.....I'm not against renaming the conferences, but even with changes, Eastern and Western are still applicable.
.....Looking at the map, how things are currently, there are still quite a few teams that are more "eastern" than "western", but playing in the Western Conference...Detroit, Chicago, Nashville, just to name a few.
.....My reasoning for my division and conference moves are as follows:
.....Moving Vancouver to the Pacific: It puts them in the same time zone as three of their four division rivals, the flights may be a little longer, but I think this would be better for them. Colorado would be the one team having to make an adjustment but I don't think it would have much of a negative affect on them.
.....Moving Dallas to the Southeast: By moving Dallas to the Southeast, their longest trip in the Southeast (to Miami) is shorter than their shortest trip in the Pacific, which would be to LAX. Wait! That may not be true with a trip to Washington, but that's still shorter than flying to Vancouver, maybe even shorter than going to San Jose.
.....I realize moving Pittsburgh over to the Western Conference is a bit of a push, considering Pennsylvania touches onto the Atlantic, but their longest trip within the division is still only as far as St-Louis, not too bad.
.....In the Northwest, Chicago would take it on the chin, they'd probably not be very happy with the new re-alignment where they'd be playing more games in Edmonton and Calgary, rather than short trips to Detroit and St. Louis.
.....Still, I think clustering the teams (as best we can) would make it easier for most teams, one man's opinion...D'
Posted on May 23, 2011, 9:37 AM from IP address 67.193.59.71