On the upside, at least they got everything worked out to let the NHL players participate in the Olympics. Since the Winter Games will be in Russia, Canada won’t receive a mulligan this time, namely the whiney Cindy Crosby.
Now to the elephant in the room, the re-alignment. I’m surprised they went with and succeeded in having “un-balanced” conferences. The trend in the other three major sports is to spread them all out into equal numbers per division and conference. It’s how the Houston Astros got screwed into the American League; Selig should’ve put Milwaukee back there. I’m wondering how Bettman got the Western Conference owners to agree to letting Detroit join the Eastern Conference. Many of the crappy teams get butts in seats when the Red Wings come to town. Do they think the Blackhawks will really last? Hell, the Wirtz family is breathing a sigh of relief since the only probable challenges they’ll face now will be a rebuilt Dallas Stars and maybe Colorado Avalanche.
Getting Detroit into my conference is awesome. I figure the “strings attached” was Columbus coming along. In the long run, I think the Blue Jackets will get better for a couple reasons: less jet lag, sometimes a change of “scenery” helps and they’ll be in a more competitive conference. One could argue it made no difference for the Southleast teams but remember they were all huddled into their own division too.
I do take issue with the names. Metropolitan? Columbus and Raleigh are hardly metropolises let alone real cities. Atlantic? Nice, given how far away Toronto, Detroit and Buffalo are from the ocean. Same goes for the Pacific. Screw the fair-weathered hockey watchers, bring back the cool names: Prince of Wales, Calder and Norris.
The season will start near the end of our upcoming Vegas trip. Getting my futures bet on Philly to take the Cup should be under the wire. Given their terrible half-season, the only way Chicago could succeed since that team couldn’t endure a true 82-game run, I figure the sportsbook will be at least 30-1 against on my BSBs succeeding.