Your ideal NHL

[ACCBiggz]

Columbus - this is a pretty large city, and it's the only professional franchise (Big 4, MLS we won't count here) there.

Just because a city doesn't have another sport doesn't mean it needs an NHL team. The NHL is not a charity for sad cities and bored citizens, it's a business. The viability of putting a sport in a city that has no sports is obvious but it doesn't make a non-viable market suddenly economically solvent. That's just basic math; a+b=c, not f.

[TheSqauredCircleMessiah]

Contracted Teams

Tampa Bay

Carolina

Phoenix

Atlanta

Nashville

Florida

Minor Realigment

Detroit to the East

My New, 24-Team NHL

Eastern Conference: Division 1

Detroit

Toronto

Ottawa

Montreal

Philadelphia

Washington

Divison 2

New Jersey

NY Islanders

NY Rangers

Buffalo

Boston

Pittsburgh

Western Conference: Division 1

Columbus

St. Louis

Dallas

Chicago

Minnesota

Colorado

Division 2

Anaheim

San Jose

Los Angeles

Edmonton

Calgary

Phoenix

*Only 12 teams make the playoffs, 6 from each conference. Top 2 seeds get a 1st Bye and the 1st Round is a best of three.

*NO SHOOTOUTS. One, 15-minute Overtime period. If no scoring, game's a tie

*Take out the NERF aspects of the new NHL

*Gary Bettman is drawn and quartered

*As said above, do whatever it takes to get back on ESPN. If the first year or two nets no rights fee, so be it. If ESPN doesn't give a rights fee, look to put the league on other networks at the same time. Every other league is on multiple channels.

[wCwCreator]

I don't think the NHL should kill almost half of their teams. It wouldn't be good for a league, professionally. No parody.

I'd suggest:

*An NHL Schedule where every team meets everyone else at least once.

*Lower ticket prices. I hear their $80-something now for one game. That is bollocks, how is that attracting any fans?

*No 4-on-4 OT, it's stupid and pointless. No one wants to see that. Bring the shootout, give the fans what they want.

*A camera at the bottom of the crossbar to make sure disputed goals get a chance.

*No touch icing. Save everyone's legs.

*Elimination of the Instigator rule.

*Get nice with ESPN again. Versus/NBC isn't doing you any favors.

*The All Star Game: maybe it's time to get rid of it but have announcements about All-Star nominees or make it mean something, take a page out of Baseball. Winning conference gets home-ice at the finals.

Among other things:

-If the league wanted to be smaller, I'd cut it to 28 teams. (Nashville, Columbus sorry.) have a dispersal draft for their players.

-If the league wanted to expand, Bring in two more teams. If you're pro-Canadian: Winnipeg, Somewhere in Southern Ontario. If you're pro-American: Kansas City, Las Vegas*

-NHL Draft Lottery. The unexpectedness of it all.

-Trade deadline should be more stricter on time limits.

-Instead of the Commissioner handing over the cup, it should be the Winning Captain of the previous year.

*Huge risk taking a team their. People go their to gamble, not watch hockey.

[SeanDMan]

Columbus - this is a pretty large city, and it's the only professional franchise (Big 4, MLS we won't count here) there.

Just because a city doesn't have another sport doesn't mean it needs an NHL team. The NHL is not a charity for sad cities and bored citizens, it's a business. The viability of putting a sport in a city that has no sports is obvious but it doesn't make a non-viable market suddenly economically solvent. That's just basic math; a+b=c, not f.

The thing with Columbus is that it's still new to hockey, but it doesn't do horrible there compared to other cities. And why contract a team from a city that showed they want hockey there. They are holding the draft there, they built that whole new arena for them, etc. There is a committment, at least right now, to the NHL and you need time to grow the sport there. I think if your ideal NHL must have contractions then there are other cities to contract from, in my opinion. And Columbus is far from a sad city with bored citizens, the one downfall about any professional franchise there (Blue Jackets, Crew [MLS], and if you want to count the Clippers [AAA]) is that Columbus is far and beyond a college town. The largest University in the world. On the other hand, the plus is that the OSU Hockey team draws well on campus and showed some upside for them to put a pro team in the city which they did.

Don't get me wrong; my post was note a vote for Columbus to be contracted, merely pointing out that I dislike that logic entirely. If not having another sport there makes a city an ideal hockey market Columbus would be selling out every year and it isn't even close yet. You need more then just an oppurtunity you need commitment and involvement from local businesses and fans, and moreover you need a strong team, in order to get the kind of interest to create a sustainable market. I think Columbus is fine, it's major drawback was that it was mismanaged and has not been able to make a winner. I think they have some pieces but they need to put it all together and at the very least make the playoffs before fans will show up. The main problem with his logic is that it invents inverted thinking along the same statements; surely, since New York, Detroit, Chicago, and Detroit all have both NFL and MLB teams in some town, they clearly need to move the NHL out of there ASAP? They need to find markets that don't have sports teams, like Oklahoma City, Juneau, Maui, Mexico City... it's a silly arguement, there are some markets that can support more then one major sport, and alternately, there are some markets that just cannot sustain a major sport at all.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

Why and how should the trade deadline be stricter on time limits? If the paperwork is in to the league office by 3 PM, the trade goes through. They're not always handed to the media right away, so that players don't find out that they're traded from watching TV.

[SeanDMan]

Pardon the double post, but I think there are actually some not bad ideas here, so.

I don't think the NHL should kill almost half of their teams. It wouldn't be good for a league, professionally. No parody.

First of all, the word is parity. Secondly, some people think that the NHL has indeed expanded to the point of parody. But I agree; everyone always wants to ax the league and they figure that that will solve the NHL's problem. The NHL's main problem is not that it has too many markets, it's that they open a new market, take the expansion money, and then pat themselves on the back. Developing a market for hockey is NOT something that you can just sit and wait for, you need to actually put some work into it. The problem is that the NHL is incredibly short sighted and just doesn't really seem to understand economics at all. It's why they locked out a year of hockey because they found the NHLPA's salary cap of 45 million dollars to be unacceptable and is now poised to sign off on a 50 million dollar cap. I don't think they really understand how completely fucking retarded that was, but they will. Anyway, I don't want to veer off on a rant so I'll go point for point.

*An NHL Schedule where every team meets everyone else at least once.

I don't think the trend towards divisional heavy scheduling was a bad thing, I think they took it too far. I think that an ideal schedule would probably cut back the divisional games down to 6, that gives you 8 extra games to play with an additional ten teams right there. It needs more balancing sure, but it can be done. Alternately, if they wanted to redo the entire thing, I'd suggest that each team play their divisional rivals 7 times; once in October, two games in City A in December, two games in City B in January, and then games six and seven as a home and home in March. Sure, by this point, these games might be pointless, but each one might also be the difference between winning the division and missing the playoffs. That 7 game series for your 4 divisional rivals gives you 28 games, you can add 10 games for one in conference matchup or 20 for two. The big problem is trying to divide 82 by 29; the math isn't perfect no matter what, but everyone agrees the system needs to be fixed. I think the NHL owners are just stalling to try and allow for smarter people then them to draft an ideal system; plus, Toronto are fags.

*Lower ticket prices. I hear their $80-something now for one game. That is bollocks, how is that attracting any fans?

Before we talk about lowering ticket prices we need to put a freeze on raising ticket prices. With a salary cap in place to make it impossible to lose money the continued inflation in some markets of ticket costs is just flat out greed and is pissing people off.

*No 4-on-4 OT, it's stupid and pointless. No one wants to see that. Bring the shootout, give the fans what they want.

Sudden death overtime is some of the most exciting hockey around. Get out of my house.

*A camera at the bottom of the crossbar to make sure disputed goals get a chance.

Too expensive. To get a proper digital camera and high definition video system you'd need 60 odd cameras and 30 set ups across two countries, and replacing the camera every time it got hit with a shot? Not feasable. A nice idea, but they won't do it.

*No touch icing. Save everyone's legs.

Yeah, I still don't know why they didn't do this. I think part of the reason is that Don Cole and Harry Neale would get confused with whistles when no one is near the puck. "IT'S A PENALTY! No maybe it's offside, no maybe it went over the glass and out of play. We'll be right back after this commercial break. HELP WHAT HAPPENED."

*Elimination of the Instigator rule.

I don't think the NHL has any idea what to do with fighting. Should we get rid of it? Reward it?

*Get nice with ESPN again. Versus/NBC isn't doing you any favors.

The big thing with the Versus deal is that they threw a big heap of cash at the NHL. And by big I mean big for the NHL. The NHL would rather get no exposure and a bag of money then pay for the kind of exposure they can get on ESPN. Simply retarded. The NHL also supposedly had better deals on the table, both from a money and exposure standpoint, but was sweet talked into it by the Flyers owner, who has a stake in Versus.

*The All Star Game: maybe it's time to get rid of it but have announcements about All-Star nominees or make it mean something, take a page out of Baseball. Winning conference gets home-ice at the finals.

I was originally opposed to this idea, simply because it seemed a silly gimmick, but it might be a good idea. What I would do is structure player's contracts with automatic All-Star clauses; a player gets a bonus if he's named an all-star, and then he gets another bonus if he's on the winning side. That way a player will strive to be the best he can be on his team, which should make the regular season play better, and once he gets to the all-star game, has something to play for.

I'm pretty sure there's a limit on quotes, so I have no choice but to drop the point by point and say;

What's wrong with the draft lottery? :ohwell:

...and the trade deadline has an absolute rigid deadline, the problem comes in reporting, confirmation, and official processing. Before a team can make a trade, it must of course make the trade with the other owner. The league then gets a call from team one and then has to call team two to confirm, then call team one and confirm that it's been confirmed. Then, the NHL has to confirm with players who have no-trade clauses as to whether they wish to waive them or not, and once done, again inform both teams the deal is on. The league then puts off mentioning the deal to allow the teams, if they so desire, to personally inform any and all players involved... just a classy thing to do. Then, the league announces the trade. It's not like there's a guy with a camera sitting on Gary Bettman's lap waiting for news, what generally happens is that a beat reporter from a team will be told by the team's media guy that "we just picked up player X", he'll try and find out particulars, and then he'll phone it in. This takes a while, so even though the deadline has expired, you can still find out about new breaking deals hours later, even though they were phoned in before the deadline expired.

And yeah I can't think of anything else.

[ACCBiggz]

Columbus - this is a pretty large city, and it's the only professional franchise (Big 4, MLS we won't count here) there.

Just because a city doesn't have another sport doesn't mean it needs an NHL team. The NHL is not a charity for sad cities and bored citizens, it's a business. The viability of putting a sport in a city that has no sports is obvious but it doesn't make a non-viable market suddenly economically solvent. That's just basic math; a+b=c, not f.

The thing with Columbus is that it's still new to hockey, but it doesn't do horrible there compared to other cities. And why contract a team from a city that showed they want hockey there. They are holding the draft there, they built that whole new arena for them, etc. There is a committment, at least right now, to the NHL and you need time to grow the sport there. I think if your ideal NHL must have contractions then there are other cities to contract from, in my opinion. And Columbus is far from a sad city with bored citizens, the one downfall about any professional franchise there (Blue Jackets, Crew [MLS], and if you want to count the Clippers [AAA]) is that Columbus is far and beyond a college town. The largest University in the world. On the other hand, the plus is that the OSU Hockey team draws well on campus and showed some upside for them to put a pro team in the city which they did.

[SeanDMan]

The main thing holding Columbus back is their team just sucks. In university hockey towns, like Columbus, Minnesota, the fanbase is there for you to lose. Unlike a standard expansion, to a place like Atlanta say, is that the fans will forgive a bad team because they are actual preexisting hockey fans and not just fans of the novelty of this "new sports team thingajigger". But even diehard hockey fans, who have a deep rooted respect for the game, will get burned out by a team that just fucking sucks. For an example of this, just look at Chicago. You went from being one of the big ticket teams in the 80s with the Savards to competing for the cup in the early ninties with Eddy the Eagle to... wow, Chicago has a team still in 2000. That market was totally destroyed by bad ownership, and needs a big massive drastic change to fix it. Columbus... they just need to win. They have enough good young players, back end wise, and their forwards with Nash and Brule and so on, they need some stable goaltending and they need to win. Hitchcock can help the team with structure. In my opinion, they'll be okay.

[Toe]

So far, at least in terms of attendance, Columbus is doing pretty well for a team that has not been able to make the playoffs. Columbus actually finished 19th in the league in average attendance this season with 16,401. Chicago, St. Louis and and the Islanders finished in the bottom three - Chicago needs a winner, the St. Louis fans were warming up to the team again by the end of the year, and the Islanders really need a new building.

Nashville and Atlanta did not draw well, placing 23rd and 21st respectively. Considering that both teams had winning seasons and played well, that shows you the interest in hockey in those areas. Columbus, with a losing team on the ice, drew a larger crowd then those two teams.

This is the thing that blows my mind. Tampa Bay was third in attendance, drawing on average 19,876. That put them ahead of Toronto, who drew 19,487.

NHL Attendance Numbers

[ACCBiggz]

Nashville is moving after this coming season though isn't it? Somewhere in Ontario?

[SeanDMan]

There is an out clause in the sale agreement to allow the team to move. That's only if the NHL approves the sale, and there have been rumblings that the NHL really doesn't want Balsilie in the league.

[Toe]

And, if you check out the TSN website, they are reporting that Balsille will be moving the team to Hamilton if he is allowed to after the first season with Nashville.

[The Sultan of Swank]

I really don't think that Ontario, the southern part of it especially needs another team.

I think it would succeed because from what I've heard from Ontario ex-pats, people outside of Toronto really don't much like Toronto, so there's a large enough fanbase for the team, I would just rather see some diversity in the league. At least the 3 teams in New York State are there because there's 19,000,000 people there.

I was looking at the Attendance figures that DT put up. I was suprised enough that Calgary has enough room for 12% SRO crowds... which I miss from the Forum, and I really wish the Phone Booth has, but I am really... happy? about Philly fans. I really have to admit, that they must have some of the best fans in the league. They have one of the worst season of any team probably since the Sens sucked and they still average over 19,000 per game and a average of 98.2% capacity. That's dedication.

[SeanDMan]

That's what you get for having a team that consistently competes. The Flyers had the broad street bullies in the 80s and the 90s which made them enough fans that when they had off years and good draft picks, the fans still came back. They'll be back next year, for sure. But the Philly fans, while a dedicated bunch, can also turn on you in an instant. If the team still sucks after next season, the building will probably be empty.

[The Sultan of Swank]

Sounds like another franchise I know... oh yeah, those fickle pricks in Montreal.

[Lowerdeck]

The only reason the Ducks, Lightning, and Hurricanes are all in there is because of the Stanley Cup victories. I wasn't too proud of those being in there, but it made better sense than some other teams. My original plan was with the Islanders and Devils instead of the Lightning and Hurricanes. But on the other board, which is where I got the idea for this topic, I got laughed at for removing two of the last three champions and all the teams out of the Southeast ... I still don't agree with them having teams though.

You kept the Lightning and Hurricanes there because they've won cups, but you want to contract the Islanders and the Devils?

Columbus - this is a pretty large city, and it's the only professional franchise (Big 4, MLS we won't count here) there.

Just because a city doesn't have another sport doesn't mean it needs an NHL team. The NHL is not a charity for sad cities and bored citizens, it's a business. The viability of putting a sport in a city that has no sports is obvious but it doesn't make a non-viable market suddenly economically solvent. That's just basic math; a+b=c, not f.

San Jose - Team seems to be a mid runner in the West, does fairly well for itself in the Bay Area. Maybe I'm biased because they also put their AHL team in Worcester.

...oh god.

Pittsburgh - needs a new arena as well. That's the major problem.

There's also the fact that their team was drawing WCW Nitro style numbers for a decade.

Upon looking at the Islanders, they never seem to draw major crowds. They have a cult following, yeah. However, it's not all that big. It's like a southeastern city, except they compete against the much more popular Rangers. The Devils... not even the Newark Arena is going to help them. They might be a great team, but nobody gives a shit. Move them to Boston, tell Jeremy Jacobs to fuck off, and we got a Bruins that doesn't suck ass for the first time in decades.

The Islanders arena is one of the oldest in the league. It's a veritable death trap and was built before the implimentation of luxury boxes, leading to a haphazard renovation removing much of their appreciable capacity. With a billionaire owner, they will get a new arena, although knowng the owner it will probably be in Korea. And the Islanders are in a huge market. You want to keep around the Blue Jackets because they can draw from an untapped market but would like to contract away two New York franchises? This is like someone asked "Can YOU out-suck Bettman?" and you put your moron cap on and said "I FUX THIS SHIT H4RD C0RE!"

Besides hating Boston, you're wrong in almost everything you say. I'm amazed, I thought the board had some stupid hockey fans, but the search for the dumbest ever continues everlong.

I had two proposals. One was keeping the Devils and Islanders, the other was keeping the Lightning and Hurricanes. Personally, I like the NYI/NJ one a little better. They have poor attendance, but a new arena for both could probably help them. Nassau Coliseum is in the middle of nowhere and it sucks. Continental Airlines Arena is in a terrible location, there's no connection besides car... which really hurts. Moving the Devils to their new arena in Newark might be very very helpful... or will it? As for Carolina, I'm not going to deny they have terrible attendance and I'm not sure why I kept them in my second proposal.

San Jose doesn't have attendance problems. It's middle of the pack almost every year that ESPN link has kept track of it. Was stupid of me to make the homer statement, but the fact people show up to games doesn't lie.

I'm not making Columbus out to be a charity case. I'm just saying, the team there has an added bonus of being the only thing in town for more people of central Ohio to give a shit about the team. There's a fairly new arena. Once they build a contendor, I think something good can happen there. Kansas City and Las Vegas meanwhile, there's slim to nil chance of a hockey team flourishing there, because few will give a fuck about hockey. Columbus just seems like a special case where it was to work out better.

Does that make me look less stupid now?

[Toe]

Also, the Flyers numbers for attendance were high because they sell a lot of season tickets, if I remember correctly.

[SeanDMan]

I don't understand why you guys are writing off the Las Vegas market so easily. It's the world's largest transient population with the number of residents inside the city increasing every single day, and it is, very literally, built on top of caverns of steel and cash. And you want to talk about a city with no sports teams, well... Vegas takes book on the NHL which shows that there are people in Vegas who care about hockey. Is there a million people just waiting for someone to make ice in the desert? Maybe. All I know is that I've heard from people both within Vegas and within the hockey media that Vegas is a perfect fit for a few reasons; 1) it has enough of a permanent population that it will have more then enough season ticket holders and more then enough rich men to buy up luxury boxes, 2) it's really an untapped market for TV, since the local channels all tend to focus on one of two things (I'll leave those to your imagination) and no one wants to watch CSI when you can actually go out and kill someone in Las Vegas, 3) there are enough tourists in Las Vegas at any time to make it perhaps the easiest sellout in town. Rangers? Oh yeah, New Yorkers love Vegas. Leafs? Lots of Canadians in the house. Ducks? Oh yeah, we dig the Prongermayer. Basically there is no way to measure the scope of the Las Vegas fanbase. It's thought that it's basically a race right now between the two "remedial" sports leagues, the NBA and the NHL, to see which one can make it into Vegas first, and once one is in the other will back off and look elsewhere. But for now, it's seen as something of the golden egg that everyone wants to crack. For the NHL to NOT consider Vegas is silly. They DO have a hockey team already, and it does fairly well for what it is. Add in the fact that it would be a total novelty to finally have a team in Vegas, and it will draw well. With the kind of money they'll have, building a winner won't be hard either, and once you have a winner, you have a market.

[Toe]

I like Las Vegas as a market as well. Each casino could have a luxury box for themselves to give to high rollers and big spenders in the casinos, and all the points you said are also true. Just because it is a city based upon gambling does not mean it would be a poor place for a hockey team. Heck, the city isn't even just about gambling - the whole family can now vacation in Vegas and everyone can have fun. I am pretty sure the city really wants a team too, so would be willing to do whatever Gary Bettman asked to get a team.

Also, Vegas will always be a better market then Phoenix.

Edited June 14, 2007 by desiredtoe

[The Sultan of Swank]

I wouldn't mind seeing Las Vegas in the league, but 32 teams is huge.