tom, Author at The Home Of The NHL Realignment Project The Home Of The NHL Realignment Project

2017-18 NHL Alignment Map

2017/12/15 by tom Leave a Comment

It occurred to me that with all musing and dreaming, I’ve neglected to create a map of the current NHL alignment with the Vegas Golden Knights logo incorporated.

Here you go, internet:

Filed under Hockey, Sports

Expansion to Seattle, Relocation to Houston and Quebec City

2017/12/08 by tom Leave a Comment

I’m not advocating for this, nor do I feel this is even likely, but let’s look at a “might happen” scenario for a few years down the road. In this new NHL the following goes down:

• Seattle gets it’s expansion team.

• The clock runs out on the Coyotes and their quest to get a decent arena deal or arena location in Greater Phoenix and the move into the very-ready Videotron Centre in Quebec City.

• Once the new (Texan) owner of the Carolina Hurricanes acquires the other 48% of the team, and either works out a lease-buyout, or simply waits out the terms of his “have to stay in Carolina” agreements, he opts to move his team in the Toyota Center in Houston.

… and we end up with a league that looks like this:

Bonus: I’ve renamed the divisions to the glory days version we all* loved until 1993.

*Not based on anything even closely resembling fact.

— Tom

Filed under Hockey Tagged with NHL Houston, NHL Quebec City, NHL Seattle

Timeline of the National Hockey League, Expansion, Relocation, Team Names, and Primary Logos

2017/07/20 by tom Leave a Comment

All-new, revised version of the giant timeline. If you scroll far enough, you’ll even see the Kraken. Click the images anywhere to view larger.

Source: Wikipedia

Filed under Ramblings

31-team NHL

2016/06/16 by tom 8 Comments

Hi all. Here’s a real quickly put together map of what the “New NHL” will likely look like. I don’t foresee the league bothering with realignment yet until they get to 32 teams (and hopefully incorporating my four-conference plan). For now Las Vegas is just added to the current 7-team Pacific. Also in case you can’t squint enough to see, the logo I threw together for the “Las Vegas Black Knights” is a quick construct of letters found in, or inspired by the ol’ classic Bicycle Cards logo.

Here it is bigger:

Okay, here’s the map:

Basically, the same old map I’ve been doing for a while with a little bit of flair (and the new Florida Panthers logo).

NHL Las Vegas is a reality… next up is landing on a nickname for the franchise and seeing if indeed, the league will stick with the current alignment (plus Vegas in the Pacific), or if they’ll opt for realignment and mix things up… I hope they go with something like my four-conference alignment plan. Time will tell, but for now, we’ve got a 31-team league and a new and interesting market in the mix. Good luck, Las Vegas!

Feel free to tweet/facebook/whatever this out to others.

Thanks!

— Tom

Filed under Hockey, Sports Tagged with 31-team NHL, NHL Expansion, NHL Las Vegas, NHL Vegas

The Case for a Four-Conference NHL

2016/06/14 by tom 16 Comments

Follow Expansion is coming, and the NHL has a golden opportunity to not just realign, but to reimagine what it actually is. Among the “Big Four” North American pro sports leagues, the NHL is uniquely positioned to be bold in its structure. It’s never going to unseat the NFL, NBA, or MLB in overall popularity …

Full Article » The Case for a Four-Conference NHL – The Home Of The NHL Realignment Project The Home Of The NHL Realignment Project

Filed under Ramblings

Quebec City and Las Vegas

2015/07/27 by tom 10 Comments

With the news coming down that only two cities actually ponied up the $10M to apply for expansion, we have to look at the very real possibility that the perceived “Westward Expansion” ain’t happening. That said, I threw together a quick map that I shared on twitter (feel free to follow me @NHLMaps), but neglected to post here. Below is that map. I’m actually pulling together some thoughts on a real solid argument for the four standalone conferences you see in this map and will post that soon(ish… newborns and blogs aren’t a good pairing it turns out).

Until then, enjoy this map: