By Brad Lee
According to the NHL Web site, every team will play every team at least once.
The NHL Board of Governors approved a scheduling change Thursday that will produce more inter-conference matchups, increasing the variety of teams fans can expect to see next season.
Under the new format, approved at the League meetings in Pebble Beach, Calif., and scheduled to begin in 2008-09, teams will play each club in their division six times, a total of 24 games, and the 10 other clubs in their conference four times, a total of 40 games.
The remaining 18 games in the 82-game schedule will involve each club playing all 15 clubs in the other conference at least once, home or away. The three remaining games will be devoted to inter-conference “at-large†scheduling.
"The sense of the board was we heard the concerns raised by some of the fans, and this was an attempt to be responsive to the concerns of our fans," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said.
First of all Mr. Commissioner, you should have had the power to do this a year ago. So go piss up a rope. And second of all, this still means Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin and Toronto and Montreal will still only play in St. Louis once every two years...compared to once every three years under the current schedule. The league should have cut more division games or in-conference games to make a home and home series with every team.
So thanks for kind of listening and sort of fixing the problem. Next time you're in St. Louis Bettman (over/under: five years), we'll only kind of boo you.