NHL Realignment?

So, a few days ago I wrote about the possibility of Major League Baseball realigning. We also knew that the NHL would have to realign with the Thrashers moving to Winnipeg and being renamed Jets. Gary Bettman, the weasel...er, Commissioner of the NHL, has stated that the league will realign, and not just in minor ways. Bettman wants to divisions per conference. Since there are 15 teams in each Conference, there would be a seven team division and an eight team division.

So I started thinking about how the NHL could properly realign without completely destroying existing rivalries and renewing some old rivalries. I tried to stay as geographically sensible as possible. I, for one, am completely understanding of Red Wings fans who have to watch their team play conference opponents three time zones away.

So, here's my proposed realignment for the NHL:

West:

Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Jose, Vancouver, Phoenix, Colorado, Edmonton, Calgary

Central:

Dallas, St. Louis, Nashville, Detroit, Minnesota, Winnipeg, Columbus

Atlantic:

Florida, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Washington, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Toronto

Northeast:

Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York (Rangers) New York (Islanders), Boston, Montreal, Ottawa

In this scenario the conferences go away. For the playoffs, the Division winners are seeded 1-4, and then seeds 5-16 can be filled out one of two ways:

1. The next best 12 teams get the spots.

2. The next 3 teams in each division get in.

The first round becomes a best of five, with each round after being best of seven.

What do you think?

Formula One Review, Preview

For the first time in nearly eight months I'm sitting down to write about Formula One. This season is shaping up to be a paradox. After seven races, Sebastien Vettel has a 60 point lead over Jenson Button. In other words, the earliest that Button could mathematically take the points lead is 24 July at the Nurburgring. Even then, that requires Vettel to score less than 15 points over the next three races and Button must win every race.

So it seems like this should be boring, right? I mean, Vettel is seemingly walking away with the title. But the races this year have been exhaustingly exciting. At the Canadian Grand Prix Vettel had a 5 second lead with about five laps to go, but Button had the best car, the oddly designed MP4-26 (seen at right). Vettel actually crumbled under the pressure of pushing his car so hard, spinning out on the last lap and allowing Button to pass for the victory.

Prior to that, Lewis Hamilton gave Vettel an insane challenge at Circuit de Catalunya. In fact, there has been an oddly low number of runaway victories this season. Yes, the Red Bull RB7 is a dominant car, but McLaren is coming after them. All of the major teams have been in the points, and of the backmarkers, Lotus is pushing hard.

The Bahrain Grand Prix was finally officially canceled. This should have happened from the start, but Bernie Ecclestone, who is after every single dollar he can get, risked a PR black eye to give the island nation a chance to settle their political unrest. They did, in a way, and just as soon as Bernie said the race would be held in October the teams started saying no.

And there have been some pretty exhilarating accidents, as well. The scariest, obviously, was Sergio Perez's hard shunt coming out of the tunnel at Monaco, slamming hard into the barriers on the other side of the chicane. At Sepang, Renault driver Vitaly Petrov had what looked like a rather funny accident (note photoshopped picture to the left), but in hindsight it was quite scary, because when the car hit the ground again, the drive shaft broke, which has actually caused fatalities in F1 before.

So the next race is this weekend at Valencia, a boring, processional course with lots of 90-degree turns. Probably not going to be too interesting, but with the way this season is going, who knows...

Finally Ranting about the Atlanta Spirit Group

The Atlanta Thrashers flew town for the much colder, bleaker confines of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The buyer, True North Entertainment, was looking to buy a team. The Phoenix Coyotes looked like a good bet. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman had been on the ground in Phoenix trying to diffuse the situation. The league wanted the team to stay, so the city stepped up and floated the team a $25 million loan to stay. So True North turned their attention to Atlanta.

Here in Atlanta, the Atlanta Spirit Group, the owners of the Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Thrashers, and Philips Arena, were battling each other like spoiled children. The consortium of owners purchased all three entities, and from almost day one began looking for a buyer for the Thrashers. Meanwhile, the started sinking more and more money into the Hawks. This last season, the Hawks were 8th out of 30 in NBA in payroll. The Thrashers were 28th out of 30 in the NHL. So it's obvious that the owners cared more about the NBA.

Enter True North, who was willing to shell out $170 million to take the team to Winnipeg. The ASG was all too willing to take the money. So for the second time the city of Atlanta loses an NHL franchise.

The metro Atlanta area houses about 5.5 million people, many of which are northern transplants. Winnipeg is home to 785,000. Nothing wrong with that, just a much smaller market. People continually railed against Thrasher fans for not showing up, blaming low attendance numbers. The Thrashers averaged 86% capacity last season, or around 15,000 fans per game. The arena in Winnipeg only seats 15,000. Even if Winnipeg sells out every game they will barely beat Atlanta's attendance numbers.

To make matters worse, the ASG spent most of their time in court, suing each other because Steve Belkin didn't like the trade for Joe Johnson. So once again, the NBA takes up so much of the ASG's time that the NHL becomes an afterthought. So no marketing is done. No one in Atlanta can name anyone on the team because the ownership keeps trading away the good players and forcing the GM to operate on a shoestring budget. Then, the ownership has the cojones to blame the fans for not showing up.

Yet, people will continue to throw money at the ASG because they want to see the Hawks. Meanwhile, the Thrashers are in Winnipeg, the Thrasher fans are sick to their stomachs, and the NHL has a PR black eye because of it all.

The Atlanta Spirit Group will never get another dollar of my money. So help me God I'll never attend a Hawks game or go to Philips Arena again until they are gone from Atlanta forever.

MLB Realignment?

That's right, I'm back, and it's a baseball post. It's hard to believe that it has been six months since my last post, and boy was I wrong about those Falcons. But now we move on to the sport currently being played around the country: baseball.

The talk going on at the moment is that baseball may realign. The last time this happened was the split into three divisions per league, and the move of Milwaukee to the National League from the American League.

I'm of the opinion that the product has gotten stale and this is evidenced by the somewhat sagging attendance numbers and ratings. So, how would I fix it?

My idea requires six teams to swap leagues, and one team to switch divisions. Here is the current layout.

American League

East: New York Yankees, Boston, Baltimore, Toronto, Tampa Bay

Central: Minnesota, Cleveland, Chicago White Sox, Kansas City, Detroit

West: Oakland, Texas, Seattle, Los Angeles Angels

National League

East: Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York Mets, Florida, Washington

Central: Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh, Houston, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee

West: San Francisco, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego, Colorado, Arizona

It is a known and publicized fact that Seattle is a beaten-down outlier in the AL West, and Toronto is sick and tired of being in the shadow of the three-headed Tampa-Boston-New York Cerberus. So those two are up for moving around, and their dancing partners will be revealed shortly. The third team swap that I would pitch is Kansas City to the NL and Pittsburgh to the AL. Both franchises have been mired in mediocrity that switching leagues may just be the spark they need.

Now, the talk at the moment is that the Union wants to have 15 teams in each league, which seems good and balanced until you realize that such alignment would require either continual interleague play throughout the year, or two teams having entire series off.

I would maintain the league names and division names. So here's what my MLB would look like. Teams switching leagues are in bold. Teams switching divisions are in bold italics.

American League

East: New York Yankees, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, Tampa

Central: Cleveland, Chicago White Sox, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Detroit

West: Oakland, Los Angeles Angels, Texas, Houston

National League

East: Atlanta, Philadelphia, Florida, New York Mets, Toronto

Central: Chicago Cubs, St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Colorado

West: San Diego, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco, Arizona, Seattle

Washington moves to the AL East, and into a natural geographic rivalry with Baltimore. The Pirates join the AL Central. Houston leaves the NL Central and joins the AL West and a natural rivalry with the Rangers.

The Blue Jays get out from under Boston and the Yankees, but still get to play divisional games in New York, and also get the Braves and the Phillies coming to town. The Royals move into the NL Central, as do the Rockies. You might as why, but several Central division teams are closer to Denver than San Francisco is. The Mariners move into a much more logistically friendly division in the NL West.

We keep the 16/14 alignment and maintain four playoff teams per league. Some people are suggesting to up the number of playoff teams, but look at the NHL and the NBA. Their playoffs last nearly two months. The NFL has six teams per conference in the playoffs and they barely go five weeks.

Other options being bandied about include contracting two teams, or splitting into two divisions per league instead of three. Obviously, I prefer my idea.