ENOUGH WITH THE PACIFIC DIVISION

This was written November 13th, 2009. I now call it: "Razor's Imperfect Foundation Impetus For A More Sensible NHL" Yes, I am in fact an omnipotent visionary.

Last night’s thrilling come from behind shootout victory in San Jose reached it’s climax at 12:15 am Central Time.

That’s right, it ended tomorrow after starting at 22 minutes to 10.

Some friends who are die-hard fans of the presentation checked out after two periods. That’s a problem NHL.

Media critics often underscore languishing ratings for Stars games but what other type of ratings would you expect for games that you need a case of Red Bull and a quart of Jolt Cola to stay up for? And this was a divisional game! How many Devils – Flyers games end at quarter after twelve in the East?! (The answer is none - rhetorical question). And it was interesting to see the Canucks forced to bump their start time up by 3 hours on a Saturday night to accommodate the Toronto Maple Leafs and their all-powerful media pull. I guess forcing them to televise from 9-Midnight once every 3 years is out of the question, but it’s A-OK to have Dallas do it a dozen times a season.

So what to do about this?

You realign, that’s what.

Lets assume Phoenix is on its way to Southern Ontario, and lets also assume that two teams aren’t going to make it financially going forward. With only four remaining teams in the Stars’ Pacific Division I would propose a shift from 3 divisions in each conference to 2. How many 9:38 pm start times would you anticipate if the Stars were in a division with Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota and Columbus? The other division would include San Jose, Anaheim, L.A., Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Colorado and the breakdown of games could be:

• 7 games vs your division (42 games)
• 3 games vs other division in your conference (21 games)
• 1 games vs teams in other conference (14 games)

It’s a total of 77 games, 5 fewer than the current schedule. Hopefully that would curb a groin injury or two.

That’s it. I’ve solved it. Please discuss.