News

The question was not should there be change, but what kind of change, which meant there was no change at all in the National Hockey League's schedule.

After two days of meetings, the league's board of governors decided Tuesday not to change its regular-season schedule or playoff format. But they came close, according to one source.

The governors fell one vote short of the required two-thirds majority on a motion to drop two of the eight games against teams in the same division in order to create 18 games against teams in the other conference. When only 19 of the 30 governors voted in favour of the move, the NHL decided to maintain the status quo.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said a committee will be formed to study the schedule issue further.

But some of those in attendance believe the issue will be revisited by the governors in mid-January when they meet at the NHL all-star game in Dallas. Toronto Maple Leafs general manager John Ferguson, a strong proponent of the change, is hopeful the move could come as early as next season.

"I don't think we've heard the last of it," Ferguson said after the two-day meetings wrapped up. "There was a great deal of sentiment, a great deal of discussion, and while the required votes didn't land on any one particular schedule matrix, the prevailing sentiment was that change was good.

"What exactly that means still remains to be determined, but it will be continually discussed. I would think next year is still on the radar."

The problem was not that not enough governors wanted a change. It was that they could not agree on a revised format.

The decision not to adopt a U.S. college-style bracket format for the playoffs was a setback for Bettman, who pushed hard for it. But very few governors turned out to be in favour.

Bettman wanted the measure for television because in a bracket format, the playoff matchups are determined at the start of the postseason. Currently, the teams are seeded one through eight in each conference, with the first-place team playing the eighth-place team and so on. Then after each round, the teams are reseeded, with the highest-ranked survivor playing the lowest-ranked.

"The feeling is that if a team has the benefit of a certain spot from their regular-season finish, they want the benefit of playing the weakest opponent that gives them," said Brian Burke, the president and GM of the Anaheim Ducks. "And bracketing takes that away in the second round."

Leading the charge for adding games against teams in the opposite conference were the Leafs and the Western Canadian-based teams. The Leafs traditionally are a strong draw in Western Canada.

Pat LaForge, the president of the Edmonton Oilers, said he was disappointed by the governors' decision, but "I'm not going to jump. We're sold-out. Our building's full, and, by and large, that's a signal that they're happy," he said. "I think it would have been a good move to change, but I speak for Edmonton."

One of the stronger opponents of change was Burke. He feels his West Coast-based team already travels too much.

"There was no resolution as far as changing the schedule was reached, mainly because we couldn't agree on something that made more sense than what we had," he said. "We want to listen to our fans, but it has to make sense, too."

Burke thinks much of the talk about increasing the number of games between teams in the Eastern and Western Conferences is because under the current format, young Eastern Conference stars such as Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby play only five road games in Western Conference cities a season.

"Everybody says, 'We want to see Crosby and we want to see Ovechkin,' " Burke said. "I've got news for you. Historically, in all my years running teams, there's only been a couple of players where fans would call and say, 'Is this guy playing?'

"I remember when I was assistant GM in Vancouver, Mario Lemieux had a bad back, and fans were calling the switchboard to see if he was going to play so they can decide whether or not to buy tickets. They did the same when Gretzky had injuries. It's never happened with any other player. People pay to watch teams.

"I think divisional rivalries are important. The fact that we have an aberration with two exciting young players right now, I'm not going to vote to change the schedule dramatically because we have two good players. They could get traded tomorrow. Then what do you do? It's got to have more sense to it than that."

In the meantime, New Jersey Devils president Lou Lamoriello said the schedule should be tweaked to spread out the divisional games. At times this season, teams in the same division played each other five times in four weeks. He said the teams have to work harder to provide the league with the best possible open dates in their arenas to make this possible.

"My thought process would be that we play the schedule in [thirds]," Lamoriello said. "The first third, you play four times in your division, in the middle you play all your [conference games], and at the end of the season, you play four more [divisional games]. Create it so there's an enthusiasm [for the divisional games]."