[Demosthenes]

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- NHL officials approved a radical realignment plan Monday that will give the league four conferences instead of six divisions and guarantee home-and-home series among all teams.

The Board of Governors authorized commissioner Gary Bettman to implement the proposal pending input from the NHL Players' Association. It could be put in place as early as next season.

The league considered two plans to accommodate Atlanta's move to Winnipeg this past summer. The first would have simply moved the Jets to the Central Division and either Detroit or Columbus to the Southeast.

"The simple one wasn't as simple as it looked when you got done with it," Bettman said.

The board opted to go with the more dramatic switch, creating four geographic conferences -- two with eight teams and two with seven.

The new format will increase overall travel in the regular season, especially for Eastern Conference teams who will now have more trips West. But it cuts down on travel for some Western Conference teams, which was a critical issue for teams like Detroit, Dallas, Columbus and Nashville.

http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/7321214/nhl-approves-radical-four-conference-alignment-plan

How about that? The NHL as innovators? I can't say I would have chosen something like this, but I am kind of interested in seeing how it will play out. I've never really been that big a fan of playing "division" rivals 500 times and the rest of the league once, if at all, but this at least is balanced to a point. Biggest issue is that you won't play former conference rivals four times as you do now. It's either a conference rival or nothing now.

We'll see. I at least like that they are willing to go out on a limb to get things done and I like that the playoffs could theoretically be between anyone.

[R_G]

It's not far off of how the league was designed in 79-80 which was the last time you could have Eastern teams face each-other in the Cup Final.


This re-alignment basically means that for me, the Detroit Red Wings come to Toronto every year, at least once.

So I won't have to travel to Detroit for a while until I have more money...

[Demosthenes]

.....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAnd the players rejected it, so we're back to square one.

They need to keep conferences, but just go to two divisions.

[UltraBra]

I don't really understand the need for such a radical change and don't like having only seven teams in two of the conferences. I'd just switch Predators to the East and Winnipeg to the West and be done with it.

[Demosthenes]

Alot it has to do with the western teams whining about travel and Detroit whining about being the Eastern time zone while everyone else in their division is in the Central.

The Winnipeg thing is just goofy, considering most of their division is in the southeastern US.

[R_G]

Donald Fehr is an ass just like his father.

If any family deserves financial hardship it's them.