Given the density of teams along the Eastern sea board, and the sparseness in the West, it goes without saying that teams in the Western conference get screwed in terms of travelling. However, it doesn’t help that the NHL schedules ridiculous travelling arrangements.
Consider this current set of games that the Oilers are currently in:
October 29: home vs. Detroit
October 31: @ Boston
November 2: @ NYI
Ok so far so good, they must be making an Eastern road trip. Probably heading to Madison Square Garden next. WRONG!
November 5: home vs… not even kidding you… the Rangers, the team who’s city they just left! And they are only home for one game! They would have been better off forfeiting the home date and just playing in New York.
November 8: @ Colorado
November 10: @ Ottawa… great, back out East.
November 11: @ Buffalo
So considering they probably left for Boston on October 30th, the Oilers travelled over 9,000 miles in roughly 13 days to play 6 games. If you are doing the math at home, that is 1,500 miles per game played! To put that in perspective, it would be like the Leafs and Avalanche taking turns playing 6 home games with each other over the course of two weeks, flying back and forth between Denver and Toronto for every game. That is absolutely outrageous. Not that the NHL could have predicted it but for a team battling the flu that is an absolute death sentence.
November 5th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I see your point but I’d be curious to see how the player’s felt about it. On one hand you have less travelling but on the other hand they’re at home with their families for at least 3 days…maybe 4. It’s a long road trip from Oct 30 – Oct 12 (included a couple travel days). But then again maybe they shouldn’t be worried about home/family time…that’s why they get paid the big bucks.
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November 5th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Oh I am sure they would rather go home to play the Rangers… that was more of a snarky comment than a legitimate sugguestion. But the fact that they go to the East Coast for only two games is a little ridiculous.
And not that I have any first had accounts from the players but I think the travel is a small part of the reason teams like the Oilers and Canucks have trouble attracting big name players in free agency.
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November 5th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Yeah I think it’s definitely a reason they have trouble getting players. If you’re a UFA and you get the same offer from an east coast contender and a west coast contender it may not be the main thing they base their decision on but it’s definitely in the back of their minds (at the very least).
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November 5th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Its not the most ideal situation for the Oilers but it was either come Home to play the Rangers or the Rangers go back to New York to play the Oilers, which makes even less sense seeing as they were in Van City 2 nights ago and Calgary tomorrow night…
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November 5th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
That’s a good point. I never looked at it from the Rangers point of view. Also, the Oilers don’t even play at MSG this year so the Oilers had to be back home for when the Rangers made their Western Canadian road swing. Just unfortunate scheduling that the Oil were on the East coast while the Rangers were out West.
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November 6th, 2009 at 1:01 am
this is a classic case of western conference propaganda….The leafs have to travel to Buffalo THREE times a year……try doing that trip!
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November 6th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Eat it Dan. I hope the Hamilton Blackberries put the Leafs out of business.
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