Reshuffling The NHL

The reincarnation of the Atlanta Thrashers as the Winnipeg Jets (complete with the classiest uniforms in the league) has drawn into stark relief the need for the National Hockey League to reorganize their 30 franchises and alter their scheduling policy, to better market the league and to avoid imposing starkly disproportionate travel demands (and corresponding game-time/marketing penalties) on certain affiliates. Commissioner Gary Bettman seems to understand this--but certain franchises (primarily established North/East Coast teams, grandfathered into the most favorable travel impositions and most ideal game schedules) seem opposed to 'taking one for the league' if it means their perfect situation is impacted.

Hockey has to stop thinking so parochially, if they hope for their sport--and League--to more broadly prosper.

If the NHL were to realign to four Divisions--an East and Central in the Eastern Conference, a Midwest and West in the Western Conference--it would preserve existing rivalries and unburden certain centrally-located franchises (Winnipeg and Dallas the most) of grueling travel miles (and away-game start times that rob the teams of home media audiences); it might look something like:

•NHL Eastern Conference•
East Division:
Boston
Carolina
Florida
New Jersey
New York Rangers
New York Islanders
Tampa Bay Lightning
Washington Capitals

Central Division:
Buffalo
Columbus
Montreal
Ottawa
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Toronto

•NHL Western Conference•
Midwest Division:
Chicago
Dallas
Detroit
Minnesota
Nashville
St Louis
Winnipeg

West Division:
Anaheim
Calgary
Colorado
Edmonton
Los Angeles
Phoenix
San Jose
Vancouver

If there was a desire to split the two New York and two Pennsylvania teams into opposite divisions, one of each could be switched (say Philadelphia into the East and the Islanders into the Central); Nashville and Columbus could be interchanged (this alignment makes sense time-zone-wise but with the other Central teams clustered in the north-mid-east, the marketing possibilities of games against the Predators and vice versa might make fiscal/promotional sense). And as configured the East Division doesn't have a Canadian team--one with an east-coast-time-zone could easily be shuffled in if desired, though there isn't a good candidate to shuffle out. And this could need adjusting if Phoenix loses their team (especially if Quebec lands it).

Fortunately, it would not make quite as much difference which Division a team was in under this proposal, as with only two Divisions--and thus only two Division winners--the other teams will be fighting every other franchise in their conference for the remaining six playoff spots.

Restructuring of schedules would first prioritize home-and-away games for every NHL team with every other NHL team--it is healthy for the League to give every fan a chance to see a given superstar in their own arena at least once every year. That accounts for the first 58 of a season's games; adding a second set of home-and-aways with the other 14 teams in a franchise's conference would push the regular season schedule to 86 games, but would be the fairest way to achieve a balanced schedule (and with the greater variety of opponents, would probably *feel* shorter and provide an attendance boost, as well); as a season extension would have to be negotiated with players (though now's the time to do that), 82 games could be retained by having teams play home-and aways with the other six (or seven) teams in their Division, then an alternating home-or-away third game against the seven (or eight) teams in the other Division in their Conference, then fill their remaining three (or four) games out against other Division opponents they were comparable to the prior season (East One versus East Two, Central One and East Three, a weighted schedule a la the NFL) until the schedule balanced. This would mean most teams would see every team twice, the teams in their own Division at least four times and some five, and the teams in the other Division in their Conference at least three times and some four (see above why 86 games would be preferable :).

Rivalries would be preserved, the entire continent would see the entire League every season, travel would be more balanced (Midwest teams will still travel the most, Dallas and Winnipeg still probably most of all--but it would be north-south, same time-zone) and the only crazy out-of-time-zone games any team would have to face would be rare--once or twice a season--and potentially interesting enough for fans to want to stay up late.

The NHL needs a move like this. The opportunity to make it happen is right now.
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Dallas Stars Management Want To See As Empty an AAC as Possible...

It is no secret that the Dallas Stars are a franchise operating with one arm tied behind their back until they find a real owner. Their management, however, is still responsible for the decisions they make--and need be held accountable when those decisions insult the faithful.

The management has made the decision to treat all pre-season games as 'full price admissions' this year--even for those fans who had already bought a game package with some...hope, if not expectation, of a pre-season game promotion to be included, as in years past.

When dealing from a position of strength, any retailer can dictate terms: car dealers can charge above sticker for in-demand models, clothing stores for hot designer labels--and winning sports franchises for the glorified practices call 'pre-season games.' The emphases there should be on 'position of strength' and especially 'winning'--because it has been too long since the Stars dealt from either.

Let's recap: their sport and it's professional league, the NHL, still hasn't recovered from a lost season, lacks a real US national television presence, and struggles to remain the fourth of the 'big four' against such interests as soccer and mixed martial arts; the team has, in consecutive seasons, dispatched the only two recognizable faces they still boasted in the broader DFW community then failed to retain their only real star player; and when last seen on the ice, was blowing a gift opportunity to redeem a late season collapse and make the playoffs (playoffs they haven't otherwise sniffed in years). That ain't strength.

So their plan to try to address this negativity and build some buzz and momentum for 2011-2012 is to see how empty they can make the American Airlines Center in pre-season? And then--what? Hope all those empty seats generate phantom enthusiasm from MIA fans to come back for the real games?

One of the problems with sales tactics like jacking up prices for hot cars, designer clothes and pre-season games even when dealing from strength is that it is classic 'short term gain at long term cost:' even the buyers who pay it know they are being had, and may not be so interested when time to make a routine purchase from that same seller comes along again--and those who are sufficiently put off or offended not to pay it in the first place get turned, in a moment, from ally to adversary.

If even the short-term gain isn't being had by such management decisions...

The Stars need an owner. Yesterday.

One hopes one of the first things that still-imaginary person does is take whomever is making these management decisions to the woodshed, for the willful devaluing of his hockey team...

Thanks for killing the buzz before game one for a team everyone expects to struggle even if everything goes well, management. I suppose that's why they call it 'management' instead of 'leadership.'

I will still be cheering my Stars. Just from home, where they can't hear me. And from where I am unlikely to get sufficiently caught up in the experience that I make returning a priority. Which, of course, is why they call such courtesies as free pre-season games extended to ticket-package buyers 'promotions'...

The Modano Quandary

Mike Modano's future in hockey has taken a new turn with reported comments in the last week, and created what local sports enthusiasts are calling 'the Modano Quandary' for his lifelong team, the Dallas Stars.

Let me help clarify. There is no 'quandary.' There's options 1a or 1b, which are unfortunately mutually exclusive due to NHL rules but which either one offers some positives going forward; there's option 2 which will be initially disappointing but is Mike's call and will be just fine, down the line; and there is *any other effing thing*, all of which will make the Stars, manager Joe Niuwendyk, coach Mark Crawford, owner Tom Hicks and anyone else associated with it irremediably hated men in North Texas. For life. Figure that on struggling ticket sales, Stars management.

Option 1a is, Mike decides to play for the Stars another year, affording him and his fans a farewell-tour year something like those final two storybook games of last year's otherwise disappointing season.

Option 1b is, Mike becomes part of a new ownership team of the Stars (which has the ancillary enormous benefit of seeing off the horrific blight upon North Texas that is the Hicks Sports Group).

Option 2 is, Mike retires. We who believe (unlike some other sports icons like the often-compared Emmit Smith) that Mike has proven he can still play as a contributing 3rd or 4th line center, will be saddened...but last year ended so magically for him, and us, and we know he will become a future enormous part of the franchise going forward if it ends happily like this, so we can live with it.

Any other option--and we. will. hate. the. Stars. He goes to another team and plays, and some part of our relationship with Mike will be damaged, as well--but Mike won't be paying for it in lost revenue and ticket sales and skate fees at StarCenters and whatever else.

A Stars team minus Modano, and Marty Turco, and maybe Jere Lehtinen, had better win quickly because the remaining other draws are known for their appeal mostly only to we hockey faithful who are coming anyway. They *cannot* afford to actively piss off the fanbase.

Mike wants to play, we want him back. In black, green and gold. Period.

Screw this up at your *enormous* peril, Stars.

Going out Stars-style

There is no question the season, for a Dallas Stars hockey loyalist, has been disappointing; and, further, that perhaps all three bulwarks of the franchise were playing their final home game tonight. But for one night, everything was as it should be, again: Jere Lehtinen and Mike Modano set up the team's first goal, Modano scored the second with barely a minute left to send the game to overtime--then in the shootout Lehtinen and Modano both scored again, and Marty Turco stoned the opposing shooters to make the perfect ending stand up, for an electric victory.

I want them all back. There is no question Modano still has it, and makes everyone around him better, and what a helluva fourth line center he could still be; the talk certainly seems to be that he is leaning to retiring, and the argument can be made that the Stars are ready to run Richards, Rebeiro and some combination of Ott/Benn/Wandell down the middle without him; I counter that Modano, returning at the level he is still playing, allows some of those centers to stay on the ice as wings, and the front line becomes even more formidable. Bottom line, he is still greatness and if he wants to play one more, I will be heartily cheering. Lehtinen has had difficulty staying healthy and there have been games where he has looked spent...but those who know far more than I say his mastery of all the little, inobvious, intangible things is second to none, and that if he could be had at a bargain, he will be welcomed back. If he can contribute consistently like he contributed tonight, that would be grand. Marty is likeliest to be gone simply because the Stars, having signed their future goalkeep, will not give him a starting keeper's salary--wouldn't even if they somehow remedy their grotesquely-handicapping ownership situation in the off-season--but...if it happens that he isn't offered giant money elsewhere, one hopes the Stars have kept the relationship open enough that if he is forced to consider a lesser contract, he would welcome the one that keeps him home. I do not expect that to happen: someone is going to realize Marty's biggest problems this season were Dallas' woeful blue line, and realize how much his presence in goal will make them better. They way these things tend to work, it will probably prove to be a team which will allow him to make the Stars pay, repeatedly. But by all reports he is beloved in that locker room, and he certainly is in this community (and in this household, where 'wanting to be like Marty' has turned my seven-year-old into a rabid Stars fan, a budding hockey player...and allowed him to show us things we never guessed he had, as his team's soccer goalie)...and you hate to say goodbye to class like that.

But if they must go...what an amazing way to go. Life rarely follows the script; tonight, for Marty, Jere and Mikey, the heroes rose to the moment, and saved the day, and got to take us with them as they went out in style. Stars-style.
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