The NHL Solution: As I see it

[Fraserburn]

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Before I get to my 1000 page Dissertation entitled the Current & Future State of the NHL I'd like to play around with ACfromtheD's model for a minute

I would set this league into 2 conferences but make them East and West
Cross country travel on a nightly basis is not only expensive but it is taxing on the players. so this is how i would change that up


East
Montreal
Ottawa
Detroit
Boston
New York
Philly
Toronto
Toronto (hamilton, London?) If you get rid of Buffalo where alot of toronto fans go see games there either has to be one in toronto or close by

West
Chicago
St Louis
Vancouver
Edmonton
Calgary
Winnipeg
Minnesota
Colorado

those are the only changes i would make on that....


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Good Evening Sports Infernites,

I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome you and introduce myself. I am Fraserburn. I am no pontiff or president. I am simply a man. This is not a State of the Union Address it is only the ramblings of one man on the 13 year slide of the National Hockey League (NHL) into increasing obscurity. So I warn you now, if you are one of those people who don’t know, don’t care, don’t understand this is not football you are now free to go back to your regular scheduled programming.

Ever since 1879 when road apples were replaced by rubber pucks hockey has been on the rise, that is to say until the 90s. The NHL welcomed Gary Bettman. The Detroit Red Wings are Chokers no more compiling a record of 406W-243L-96T 908 PTS in 745 Games to lead the entire league and drank from Lord Stanley’s Mug twice. Salaries exploded to outrageous levels and teams fled south of the border (no not to Taco Bell).
Expansion teams popped up like weeds across the United States. The Fox Trax puck turned hockey into a light show and the economic realities of the changing NHL closed the doors on the last 4 Original Six Barns and what little tradition was left in the league.

Fast forward to 2004-2005 the NHL is the first major sport to cancel an entire season and many wonder why. In reality you don’t have to dig any deeper than what you see on the surface. Salaries were too high, Over expansion diluted the talent pool and resulted in increasingly defensive strategies required to win, hence the “Trap”. Finally a collective bargaining agreement was reached and the NHL is back (yes it did leave) and with a Salary Cap.

Now to the meat of the situation, the NHL as it stands now

30 teams 6 in Canada and 24 in the USA

Eastern Conference
North East Division
Boston, Toronto, Buffalo, Ottawa, Montreal
South East Division
Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Carolina, Florida, Washington
Atlantic
New Jersey, Philly, New York, Long Island, Pittsburgh

Western Conference
Northwest Division
Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Colorado, Minnesota
Pacific
Los Angeles, San Jose, Anaheim, Phoenix, Dallas
Central
Detroit, Nashville, St Louis, Chicago, Columbus

Major Rules
· Instigator – misconduct for the player who starts the fight (Bettman 1993-94)
· 2 Referee System (Bettman 1998-99)
· Tag-Up offsides (mistakenly taken away for a few seasons now reinstitued)
· No Redline (2005-06)
· No changing after icing the puck (05-06)
· Penalty for shooting puck over the glass (05-06)
· Crackdown on Obstruction (been going on seemingly forever)
- Shootout (No more ties)

Hockey for all intents and purposes is irrelevant in the US outside of small pockets of die hard fans. Most Americans didnt even know it was gone for a year. Are Mr Bettmans changes working? Thats a matter of opinion, fiscally the owners will make money under the new system, but does that make the hockey any better? only time will tell......well time and ME yes I will presume to tell you how things should have been done in a perfect world so bear with me.

To Be Continued...

Next installment: The Future of the NHL


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Welcome to the second instalment of this speech and forgive me if I’m beginning to sound like scubbaman if so feel free to kick me in the bag right now.

Anyways on to the Fraser plan for the Ultimate NHL

2 Conferences w/ 2 divisions each
Prince of Wales Conference

Adams Division
Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto1 , Detroit, Buffalo, Boston

Patrick Division
New York R, Philly, Toronto2 (from NJ), Chicago, New York I, Carolina

Clarence Campbell Conference

Norris Division
Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg(From Phoenix), Minnesota, St Louis

Smythe Division
Los Angeles, San Jose, Dallas, Colorado, Nashville, Tampa Bay

Contracted Teams
Pittsburgh, Anaheim, Columbus, Washington, Florida, Atlanta

I changed the conference and division names back because it brings some of the tradition back.
I also subtracted teams that were either completely inept( ATL, WAS<, PITT), or the market was too saturated and weren’t pulling in fans. (eg Florida, Anaheim)
The Teams are now in the same divisions as traditional and geographical rivals.

Rules:
· Take the instigator out players need to police themselves and the slashing and running from behind will stop plus everybody likes fighting no matter what bettman says
· Give referees discretion whether a shot over the glass was intentional or not there is enough cheap penalties as there is
· Trapezoid? Gone see ya!
· Players elbow pads need to be foam not plastic too many concussions
· Get rid of the shootout (you’ll see why)


New Scoring System Win = 3 Points, Ties and OT Losses=1 Point…..now when it goes into 4 on 4 OT teams will actually go full out trying to score instead of holding back and settling for the tie. Thus making shootouts unnecessary **** gimmick anyway


Scheduling
83 game season
A Team plays each team in the opposite conference 2 times a season (home and home)
Then they play each team in the opposite division in their conference 4 times
Then they play each of the teams in their division 6 times each

TV DEAL TV DEAL TV DEAL
Get a real television deal with the evil ESPN empire it’s a necessity to regrow the game

And the Piece d’resistance
Take out the first 5 rows of seating all the way around the rink and expand the ice surface to Olympic size or close to it. That will effectively eliminate the trap because there is more room to manuever also these players are so big now there is simply no room out there with 10 skaters and 4 referees on the ice at all times. Now I know somebody will say that the owners would lose money from seating but you can make a case that they’d make more money from creative ticket pricing around the lower levels.

That’s all I have at the moment im sure I can add a few more things but I don’t have the time to do it so there it all is…..


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Alright Playoff Picture

it will stay relatively the same
12 teams in each conference and only 8 get in.
the first round of the playoffs is arguably the best hockey of the season with 16 teams goin at it full out

here is the major switch

currently division winners get seeded 1 2 3 no matter how many points they have. well that will change the division winners obviously make the playoffs but they are not guaranteed the top 1 or 2nd position they willl be seeded by points

So if Montreal wins the Adams with 111 points and Ottawa has 110
and New York wins the Patrick with 107 points New york is 3rd not 2nd

4-7 series
sudden death OT


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Quote:
Originally Posted by GaryAngel
Hey Fraserburn, if we can't get the ice expanded, how about going from 5 skaters a side to 4 skaters a side for normal purposes. That in theory should accomplish the same thing.



you ever see that south park episode when they went to a world wide recorder concert and they found the brown note that made everybody automatically crap their pants?

well thats what would happen the second hockey purists heard an idea like that

[Shugadaddi]

The only thing I would change about that is making an "Yzerman" division. Is it too soon for that?

[Gecko]

I like a lot of your ideas. Here's one I was thinking about today and have no idea if it's reasonable so I'll just throw it out there.

What about making the trap a penalty, kinda like the illegal defense in basketball?

You suggested taking 5 rows out around the arena to widen it but I don't think any owner is gonna wanna give up those dollars any time soon. Those are the most lucrative seats in the whole place.

I have no idea how you could police the trap. Maybe you are only allowed so many defensive players in the neutral zone at one time or for so many seconds like the 3 sec in the paint call in basketball but with more seconds.

Taking the trap out of hockey gives the advantage back to the more skilled teams in hockey and lets the game flow a little better. Teams would have to place an emphasis on puck control rather than grinders that have little talent.

[Fraserburn]

Technically taking out a few rows of seating and widening the surface creates MORE high priced seating since the circumference of the boards would be longer/larger = more expensive seats.

also i cant think of a way you could police the trap in hockey, but i'll think about it some more

[detroitsportscity]

I would love to see those teams contracted, with the possible exceptions of Pitt and Columbus, due to the history in Pitt, and that growing interest in Columbus.

I would also make everyone switch to olympic/near olympic Ice, this would have a larger rinkside area, so the owners SHOULDN'T cry about it. If they want to they could readjust seating, but only Detroit, NY, Toronto, and Colorado sell out enough that it would be a problem.

Also, I would reduce the number of playoff teams, make it 6 with 2 wild card games, or 4 teams.

[Glenn]

My solution: white pucks

[JS]

My solution to make things more interesting and balanced is come playoff time every team who makes the playoffs gets a new goalie, whether it be a back up, through trade or rookie but no team is allowed to use their regular goaltender.

It seems like every year the teams who uses new goalies make a deep run.