Comments on: Schedule

By: James

James — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:07:51 +0000

This proves how asinine the conference alignments are. The Eastern Conference has it so easy with travel, having just a single time zone to deal with, while all four time zones are represented in the “Western” Conference. How can Detroit and Columbus, and even Nashville or Chicago for that matter be “Western” teams?

And yet they don’t complain about these west coast trips that they have to do at least four times a year…with the back-to-back nights…

Please, no more complaining about travel unless you switch conferences.

By: julie wilcox

julie wilcox — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:03:33 +0000

Do you really think the travel will bother the Kings when they visit D.C. later in the season? The Kings travel more than any other team in the entire league every year. Give the excuses a rest, Ted. Your boys got outplayed by the better team last night. Scoreboard, congratulate the Kings and move on!

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:27:29 +0000

Ted,

As someone who has lived in the Detroit suburbs his entire life, I’ve followed the Red Wings with passion. I’ve stayed up way too late a hundred times for west coast road trips. Over the last 15 years, Detroit has won four Stanley Cups, and made a fifth trip to the Cup final, losing to the Devils. They’ve played deep into the Western Conference playoffs another pair of those seasons.

Despite all of that success in these last 15 years, Detroit has consistently been one of the most traveled teams in the NHL (now Columbus shares in this with the Wings), with L.A., Anaheim, and San Jose understanding the difficulties, as well. And Vancouver… God pity them, they have it the worst!

I wouldn’t make a big deal of it, in the end. If you’re confident in your players, coaches, management, and trainers, and have full faith that they are all conditioning right and working hard to stay fit, then a game or two (or three) like this is no big deal.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard the term “league game” in sports. I believe it’s used more often in NBA circles than NHL circles, but the concept is still valid. The Caps got stuck in a “league game” against the Kings. The Wings had one earlier this season when they played five games in eight nights, including two back-to-backs, with the final games of the stretch being a back-to-back on the west coast against Anaheim and San Jose. They blew a lead and lost to the Ducks in OT, and then the next night lost to the Sharks 4-2. The Sharks were not on a back-to-back. Those are “league games” — the league has set you up for failure.

Even so, the bottom line is that these are the types of things that a team has to deal with if they really want to win a Cup. If you’re suggesting that you club will have trouble with this now, how will they feel if they make it to June and are in a Final against the Sharks or Ducks, and don’t have home ice (obviously I hope it’s the Wings, but for the sake of conversation…)?

If anything, the new schedule has made things more fair between the East and West, as far as travel is concerned. As far as I can tell, I think the Vancouver Canucks are probably the only team that really got the shaft out of this deal because on top of what was already the heaviest travel schedule in the league under the previous scheduling system, they now have to travel to the Eastern Time Zone for a handful of games that would’ve been division games within one time zone under the old schedule.

As a side note, though we might disagree on this issue, I wanted to say it’s great and refreshing to see an owner blogging, supporting the internet media and all it can (and has) done for the NHL. Also, it’s great to see you using your blog to communicate with fans. You seem to be pretty honest in your posts and that is appreciated, even when I disagree with you. More owners should show this kind of passion for their teams Ws and Ls (instead of gate receipts). And more owners should hurry up and realize that the blog and bloggers are tools to grow the game — not rogues that hinder it.

By: Evgeni

Evgeni — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:46:08 +0000

No worries Ted. The LA game was a painful one to watch. Staying up till the wee hours in the evening in hopes that the Caps would get out of the slump was still worth it. I’m sure once we get Federov, Semin and Green back the next game will be put away in the win column. Our guys faired well without the likes of the big three in the line up.

By: Mogen David

Mogen David — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:37:57 +0000

Welcome to the West. Don’t expect LA to be to tuckered. They are used to those time zone trips.

By: C

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:54:03 +0000

We don’t need East coast owners complaining about travel.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:28:51 +0000

Big deal, just think of the schedule Dallas has. They have to travel to a different time zone for every division game.

The Caps had 4 days to rest up for the Anaheim game. Then they had to travel 20 minutes for their game the next day. Now they have 2 days to recover from an exhausting 1 hour plane ride.

By: Elizabeth Turner

Elizabeth Turner — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:14:38 +0000

No complaining about West coast road trips for Eastern conference teams when the Detroit Red Wings have had to put up with these sorts of issues for years. Think of your little travails with one trip and now imagine how grueling the 2007 playoff series was for the Wings – 6 games series against Calgary and San Jose and 7 games against Anaheim. The Red Wings do enough favors for the whole rest of the league. They should be returned to the Eastern Conference ASAP. You should help them out with that next time it comes up in an owners meeting.

By: CapNut

CapNut — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:16:26 +0000

That’s right, Ted.
And, what’s worse is the SanJose Sharks will have been waiting around all week to play us. Their last game was Monday in Nashville. That’s a 4 day layoff prior to us going into the Shark Tank for Saturday’s game.
We shouldn’t need to much motivation to want to hand the Sharks their first home regulation loss!
I’m actually in favor of playing each out of conference team twice a season; home and away. That’s the way it was back in the old days.
But, for anyone complaining about the rigors that come along with roadtrips, such as this one; I say that is the argument for “bagging” the idea of making the NHL a global league. Have pre-season and other exhibition games abroad, but keep the games that count in North America. Hockey is a staple north of our border, but there is still a lot of work to be done marketing the game in the U.S.
And, by the way, I’m also in favor of home teams wearing their white jerseys, and having the visitors bring in their colors. Makes for more colorful entertainment. “Rocking the Red” is great, but there is nothing wrong with a “white-out” either.

By: expo

expo — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:02:11 +0000

ted—but here’s what we did see in southern california–there had to be around 200-300 fans in cap gear at the games plus other cap fans…maybe almost 500 or so total at each game.That is a shockingly high amount for the caps here in southern california. only the original six and a couple of other northeastern draw better in socal. As i have said before cap fans are now everywhere and actually proudly show up at away games.

in fact at the game last nite there was a faint “lets go caps” cheer and after the caps scored thieir first goal the Kings’ fans had to boo down the caps supporters’ cheers. i never thought i would see/hear that in los angeles.

Congrats ted to you and your staff–rock the red has spread across the country