Hockey season starts about 2 weeks before the NBA and ends about 1 week earlier not much of a difference considering hockey has a lot more contact. Last season we did see many back to backs because of the olympic break, and we also saw a lot of injury's because of it.
I know this is a pipe dream but wouldn't it be something to see...
Go back to the 1948 NHL as your model. Cut the league down to six teams. Montreal, Toronto, New York, Detroit, Chicago and Boston.
Have a 60 game season with each team playing every other team12 times from November until March. The top four make it to the NHL Final Four best of 7 playoffs and the winners advance to play best of seven for the Stanley Cup.
Then you would have six talent laden clubs with each team carrying blood feuds with at least two of the other five teams. Make sure no matter what it took you had parity so no team would suck and not sell out 20,000 seat hockey only arenas for the season. Make the helmet at the top level optional.
Get Some of this working...
Instead of the 600 best players in the world you would have the 120 best players in the world competing against each other every game.
Create a fantastic and family affordable AHL using cities like Philly, Vancouver, Denver, Minneapolis/St Paul, Buffalo, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Pittsburgh and a couple others as your Triple A league so people who live in hockey towns could still see good hockey for an affordable price.
Pay the players in the big six big money like they get now but have a serious drop off to the Triple A salaries which would create serious competition to make it to the show where the money is at..The hockey would be great at the top and excellent at the 2nd level as players played their asses off to stay up top or get up top. Every five years take the AHL team with the best five year record and move it up to the big six and drop the big six's team with the worst five year record back to the AHL.
All these moves would be designed to create better and better competition every where in the entire set-up..Do the same with refs you do with players. Rate them and move up the good ones to a very well paid NHL job and demote the less talented refs and linemen to a very livable but much less than the top level ref pay scale, pay your officials at the top level great money with great benefits. Create competition to be good refs and linemen this way..
Play one All Star Game between the two leagues with all the participants getting big but equal money win or lose. Again we are creating competition for those $50K per man All Star Game checks. Make sure the game is played in Detroit, Montreal, Boston or wherever city the league can guarantee a 20,000 seat sellout at top dollar ticket prices so they can afford those checks. The league has to sacrifice here for the sake of competition as do the fans that buy the tickets. You can make the game juicy by creating teams half NHL and half AHL players creating a game as close to pick-em as possible.
Work out a a revenue share plan for team owners that didn't punish owners who contributed fairly from the AHL. The players can earn big bucks by being great players - period.
I can dream right???
wil.:lol:
Go back to the 1948 NHL as your model. Cut the league down to six teams. Montreal, Toronto, New York, Detroit, Chicago and Boston.
Have a 60 game season with each team playing every other team12 times from November until March. The top four make it to the NHL Final Four best of 7 playoffs and the winners advance to play best of seven for the Stanley Cup.
Then you would have six talent laden clubs with each team carrying blood feuds with at least two of the other five teams. Make sure no matter what it took you had parity so no team would suck and not sell out 20,000 seat hockey only arenas for the season. Make the helmet at the top level optional.
Get Some of this working...
Instead of the 600 best players in the world you would have the 120 best players in the world competing against each other every game.
Create a fantastic and family affordable AHL using cities like Philly, Vancouver, Denver, Minneapolis/St Paul, Buffalo, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Pittsburgh and a couple others as your Triple A league so people who live in hockey towns could still see good hockey for an affordable price.
Pay the players in the big six big money like they get now but have a serious drop off to the Triple A salaries which would create serious competition to make it to the show where the money is at..The hockey would be great at the top and excellent at the 2nd level as players played their asses off to stay up top or get up top. Every five years take the AHL team with the best five year record and move it up to the big six and drop the big six's team with the worst five year record back to the AHL.
All these moves would be designed to create better and better competition every where in the entire set-up..Do the same with refs you do with players. Rate them and move up the good ones to a very well paid NHL job and demote the less talented refs and linemen to a very livable but much less than the top level ref pay scale, pay your officials at the top level great money with great benefits. Create competition to be good refs and linemen this way..
Play one All Star Game between the two leagues with all the participants getting big but equal money win or lose. Again we are creating competition for those $50K per man All Star Game checks. Make sure the game is played in Detroit, Montreal, Boston or wherever city the league can guarantee a 20,000 seat sellout at top dollar ticket prices so they can afford those checks. The league has to sacrifice here for the sake of competition as do the fans that buy the tickets. You can make the game juicy by creating teams half NHL and half AHL players creating a game as close to pick-em as possible.
Work out a a revenue share plan for team owners that didn't punish owners who contributed fairly from the AHL. The players can earn big bucks by being great players - period.
I can dream right???
wil.:lol:
first off, its a 3 week, almost 4 week difference most years.
pretty stupid for a WINTER sport to start up in the middle of football season and right in the middle of mlb playoffs.
sorry, i ain't itching for hockey when its still 70 degrees and season just ended 90 days ago.
just one man's opinion......
fyi: i've split seasons the last few years, so i'm no hockey/nhl hater.
maybe that's the case in Mass but I'm in Vancouver, and our weathers fairly mild compared to the rest of canada and we're lookin at averages in the mid 40 degree range to low 50s by mid october so it's not like we're out enjoyin the weather might as well start up the season. Cater to your market. And being on at the same time as the nfl isn't much of a worry, they just play minimal games on sundays and don't try and go h2h while baseball, if your teams not in the playoffs and you're not a gambler do you really care anyway.
Face it, every league would love to be a 12 month entity. The NBA is moving toward it with longer seasons, extended playoffs, and the WNBA. The NHL did it with a longer schedule and the Olympic break. The NFL does it with longer schedule, year-round draft coverage (the biggest waste of time in sports), the bye week, the week off before the Super Bowl, and training camp reality TV. College football does it, too.
We all long for the good old days when the sports calenders were more clearly defined. But those days are gone, at least until the recession hits the teams and leagues hard enough to force a little "right-sizing." But, more likely, it will happen when the Baby Boom generation gets too old to still attend games in the high dollar seats and too old to be an important TV demographic.
We all long for the good old days when the sports calenders were more clearly defined. But those days are gone, at least until the recession hits the teams and leagues hard enough to force a little "right-sizing." But, more likely, it will happen when the Baby Boom generation gets too old to still attend games in the high dollar seats and too old to be an important TV demographic.
