From TSN.ca - NHL Mailbag

Scott — Last thing that might be on people’s minds right now with the trade deadline, the playoff chase, the Presidents Trophy duel, playoff seedings, team rebuildings, labor issues and the like. Should the NHL realign again and nix the East / West alignment? Hear me out… Some of the teams that are stashed in the west are anything but (Columbus a part of the west? Detroit? Chicago? Usually one considers the west being the left side of the Mississippi river… Not just that, but the ultra-regional alignment (northeast, southeast) ends up leading to a load of trashing of fans in the south (because, lets face it, the Southeast division is a joke even if it hosts one of the best teams in the league with the Lightning). Wouldn’t it be better to mix up the markets a bit and have two conferences of East-Central-West divisions? This might hurt some rivalries in the short run with how realignment turns out, but in the long run it could foster some great rivalries between teams we wouldn’t even consider rivals now. John Fontana, Palm Harbor, Florida

John, there is merit to the idea from a pure hockey sense, because I certainly agree that lumping substandard teams in the Southeast isn’t exactly the best way to promote hockey to new markets. On the other hand, and it’s guaranteed we’ll get sick and it’s guaranteed we’ll get sick of hearing this before 2004 is out, hockey is a business and the owners like having geographically-aligned divisions because it cuts down on travel costs. The loser in the equation becomes the fan who wants to see players in the opposing conference, while the fan who likes the geographic rivalries (Montreal-Toronto and Ottawa-Toronto are pretty big around these parts as I would imagine Florida-Tampa Bay might be where you are, even with the limited history of the two teams). Since I can’t even fathom a situation in which the owners would agree to something that increases their expenses, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for realignment if I were you. - SC

SO much as for me making my post regarding needing NHL realignment :tongue

TSN.ca - NHL - Canada’s Sports Leader

Hey Scott, I have been hearing lots of stuff being thrown around about how Tampa Bay gets horrible crowds and no one in Florida cares about hockey. The other day I was watching a game on Tampa’s Sunshine network and its a good station, good commentators and the such but one thing I didn’t get was that they kept showing rules of the game. Like when the other team pulled their goalie this “Hockey 101″ thing popped up and it sayed pulling the goalie gets you another skater on the ice or something but there were others. One more thing is that my local radio station had this little prank phone call thing they did every night where they called the U.S.A. and asked them a question. Well one day I happened to be listening and they called a gas station in Tampa and asked the girl if she was happy that the lighting were in the playoffs. She had no idea who the lightning were and had no idea what he was talking about. Thats what I call Sad! Scott Semenchuk, Winnipeg,MB

Scott, I guess that’s just one of the things we take for granted in Canada. The rules of hockey are just a given here, but it’s just not that way in the southern States because they are relatively new to the sport. Even in a place like Washington, where NHL hockey has been around for 30 years, you’d be surprised at the explaining of rules.that still goes on. It’s really just a function of the relative importance that hockey has in our respective cultures. I’ll bet the people in Tampa would do a heck of job picking up zone blitzes and showing the nuances of a cover-two defence in football. - SC

:rolleyes:

And for the sake of passing on the attendence to those in Canada who only believe rumors that they are told with regards to attendence. Don’t tell me no one shows up.