They are both lying pretty low these days………. Bettman is The Ruination of Hockey !! I hope he is booed in every rink he goes into from now on……

Markham I believe is way off in the distance…. Bettman didn’t take Hamilton , that had a Buyer with ” Lot’s of Real Money “…. I still think Hamilton is a better fit than Markham….I can see Quebec city…. Slowly but surely Saskatchewan has become one of the Have Provinces with lots of Money floating around….Lot’s of Fans Down East Also !! Lots of opportunities in Canada as well as the Northern States !! As long as Bettman and Daily are around nothing of substance will happen !! If that Russian League does happen to light up big there will be a shortage of Players again…. This is only my opinion , that opinion is open for discussion…..

lol @ you.

all that scrub cares about is money, the wings bring in crowds to these piss teams like the blues, predators, bluejackets, he will never let that go away

we want the Leafs, Rangers, Washington, Penguins, and so on

The Wild/Jets played twice last year. We aren’t “desperate” for a rival. Rivalries are built through the playoffs and undoubtly the Wild will have rivalries with Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, and Winnipeg should this realignment go through. I do know Winnipeg and Minnesota are the closest NHL cities to each other. That’s a start. The Wild will play the Jets 6 or 7 times a year compared to the 2 times a year Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver will.

Also can we compare profits at the end of the year? You take your 23 teams, I’ll take the 7 Canadian teams and we’ll see how we do.

There is an already existing rivalry between the cities of Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg, not just at a hockey level but at an actual civic level. Winnipeg was the big city in the western part of Canada in the 60′s and 70′s but that city has become stagnant and Calgary took over and has become the dominant city by far. There’s ill will there because of that, many Winnipegers have to move to Calgary to get jobs, there’s ill will because of that. We’re the same people, we have a shared history, we dislike each other, regardless of what you think the rivalries between Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg are much stronger than the 1 game history that exists with the Wild, that’s no disrespect, it’s just the way it is!

Btw congrats on the SO win tonight, some exciting moments in regulation but the overtime might have been the most boring 4 on 4 hockey ever played! I think both teams combined for 0 shots in that 5 minute period. But then all 3 goals in the shoot out were fantastic!

kaptaanamerica: frankly Vancouver’s crowd is filled with so many bandwagon fans I’m surprised if they know which other cities have teams let alone who could be possible rivals. It’ll be funny to see though, once the Canucks window closes they’ll be back to having 13,000 a game in that building just like they were before Brian Burke saved that franchise.

Divisions of three teams each, located in geographically close. Each team would play every team at least twice. Each cluster would alternate home and away series by time period, so 5 clusters would be at home (within their cluster) in any given week. In addition you would play within your cluster twice, and play 3 rival clusters. This would make up 84 games. By travelling to a geographic area in would reduce travel costs.

9 other clusters x 6 gm = 54 gm
2 Inter-cluster x 6 gm = 12 gm
3 rival clusters x 6 gm = 18 gm
84 games

Each “series” would last a week (or less), so you’d need at least 28 week to complete all series, playing 3 games each week.

http://goo.gl/maps/EHiAD

I am against the proposed playoff format, as it would make the regular season less important. Instead of fighting for a playoff spot against 14 teams, a team will be competing for a playoff spot only against 6 or 7 other teams, which means by mid January you will have teams practically clinch a playoff spot.