NHL and NHLPA consider 72-game season from now on.

[JMU Soccer!]

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story.asp?id=81473

Obviously, right now the labor agreement represents the highest priority. But for the sake of arguement, lets say that the everything will be hunky-dory and the league will resume play as usual next year.

I am all for a shorter season. They say it's in the interset of both players and owners, so I can only assume that this will cut down on some of the owners game expenses. I don't agree with eliminating inter-conference play, and I'd like to see each E. Conference teams have a home-away series with W. Conference teams.

A shorter season will put more emphasis on each regular season game, and the Stanley Cup Finals won't overlap with the NBA finals.

[SweetOwnGoal]

It's hard to argue against a shorter schedule. All you have to do is look at how much of a factor injuries are in the playoffs to realize that anything that reduces the wear on players bodies is a good thing (although the World Cup with counter any benefit we would have seen for next season).

As for the East-West thing....

I'm fine for the concept, but I think it would be a shame to never play against the other side. There are a lot of fans, especially older fans, in Western Canada that hold an allegiance to the Canadian Original Six teams. The NHL should see that the Habs and the Buds play out there at least once a year. Also, as a Leafs fan I would hate to never get old rivals such as Detroit or Chicago, or to lose the opportunity to see hoe the team matches up with a top team like Colorado.

Perhaps the NHL could look at a system similar to MLB; Conference play with a couple 'inter-league' weekends.

As an aside....Could you imagine how intense some of those late season divisional games would be? Yikes! And I think that if you load up on the divisional play you will need to go back to some sort of division playoff structure. I'm not sure how that would work with six divisions, but I don't think it's fair to seed teams together who have played different schedules.

[Papa Bouba Diop]

Are they also considering a zero game season for next year?

[VON9905]

Are they also considering a zero game season for next year?

Go read a book or go watch your brother, Dasagna Diop, play basketball for the Cavaliers.


-Von