A question i was wondering is how much does travel affect our players? For instance, in MLS, a player may have to fly from LA to New York to Houston back to LA in a week. That does not leave much time for training. More, what might be the effects of chronic jet fatigue on the development of our players?
Traveling a lot does reduce training time and fitness of the players. It just leaves the players seeming less sharp but the MLS scheduled the matches this year with reducing traveling time in mind. A team in the East will play other eastern teams more than the western teams.
Wrote an article on this awhile back....after Lalas went on air to say that MLS was one of the toughest leagues in the world to play in. We calculated all the miles that Manchester United traveled in an average season, including Champions League matches. I don't remember the exact numbers, but The LA Galaxy traveled more miles in 3 round trips to the East coast than Manchester United traveled in an entire season. Also, when a team has an extended number of road games in a row, it severely limits training times. Imagine three road games in a row. Play on Sat. Travel on Sun. Monday off to rest. Tuesday training. Wednesday training. Travel on Thurs. Light training Friday. Play on Sat. During a road game heavy portion of the schedule, a team might get two proper training sessions in per week. Couple that with the extreme changes in altitude and climate from one MLS city to the next, and it is very easy to say that from a travel standpoint, MLS is by FAR the most difficult league for a player to adapt to. While the "eurosnobs" demand a single table, home and away style competition...an unbalanced schedule and conferences actually helps improve the overall quality of play and the development of younger players.
That's the problem playing in the MLS. USA is just too big. I know the players fly in much better conditions than the typical american but it still takes it's toll.
I'm sure it takes its toll compared to Euro leagues but I think the effects of travel get overblown a bit on here. The Kings just dominated their way to the cup and they have one of the most rigorous travel schedules in all of North American sports. The Ducks and Canucks are other teams that have gone to/won championships with insane travel in recent years. It shouldn't be used as an excuse by any team in MLS. Now, single FIFA International dates that require our players to fly across the atlantic twice in a handful of days while playing 3 games in 6 or 7 days is another beast entirely
This is a really horrible comparison. All the teams in the NHL have similar travel schedules. Furthermore, between the regular season and playoffs, NHL teams play 100 games a year. So any development lost from practice is made up in game time. We're not talking about if one MLS is at a disadvantage against other MLS teams. The conversation is whether or not the travel requirements of MLS teams has a detrimental effect on the development of young players.
The initial question was: "how much does travel affect our players"? The development of young players wasn't mentioned. "All the teams in the NHL have similar travel schedules", seriously? Take a look at a map of all the teams in the league and then get back to me. MLS teams fly to away games the day before and typically fly out right after the game or the next morning. Practice time is only affected when there's a mid-week crunch in between weekend games. That happens what, 4 or 5 times a year for non Concacaf champions league teams? Yes, the travel sucks compared to Euro leagues but a handful of practices lost throughout an entire season isn't hindering the development of MLS players
When I was covering the league, teams typically left on a Thursday is the game was on a Sat. And if they left the day before, the training session was typically extremely short and extremely light on that Thursday. First off, you're wrong about the travel. And I can tell you from first hand experience covering the league that there have been instances where an MLS team hasn't gotten a proper training session in for more than a month when the schedule gets congested. And that really isn't that uncommon either. Also, I guess you missed the part (or chose to ignore the part) where I mentioned that lack of practice time in the NHL is compensated by the sheer number of games that the players play. 100 games in the NHL vs. 34-40 games in MLS is kind of a big difference.
Gotta also remember a lot of MLSers represent their nations which is even more travel. That doesn't happen in Hockey unless it's the offseason.
The Los Angeles Kings were brought up by somebody. Out of their 41 regular season road games in 2011-2012, 24 (58.5%) of them were at least two times zone east. Compare that to my favorite NHL team, the New York Islanders, who had to travel two or more time zones west for only 4 (9.8%) of their road games.
For starters...NHL, NBA, MLB teams all charter flights. MLS teams typically fly coach. That in and of itself is a pretty massive difference.