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Interesting expansion thoughts

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Guest EZBAKETHAGANGSTA
Expansion would bring more crappy players into the league that are not good enough and more knuckleheads into the league

What are you implying, that players like mark hartigan dont belong in the leauge?

=)

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Some of you may not want the Wings in the eastern conference, but the Wings themselves have said on numerous occations that they wanted to be in the eastern conference.

If you ask me, I would prefer an eastern conference alignment. As much as we'd lose the rivaly with St. Louis, Chicago, and Colorado. I think to get the rivalry with Toronto, Montreal, and the rest of the original six teams would be worth it.

Plus I wouldn't have to wait for games to end at 1:00 in the morning, plus there isn't they possibility of any 10:30 playoff games

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Some of you may not want the Wings in the eastern conference, but the Wings themselves have said on numerous occations that they wanted to be in the eastern conference.

Yep. The big thorn in their side is the traveling they have to do, and that's a perfectly legitimate complaint.

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I don't want East and West Conferences. There was a thread on here a while back discussing realignment, in which I posted my idea to return to 4 divisions, eliminate the conferences, and have true Divisional playoffs. The divisional playoff winners would be seeded 1-4 and 1 would play 4, 2 vs 3 in the semifinals. This would do what the current schedule setup has failed (miserably) to do--restore the geographic rivalry.

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The Eastern Conference arguement is a selfish, short-sighted arguement. Somebody has to travel West, who else would it be right now? The Wings have had great rivalries with the Blues and Blackhawks in the past, why give that up? If the Blackhawks ever get good (and they will), why wouldn't you want to be in that division.

Joshy207 hit the nail on the head, make 4 divisions (or conferences), whatever you prefer. Here is how I would set them up.

NORTHERN

New York Rangers

New York Islanders

New Jersey Devils

Boston Bruins

Toronto Maple Leafs

Ottawa Senators

Montreal Canadians

Buffalo Sabres

EASTERN

Philadelphia Flyers

Pittsburgh Penguins

Atlanta Thrashers

Washington Capitals

Florida Panthers

Tampa Bay Lightning

Carolina Hurricanes

CENTRAL

Detroit Red Wings

Chicago Blackhawks

St. Louis Blues

Minnesota Wild

Columbus Blue Jackets

Nashville Predators

Dallas Stars

WESTERN

Los Angles Kings

Anaheim Ducks

San Jose Sharks

Arizona Coyotes

Colorado Avalanche

Vancouver Canucks

Edmonton Oilers

Calgary Flames

Each team plays everybody in their division/conference 5 or 6 times depending on whether there are 7 or 8 teams in it. That makes 35 or 36 conference games. Then every other team in the league twice, making 44 or 46 games depending on your conference. That makes an 80 game schedule for Northern and Western teams and 81 for Central and Eastern Teams. Schedule a few extra interconference games to fill out the 82 game schedule. It's so simple, why don't they do this? No team would have anybody in their division/conference more than one time zone away; this is much better for the Wings.

Then take the top four teams in each conference and run the playoff as Joshy207 suggests and have a Stanley Cup Semifinals and Finals.

As for expansion/move sites, how have we not discussed Seattle at greater length? The NBA is going to leave Seattle, lets go in and cherry pick that huge market. Seattle has a Stanley Cup Championship already, remember? They might make a great hockey market. And what about Milwaukee? Wisconsin is PACKED with hockey fans. They consistantly sell out a 15,000 seat arena in MADISON for COLLEGE HOCKEY! Quebec is the best of the three expansion/move possibilites in Canada (Winnipeg and Hamilton). Quebec was averaging about 94% capacity crowds back in '95 when they decided to move due to the weak loonie/old arena. Winnipeg is too small and the Jets were not very successful in the NHL, at the gate or in the standings, despite what the revisionist Canadian hockey historians will tell you.

New Olympia Stadium

Edited by schulzte

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Sure there is- it's called the Stanley Cup Finals... and you'll love those 1030 starts then!

i dont think any network would put the Stanley Cup Finals on at 10:30, the finals will always start prime time at 8 or 9

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I think the idea of expansion is ridiculous. The league as it is, is already watered down. The NHL should be a 26 team league. The fact that Bettman is even pondering expansion further shows how clueless he actually is.

A-frikken-men. And the prospective markets offered up are pathetic. Hamilton? KC? Portland? Americans have a difficult enough time recognizing any team not named Redwings, Rangers, Flyers or Habs. Let's just throw more teams into this watered down clusterf***.

And for eva to actually write out a Jump To Conclusions map about his phases to expansion is just creepy.

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i dont think any network would put the Stanley Cup Finals on at 10:30, the finals will always start prime time at 8 or 9

What time should a game on the west coast start? 9 EST is 6 on the west coast. not gonna happen. 8 EST is just retarded unless it is a weekend game.

And you would be surprise the networks that HAVE started SCF games at 1030 EST this decade...

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I would kind of like to see all the teams in one big division. That way any one could play any one else in the Stanley Cup finals. It could bring back those old original 6 rivilaries to the cup finals or Detroit vs Colorado.

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And what about Milwaukee? Wisconsin is PACKED with hockey fans. They consistantly sell out a 15,000 seat arena in MADISON for COLLEGE HOCKEY!

Depending on where you measure from in the cities, there might be an overlap with the Blackhawks' territorial rights with Milwaukee, and the Wirtz family would ask for a lot in compensation if their rights did go that far into Wisconsin.

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Schultze, you're sticking with the current conference alignment... shame on you! :P

Here's my plan:

SMYTHE (Western) Division

Vancouver, San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Phoenix, Calgary, Edmonton, Colorado

NORRIS (Great Lakes) Division

Minnesota, Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Toronto

PATRICK (Northeast) Division

Ottawa, Montreal, Boston, NY Rangers, NY Islanders, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington

ADAMS (Southeast) Division

St Louis, Dallas, Nashville, Atlanta, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Florida

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The teams in bold made the playoffs.

Schultze, you're sticking with the current conference alignment... shame on you! :P

Here's my plan:

SMYTHE (Western) Division

Vancouver, San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Phoenix, Calgary, Edmonton, Colorado

NORRIS (Great Lakes) Division

Minnesota, Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Toronto

PATRICK (Northeast) Division

Ottawa, Montreal, Boston, NY Rangers, NY Islanders, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington

ADAMS (Southeast) Division

St Louis, Dallas, Nashville, Atlanta, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Florida

By the looks of the playoff teams, the divisons look fairly even. But, when I look at the teams, the Patrick and Smyth divisions are alot tougher than the Norris and MUCH tougher than the Adams.

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