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Three ways into the journal: the realignment argument, the game explained, and a hockey book a week.
This is a hockey journal, not a news wire. It has three long-running threads — the argument about how the NHL should be arranged, the mechanics of how the game and its season actually work, and a book a week — plus shorter notes. Start with whichever of those you came for.
If you came for the realignment argument
The NHL Realignment Project is the oldest thread here: a run of weekly posts, maps and proposals about conferences, divisions, travel and time zones, written while the league kept changing its mind. Begin with the overview and then follow the weeks in order, because each one answers the previous one.
- All realignment posts, newest first.
- Maps and division shapes are the recurring subject, not a one-off.
- Proposals are arguments, not predictions: they say what would change and what it would cost.
If you want the game explained
The Hockey section covers the parts that decide a season and rarely make a highlight: how the calendar is built, what the standings actually measure, what a goaltender is doing before the shot arrives, why special teams swing games and why line changes matter more than hits.
- How an NHL season is structured is the entry point.
- Then read the standings piece, which explains games in hand and why the table lies in October.
- Special teams and goaltending come after that, in any order.
If you came for books
One hockey book a week, read closely, with a note on what the book argues and where it is thin. Some weeks the pick is a history, some weeks a memoir, occasionally a tactics manual that has aged badly and is worth saying so.
- The Hockey Book of the Week — the full run.
- Books collects the longer shelf pieces.
If you only have five minutes
Read the latest realignment post and the most recent book note. Between them they show the two habits this journal runs on: state the mechanism, then admit the limits of the evidence.
How numbers are used here
A figure appears only if it can be checked against a published source, a rulebook or a calendar. Where a number is an estimate, the text says so. Where the archive simply does not contain it, the text says that too rather than filling the gap.
Where to send a correction
If a map is wrong, a rule has changed or a book deserves a week of its own, the contact page has a form that prepares the message in your own email client. Specifics get answered first: page, sentence, and what the correct version should be.