallas in the Pacific (counter point: Dallas is in the East in the NFL – which was done for Rivalry sake… Which echoes the NHl’s oft-twisted logic).
Typing is an adventure, and reading should be, too!
Raw Charge.
by John Fontana on Nov 8, 2011 12:18 PM EST up reply actions
geography matters a lot less when you have a 16 game season
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 12:26 PM EST up reply actions
And who said anything about abolishing the two conference system? I’m saying get rid of East/West in order to bring some sanity to the conference lineup. Three divisions of East-Central-West, instead of massing teams int he east and then having out-of-place teams all over the “West”.
And yes, there is (limited) interleague play in MLB during the regular season. It wasn’t like tha tfor a very long time, though.
They mass
Typing is an adventure, and reading should be, too!
Raw Charge.
by John Fontana on Nov 8, 2011 12:14 PM EST up reply actions
the trick with your idea, of course
is figuring out which rivalries are worth preserving and which aren’t. I know you don’t tend to put a lot of weight there, but I’m a college football fan, and I do.
You can’t preserve everything without just getting a carbon copy of what you have now. For instance, you’re going to have to choose between Boston/Montreal and Toronto/Montreal (I’d go BOS/MON—Toronto has other rivals, and BOS/MON seems more intense). And I don’t even know what you do with the four NY/NJ/PHI teams. You have to split them, but how? I’d tend to just split off the Islanders by themselves.
A kinda-care-about-some-rivalries attempt, just for fun:
Conference A:
East:
Boston
Montreal
NYI
Carolina
Florida
Central:
Toronto
Ottawa
Buffalo
Nashville
Dallas
West
Winnipeg
Calgary
Edmonton
Colorado
Minnesota
Conference B:
East:
Philly
New Jersey
NYR
Washington
Tampa
Central
Detroit
Chicago
Pittsburgh
Columbus
St. Louis
West:
Vancouver
Phoenix
San Jose
LA
Anaheim
I feel pretty good about that. The only division that seems a bit off is the Central in Conference A, but I felt like it was important to put Columbus with Detroit and Pittsburgh to see if they could find some rivals, so Dallas and Nashville form a pair (regarding both culture and time zone) to join the Buffalo/Ontario trifecta.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 12:53 PM EST up reply actions
sorry, I'm dumb
copied and pasted, but with formatting
Conference A:
East:
Boston
Montreal
NYI
Carolina
Florida
Central:
Toronto
Ottawa
Buffalo
Nashville
Dallas
West
Winnipeg
Calgary
Edmonton
Colorado
Minnesota
Conference B:
East:
Philly
New Jersey
NYR
Washington
Tampa
Central
Detroit
Chicago
Pittsburgh
Columbus
St. Louis
West:
Vancouver
Phoenix
San Jose
LA
Anaheim
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 12:55 PM EST up reply actions
I can’t see anyone in that Central Division in Conf A getting excited about a single one of those games.
Except Dallas and Buffalo. That’s actually brilliant, now that I think about it.
R.I.P. Belak, Rypien, Boogaard, Lokomotiv.
Part Predator, part Lightning.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEKKA!!!
haha
you know Dallas and Buffalo was completely unintentional, but it’s too perfect.
I thought the Central divisions were the toughest. The West divisions organized themselves nicely. One division has all five (geographically) Pacific teams, the other has the current Northwest Division + Winnipeg. The East is clumped up reasonable well.
But with the new Central, you’d have to find some way to divide the five current Central teams, plus Buffalo, Toronto, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, and Dallas. And there’s not really a good way to do that. I figure Buffalo/Toronto/Ottawa should get some “proximity breeds contempt” action going on, and then that it’d be better to keep a pair of Southern markets together instead of throwing in Pittsburgh and Columbus, but that is another way to do it.
Central A:
Buffalo
Toronto
Ottawa
Pittsburgh
Columbus
Central B:
Detroit
Chicago
Nashville
St. Louis
Dallas
That ruins the unintentional awesome of Dallas/Buffalo, but it’s otherwise better, isn’t it?
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 1:47 PM EST up reply actions
Aw.
As sensible as those look to a WC girl, I was sort of getting psyched for the “His @#$% Foot Was in the @#$% Crease” Division.
R.I.P. Belak, Rypien, Boogaard, Lokomotiv.
Part Predator, part Lightning.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEKKA!!!
I know what you mean
but the general point is that I think this framework can work without completely destroying all the rivalries.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 6:27 PM EST up reply actions
I would love to see things actually get fixed. I’d love to see Columbus put in a position where it can actually succeed and not have Nashville get damaged by a) losing the Detroit games or b) having to play most of their road games in other time zones. I’d love to see Dallas get a fair shake on travel and time zones, which they haven’t for many years.
As it’s set up, the system favors the teams that are geographically close to each other (read the Eastern Conference, especially in the North). They have far less of a travel burden and less than half of the time zone implications of western teams. But the real factor in that is geography. Western Conference teams are just so much more spread out than Eastern Conference teams. Breaking up and redrawing the conferences and divisions won’t help. Only balancing the schedules will help, and you don’t have to completely redraw the conferences to do that.
R.I.P. Belak, Rypien, Boogaard, Lokomotiv.
Part Predator, part Lightning.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEKKA!!!
but the more unbalanced the schedule
the more the Lightning come to Raleigh. lol
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 12:10 PM EST up reply actions
I have decided that I am entirely too cynical to answer this question.
This is the NHL. Whatever they do, a large part will make no sense whatsoever to anyone and will be endlessly argued over for the next bazillion years. Kind of like the shoot out. Only with schedules. And suits.
R.I.P. Belak, Rypien, Boogaard, Lokomotiv.
Part Predator, part Lightning.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEKKA!!!
by CAustin on Nov 7, 2011 4:05 PM EST reply actions 2 recs
Not entirely OT, but the graphic here is kinda cool. (Link goes to Puck Daddy)
"The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect"
- Smith in Orwell's 1984
I really miss the 80s/90s Pens logo
and, campy as it is, I liked the old Ducks logo.
The Caps and Sabres probably changed for the better, but the 90s logos are still the ones I associate with the team in my mind.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 3:47 PM EST up reply actions
Kings and Coyotes too
the 90s logos are the ones I associate with the team. Kings changed for the worse, Coyotes probably for the better.
For some reason, the Islanders’ 90s logo is the only one that isn’t associated in my head with the team. Probably because it was so incredibly terrible.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 8, 2011 3:50 PM EST up reply actions
The graphic was educational for me. I didn’t know, for instance, the Red Wings started in the Eastern Conference (which had been my primary basis of protest for moving the Red Wings to the East next year).
The retro logos are cool, too. I was never a fan of the team, but I like the North Stars logo.
"The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect"
- Smith in Orwell's 1984
Hockey newbie. ;o)
"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." -Herb Brooks
Raw Charge, an SBN Tampa Bay Lightning community. Follow me on Twitter: @dagmar27.
by Cassie McClellan on Nov 8, 2011 7:06 PM EST up reply actions
Taking John's NFL-style idea amusingly too far
Let’s just put together cities that already hate each other from being division rivals in football, and sprinkle the Canadian teams in wherever they seem to fit.
AHC East (AFC East)
Sabres
Bruins
Isles
Panthers
Habs
AHC Central (AFC North, both South divisions)
Lightning
Hurricanes
Predators
Penguins
Blue Jackets
AHC West (okay, so these are just the leftover teams from Western cities without football teams)
Kings
Ducks
Canucks
Flames
Oilers
NHC East (NFC East)
Rangers
Devils
Flyers
Capitals
Stars
NHC Central (NFC North)
Red Wings
Blackhawks
Wild
Maple Leafs
Senators
NHC West (Both West divisions)
Blues
Avalanche
Coyotes
Sharks
Jets
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 9, 2011 11:09 PM EST reply actions
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