Travel in CHL leagues
- Thread starter alko
- Start date
Thought I would bump this as the OP is from Europe and I am curious myself about some aspects of this topic.
Ontario and Quebec are easily lighter on travel then the West. I am sure the West have some different ways to help keep it down, I believe not every team visits every building each season, if I remember another post correctly. Perhaps someone familiar with the West could explain some of the ways they try to deal with the travel.
I'm guessing Ontario and Quebec are fairly close overall?
Ontario and Quebec are easily lighter on travel then the West. I am sure the West have some different ways to help keep it down, I believe not every team visits every building each season, if I remember another post correctly. Perhaps someone familiar with the West could explain some of the ways they try to deal with the travel.
I'm guessing Ontario and Quebec are fairly close overall?
Otto
Lynch Syndrome. Know your families cancer history
OHL would have to be the easiest by far. When you look at the distances between cities, some of the QMJHL teams are 20 hours apart, where all of the OHL cities are within 8-9 hours and mostly major highways. Owen Sound & Erie work it out so they play each other 4 times a season, 2 games in each city and the games in Owen Sound are usually on back to back nights. The Attack I believe are the only team that isn't off of a major highway.
Yeah, I am familiar with the O, but would like to hear about the nuances the other leagues have since they cover quite more distance. I think Owen Sound is the only one not on a major highway. Hwy 10 can be a pain for a bus I would imagine as I often go up north on that road.
They play back-to-back in Erie as well.
The OHL is easily the friendliest on travel, WHL is the worst with some massive bus rides for teams going from Manitoba to BC. The QMJHL is probably somewhere in between. They are changing their playoff system supposedly and moving away from the 1-16 system.
Otto
Lynch Syndrome. Know your families cancer history
Erie and Owen Sound play 6 times, 4 of the games are back to back. Owen Sound is in Erie 11/28/18, 1/11/19, and 1/12/19.
So, I'm in agreement with many of the above posters that the OHL is the easiest and the WHL is the hardest. However, I say there is a huge caveat in there. Many of the Q teams would have worse travel than a few in the Dub. It really depends on your definition of worst. Worst, as in total km's traveled through the year; or single longest road trip, or furthest divisional opponents?
Some of the worst would be
Prince George - 6 hours to CLOSEST opponent
Victoria - ferries to all road games.
Brandon - 4 hours to closest opponent.
Kootenay - 3+ to closest opponent, includes a mountain pass whether you go east OR west.
Cape Breton - 4 hours to closest opponent (not a 4-lane all the way)
Baie Comeau - 4 hours to closest opponent (not a 4-lane most (any?) of the way)
Rouyn Noranda/Val-d'or - Just over an hour to each other but 4.5 hours to the next closest for VDO (so 5.5 for RN).
My point being, yes, the WHL as a whole is probably the worst, but if you ranked them best-worst 1-60, it wouldn't be 1-20 OHL, 21-38 Q, 39-60 Dub... Hell, the Soo might be worse travel than say Swift Current - again depending on definition. Soo has 3.5 hours to closest opponents, but then there is a whole whack within about 5/5.5.
Other things to consider: the WHL only plays inter-conference games once a year (NOT a home-and-home), and generally they are scheduled as one really long road trip. The Q does do a home-and-home between divisions, and generally doesn't do more than 3 (or 4) in a single trip.
Also, I know some Q teams do fly to a central destination, bus between and fly home. Halifax has both chartered and flown commercial (to Ottawa) in recent years. The Dub, if I recall correctly requires all travel to be by bus so there is balance between the wealthy teams and the have-nots...maybe someone can update on if this is still the case.
Hope this helps somewhat.
Otto
Lynch Syndrome. Know your families cancer history
Otto
Lynch Syndrome. Know your families cancer history
Looks like a fun project... calculating the total travel for each team over the course of the season... probably wouldn't take much to do using a simple excel spreadsheet
Otto
Lynch Syndrome. Know your families cancer history
A quick google search and I found this from 2010 ... Obviously some of the teams have moved, but it's probably not far off... OHL had the shortest total distance in the final 18 spots, with Ottawa & Sault Ste Marie being the exceptions
https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/distance-traveled-whl-vs-ohl-vs-qmjhl.810235/
https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/distance-traveled-whl-vs-ohl-vs-qmjhl.810235/
That's a great find Otto!
I had the same question that I saw you post in the one blog - are these straight line distances to and from each destination, or does it include road "trips." It appears the poster answers that in the other blog, where he/she says they are going by schedule and guessing whether a team is returning home or not. Which is great, and therefore probably the best answer the original poster of this thread is gonna get. Even if some of the teams have moved around.
I'm surprised Cape Breton is the worst. I guess that 1 road game every year to 1 every destination puts them over the top (versus the WHL rule where its every destination once every two years.)....I wonder if those rankings would switch then if the blogger did his/her calculations a year later or a year earlier.
..if anyone is interested in continuing this conversation with leagues at the tier 2 level, I'd be all for it.
I had the same question that I saw you post in the one blog - are these straight line distances to and from each destination, or does it include road "trips." It appears the poster answers that in the other blog, where he/she says they are going by schedule and guessing whether a team is returning home or not. Which is great, and therefore probably the best answer the original poster of this thread is gonna get. Even if some of the teams have moved around.
I'm surprised Cape Breton is the worst. I guess that 1 road game every year to 1 every destination puts them over the top (versus the WHL rule where its every destination once every two years.)....I wonder if those rankings would switch then if the blogger did his/her calculations a year later or a year earlier.
..if anyone is interested in continuing this conversation with leagues at the tier 2 level, I'd be all for it.
