mouser
Business of Hockey
The saga continues. Please continue to keep your posts on topic.
Previous thread here:
http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=644614
Previous thread here:
http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=644614
Last edited:
I don't understand this logic at all.
Facts:
-Calgary/Edmonton/Vancouver already have to make many Eastern conference roadtrips each year, Hamilton is in close proximity to a significant amount of Eastern teams (Detroit, Toronto, Buffalo).
-Colorado is very isolated, especially when you consider their location within the NW conference and the distance to the nearest teams.
-Calgary/Edmonton/Vancouver have to play games in the Central division twice and Northeast once. Calgary/Edmonton/Vancouver have to play in Hamilton 3 times a year.
Please enlighten me and tell me what I don't understand.
Assuming this was the primary issue just for the sake of this point, it shouldn't ignored that with the current unbalanced schedule there aren't travel dates to those Eastern Conference teams each season. At best it's every second and in some case every third.
For one, there's very little talk about Hamilton being in the East Conference. It would really come down to either Hamilton or Atlanta, and the League could easily keep Hamilton in the West (in the Central) for the time being.
I totally understand where your coming from when you talk about "coordinated roadtrips", but you're talking about Edmonton, or Calgary, or Vancouver travelling to Phoenix, and comparing that with those 3 teams travelling to Hamilton. Phoenix is not in the NW, and therefore only 2 roadtrips were necessary, whereas having Hamilton in the NW would mean 3 roadtrips (going both ways) for all 4 of those teams. And not only the "road" trip but also the "time" travel changing 2 or 3 Time Zones, whereas Phoenix, to continue using your comparison, is in the same Time Zone or only 1 Time Zone away from Vancouver. And Time Zones are important not only to the players but to TV audiences. Almost certainly for most of those 6 games between Vancouver and Hamilton very few people in both cities would get to watch them.
You also mentioned about coordinating a trip to Hamilton with games against other nearby Eastern Conference teams. But again, how many times do Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver play those Eastern Conference teams... really only once in a Season (and half are home games), and if Vancouver, for instance, travels to play Northeast teams, sure they can do Hamilton at the same time but it adds yet another game to that roadtrip.
Let's not forget that teams like Vancouver, Edmonton, Colorado, San Jose, Dallas, Calgary, and Minnesota already have grueling travel schedules. 'OH, it's just adding one more....' yes, one more to the worst already.
And lastly, as I said it doesn't all have to do with travel distance but also with number of Time Zones. But just with respect to travel distance, here's the difference with Hamilton in the Northwest as compared to Colorado:
Vancouver - Colorado = 1775 km
Edmonton - Colorado = 1661 km (same Time Zone)
Calgary - Colorado = 1441 km (same TZ)
Minnesota - Colorado = 1112 km
Total = 5989 km
Vancouver - Hamilton = 3350 km (3 times in a Season)
Edmonton - Hamilton = 2706 km (3 times)
Calgary - Hamilton = 2705 km (3 times)
Minnesota - Hamilton = 1101 km
Total = 9862 km
That's a difference of 3873 km x 3 = 11,619 km extra.
Oh yes, "coordinated" roadtrips... Don't you think the League already tries to do that.
This makes the road trips even longer. For some reason, people think it's fine for western teams to regularly make these week long or longer trips, while eastern teams often go home after each game. Then you want to add to the western teams travel just to suit one team? If Balsille wants new site added to the west, it needs to BE in the west.
Otherwise, it just increases the odds that the BoG rejects his application.
This makes the road trips even longer. For some reason, people think it's fine for western teams to regularly make these week long or longer trips, while eastern teams often go home after each game. Then you want to add to the western teams travel just to suit one team? If Balsille wants new site added to the west, it needs to BE in the west.
Otherwise, it just increases the odds that the BoG rejects his application.
I think that Vancouver would get a BETTER travel schedule with 3 games in Hamilton and 1 fewer in Colorado and 2 fewer in Phoenix.
Calgary took 6 eastern roadtrips last year. To make 3 of these roadtrips a single game longer isn't a big deal whatsoever. Having talked to NHL players (who play in the West), they don't really mind roadtrips, its a time to get away from the hectic local media and have use the roadtrips as a time to bring the team closer together.
Some of you guys are making it sound like adding Hamilton to the NW would make their travel schedules KHL Siberiaesque. It's really not a big deal. And I'm a Flames fan.
I completely agree.
Guys, check out the NHL map, this realignment is definitely the best proposal I've seen.
Hamilton adds a ton of flexibility to this problem, wheras Phoenix acts like a nasty, nasty constraint.
Hamilton makes these links easier, not harder, than Phoenix (which gets tacked on nasty road trips with large distances between games).
Using the same argument, relocating Phoenix further isolates Dallas and creates a bigger issue in tacking on stop overs there.
Huh? C'mon man, you know that Calgary's situation had much more to do with the cap than the travel.How much did the western travel add to the Flames injury and fatigue problems that had them dressing 15 players near the end. Do you think they want to add to that?
And I'm a Flames fan.
What it does to Dallas is less clear for sure. But I think it is clear that the 3 teams with the worst travel are Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary in that order, so there concerns come above the rest.
Adding a single game adds either a back to back and two extra days or without a back to back then 3 or more days to each trip. Your Flames have a hard enough time attracting UFAs and like most western teams, wear down towards the end of the season. How much did the western travel add to the Flames injury and fatigue problems that had them dressing 15 players near the end. Do you think they want to add to that?
I was making the Dallas point from an Edmonton, Vancouver and Calgary perspective.
Huh? C'mon man, you know that Calgary's situation had much more to do with the cap than the travel.
I'll post some numbers so we can really see what the injury situation is actually like:
http://www.fromtherink.com/2009/3/18/802866/isles-are-nhl-s-most-injur
In terms of man games lost to injury for the past for seasons, the highest ranking NW team is Colorado, which ranks 9th in the league.
6 of the 8th most injured teams over the past four seasons are in fact Eastern Conference Teams
As we see, there is no factual correlation between injuries and travel.
Guys... we have a whole relocation application to dissect and all we can do is talk realignment?
And your response to the fact that over the past four seasons, 6 of the top 8 most injured teams were in the Eastern conference is....?The cap became a problem due to injuries. One of the greatest causes of injury is fatigue. The longer a team is on the road, the more they get fatigued. Western teams are at a disadvantage already.This exacerbates the problem. I think the only logical progression is in order:
And your response to the fact that over the past four seasons, 6 of the top 8 most injured teams were in the Eastern conference is....?
MoreOrr said:However, not one of the teams in the Northwest benefit by having Hamilton in that Division. After one Season, you can be guaranteed that every team in that then 4-Time Zone Division will be complaining and demanding that something get changed.
And let's not forget that this is a Coyotes'/Balsillie idea. If the move to Hamilton ever happens, we've heard no sign (and we will hear no sign) that the League would even seriously consider this alignment because of the horrid Division that it would create for NW teams.
I used the following games:
Western Conference: 2 games
3 Canadian teams: 1 games
Eastern Teams: 0.5 games
Which I believe to be 100% accurate (and hence why despite many more teams the games go from 9 to 13).
I think the idea of Hamilton in the East is a non-starter. It would infuriate Detroit, and whatever team gets bumped. The SE division is all relatively close, so I doubt that gets changed by bumping Atlanta (then how replaces them?).
I also believe that Hamilton/Toronto 2 is better served in the West as it differentiates the product. HNIC would be in heaven.
I believe that Phoenix to Hamilton would produce a schedule for the 4 other NW teams that:
a) Has less total distance travelled
b) Has the same average road trip length
The time zone issue is valid (mainly for Vancouver). However, West to East is vastly preferable to East to West (a 4:30-5:30 start works ok for TV, a 10:30 start sucks). However, due to competition with the Leafs for TV time, I think later starts works ok for Hamilton as well. So long as they are in the West, this is always going to be an issue for them.
As I said above, I accounted for this in the # of games (13 up from 9). Vancouver already plays every Canadian team home and away (3 games), Detroit, Chicago, Columbus twice (6 games) and 4 games against the remaining Atlantic, NE teams and Washington. Adding Hamilton is easy to any 2-3 games against these other teams. In essence, it creates a pool of 16 games in a very centralized location, perhaps done in 3-4 road trips of 4-5 games for Vancouver/Calgary/Edmonton.
But you miss my point entirely because you are hung up on how far team A is from team B. I believe (honestly) that Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton would end up with a LESS grueling travel schedule with Hamilton instead of 2 games in Phoenix and 1 in Colorado.
Still simplistic, and yes the league does try to co-ordinate road trips (this is an extremely difficult constrained optimization problem). Hamilton adds a ton of flexibility to this problem, wheras Phoenix acts like a nasty, nasty constraint.
Let us look at Vancouver's road trips last season:
Calgary
Washington
Detroit
Buffalo
Chicago
Columbus
LA
Anahiem
NYI
NYR
Minnissota
Pittsburgh
Calgary
Columbus
Detroit
Minnissota
Colorado
Nashville
Edmonton
San Jose
Nashville
Atlanta
Edmonton
San Jose
St. Louis
Phoenix
Dallas
Calgary
Ottawa
Toronto
Montreal
LA
Anaheim
Phoenix
Dallas
St. Louis
Colorado
Chicago
Minnesota
Edmonton
Colorado
I count 5 road trips where Vancouver is within a hr flight of Hamilton, and easily tacked on at numerous times throughout most of these trips.
Vancouver had one off games with SJ, Edmonton and Colorado (last game of the season), the rest of the schedule is linked. Hamilton makes these links easier, not harder, than Phoenix (which gets tacked on nasty road trips with large distances between games).
I know your intuition is telling you that Hamilton means more travel for Vancouver, but I don't think that is the case. Believe it or not, Vancouver would have less travel if it played in the Eastern Conference than the West because the travel between games on a road trip, which more than offsets the longer initial and end flights to get to the East. No matter what Vancouver is going to have extended road trips.
This doesn't make any sense... How can someone justify putting a team from Hamilton to the Northwest Division? I really hope there's a different solution than this one, our team is already heavily traveled enough as it is and I don't want anymore negative affects.
Bettman says that Jim Balsillie's bid isn't really 212.5 million. It is much less.
he wants to take aways Moyes $100 million, thus making the bid actually 112.5 million, NHL wants the traitor to get no blood money
Your arguments are so good, you should apply that reasoning to the Eastern Conference and explain to all the teams there that mixing western Divisions with eastern Divisions is really beneficial to everyone's travel.
Originally posted by Faltorvo:
You should do some research before you shoot your mouth off.
No complaints about subsidies by tax payers is because the tax payers OWN Copps.
Don't you think it's in the tax payers best interest to secure a anchor tenant like a NHL team or would you rather have another arena built that is going to compete against you?