If I was Gary Bettman - How I would fix the NHL

Hockey has always been one of my favorite sports. Its right up there with college football and baseball. The problem is the NHL is a broken product. Living in Michigan we have been blessed with one of the greatest not only hockey franchises of all-time, but one of the greatest sport franchises of all-time. The Red Wings are right up there with the New York Yankees, the Boston Celetics, and the Dallas Cowboys. The Wings have been on top of the NHL for a generation now, so we have a skewed image of the NHL in its current status.

That being said even Red Wings fans know there are problems with the NHL and almost of them point to Gary Bettman. Under the 17 year Bettman reign there have been two lockouts. Bettman has moved teams into nontraditional markets such as Phoenix, Florida, and Atlanta to name a few while taking them away from Canada and moving the North Stars to Dallas.

One of the problems currently facing the NHL is the schedule. It was changed a couple years ago and it has not worked. The NHL is starting to get it right again, however I believe there is a problem with the alignment of the leagues' conferences. I would realign the teams and the schedule.

The reasons for changing the conferences is this... Currently the NHL is East vs. West. Most of the population of the country lives in the East. This is problematic especially come playoff time. Very few people living in the eastern time zone will stay up to watch a San Jose vs. Anaheim match up. No one wants to stay up for a game that starts at 10pm est and goes to at least 1am est (barring overtime or overtimes). There is no reason for them to. However if the teams were realigned and east coast teams were in the same conference as west coast teams there would be a reason to stay up and watch the Rangers take on the Kings at 10pm est. Heck they should start the game at 9pm which would still get 2 hours of eastern time zone prime time viewing instead of 1.

Along the same line of reorganizing these teams for viewership, it also helps teams such as Detroit, Chicago, Nashville and Columbus who are almost guaranteed to play a west coast team in the playoffs. The same goes for west coast teams having to travel to those cities. This takes a lot out of these teams during the 2nd season. Currently Eastern Conference teams do not have this problem. Every team in the Eastern Conference is in the eastern time zone. The new alignment would make it so every team might have to travel to the west coast, midwest, or east for a series like teams in the NFL and MLB have to do.

Here is how I would change the conferences. I kept the divisions the same except I moved Dallas from the west to the midwest and put Vancouver in their place. This just makes sense geographically. I also brought back the Campbell and Wales Conference names. I also split up the original 6 (neither original or 6) into 3 in each conference. I don't like how there are currently 4 in the East and 2 in the West. The NHL needs old tyme hockey.

Clarance Campbell Conference

East
New Jersey
Pittsburgh
Philadelphia
NY Rangers
NY Islanders

Midwest
Chicago
Detroit
Nashville
St. Louis
Columbus

West
San Jose
Phoenix
LA
Anaheim
Vancouver

Prince of Wales Conference

East
Washington
Atlanta
Carolina
Tampa
Florida

Midwest
Buffalo
Ottawa
Boston
Montreal
Toronto

West
Dallas
Colorado
Calgary
Minnesota
Edmonton

Each team plays every team in the league not in their division at least twice, once at home and once on the road. This would leave 32 games left on every team's schedule. Then every team would play each team in their conference that isn't in their division a third time. This would be a once at home once on the road scenarios as well except the third game would rotate location each year. For instance Detroit would play San Jose twice at home then once on the road. The next year they would play two times in San Jose and once in Detroit.

This would leave 22 games left on every team's schedule. The rest of the 22 games would be against divisional opponents. So each divisional team would play 5 games against each other, the 2 remaining games would be rotated each year. So for instance Detroit's divisional match ups would equal this Chicago 6 games, Columbus 6 games, Nashville 5 games, St. Louis 5 games. The next year Detroit would play St. Louis and Nashville 6 times and Chicago and Columbus 5 times.

This is what Detroit's 2011-12 schedule would breakdown as...

Prince of Wales opponents once at home once on the road = 30 games

Non-divisional Campbell opponents 3 games each = 30 games

Divisional opponents two teams 5 times and two teams 6 times = 22 games

30+30+22=82 games

Personally I think this would help the league out quite a bit. It would guarantee you see every NHL team enter your favorite teams arena every year. It also ensures that the NHL's superstars are being seen across the country and not just regionally. Plus the NHL needs to dump NBC and get back with ESPN. The NHL has the ability to be bigger than the NBA, I don't think it can ever surpass the NFL or MLB, but it can sure be better than what it currently is.