Saturday Issue of Obscure Interest Blogging

Finally, the N.H.L. has altered their awful schedule, under which teams visit those in other conferences only once every three years. Since I was in Calgary for 12 days last year and saw the Canucks twice live and another time on T.V., but of course can almost never see any western team out here, I have to echo the comments of Willie Mitchell:

We’re tired of seeing Calgary, Minnesota, Edmonton. For us it would mean more travel, but I’d jump on that in a heartbeat. Guys want to play at M.S.G. [Madison Square Garden]. I want to get to the new arena in New Jersey. Never mind the fans, as a player you want to play against the best.

The strangest misconception that the league has is that playing 8 games a year against a team encouraged rivalries. But of course it’s the opposite; intradivisional rivalries just get boring when you see the same team again and again and again. And to pre-empt the same kind of argument you hear in baseball, yes some of the inter-conference games will be lousy (“who wants to see Tampa Bay play the Nationals?”) No, Ranger fans probably won’t be thrilled to see Columbus (although it may make me more likely to score tickets from the Bean family!) But these arguments seem not to realize that the Devil Rays and Panthers have to play somebody. Who wants to see Tampa Bay play the Royals again? If I still had access to a Flames season ticket I’d rather see Florida once than Minnesota for the fourth time.

Also, I should mention that serious or casual puckheads should note that this comes from the Times’ new hockey blog. Among others, it includes Jeff Z. Klein, the former sports editor of the Voice and author of an entertaining Bill Jamesian study of the game. Sounds like it will be useful.