2009

[ottawasportsfan2010]

Sussex
Ottawa
Quebec
Brockton
Atlantic City
New Jersey
Worcester
New Hampshire

I am already excited about this up comming season.

[jackalsfan]

Ottawa
Quebec
New Hampshire
Brockton

Worcester
New Jersey
Sussex
Atlantic City

>All of the teams in 2009 and put them in my "proposed" division

[OttawaBallFan]

Welcome to the board, OttawaSportsFan. Maybe we can meet at the celebration party planned on Wednesday.

It is at Liam Maguire's, corner of St. Laurent and Innes road where it changes to Industrial at 7:30 p.m.

Miles Wolff will be there. Come and let him know how much his support has been appreciated. Blogger Carl Kiifner will be there too as should Francois Marchand and probably others involved in the Rapids' rebirth.

JackalsFan, I'll tell Miles about your division idea, if I have a chance to talk to him.

[jackalsfan]

If it is true that you talk to him, mention the division idea. Even though I know it will not happen for some while, it would really help with the cost of traveling, plus it would really help with money issues in some franchises.

[OttawaBallFan]

JackalsFan, I did talk to Miles Wolff last night for a few minutes.

He and I agree that a division setup would work best with at least ten teams. One major reason he cites is that fans would see the same teams too often from the same division. Right now, each team visits each other twice, usually three-game series.

Assuming your plan is for one series on the road against teams in the other division in a four-game series, this means that you would host the three other teams in your division 10 times. That's a lot of games against just three other teams, about two thirds.

I'm also not convinced it would reduce so-called travel costs. Half your games are on the road. Since hotel room costs are sensibly the same all over, you save nothing there.

The only savings is the bus rental and I don't believe travelling a few 1000 kilometres less in a season will make a big dent in the travel expenditure, especially since I believe most if not all teams rent a bus for a whole road trip. The bus and drivers stay with the team, they have to bring them back in a couple of days after all.

The biggest savings would be gained by Quebec and Ottawa, being the two teams furthest away from the rest of the league. And even then I don't think the cost of an Ottawa-AC trip would be twice the cost of an Ottawa-Nashua trip even if the distance is double so the savings would be negligable for all teams.

These are my opinions but Miles' mentioned reason is too many games against the same teams in an 8-team league which the fans would find boring seeing the same three teams 66% fo the time.

[ottawasportsfan2010]

Any word on how many games each team will play in 09.

[OttawaBallFan]

I assume 94 games per team as it has been the last few years.

Frankly, I find that number weird because that means you play one more game against some teams. The structure is 13 games against four teams and 14 against three teams. Why not make it 14, seven home and away, against all the teams which means a 98-game schedule? But that's just me, I like everything to be balanced.

Speaking of balanced, I now remember Miles mentioning that with JackalsFan's idea, the schedule would be un-balanced. I take it he also likes things more balanced.