Legit Thought Or Not?

[chilly666]

* The WHL needs to address its playoff format. In a 22-team league, it stands to reason that there should be two 11-team conferences, with the top eight teams in each loop advancing to the post-season. But not in the imbalanced WHL, in which there are 12 teams in the Eastern Conference and 10 in the Western Conference. As a result, four Eastern teams miss the playoffs, compared to two out west.

* The format was especially unfair this year. In the Western Conference, the Victoria Royals and Everett Silvertips made the playoffs with 55 and 54 points, respectively. Yet, the Red Deer Rebels (70 points), Swift Current Broncos (62) and Lethbridge Hurricanes (59) missed the playoffs in the Eastern Conference. One step toward guarding against a recurrence of this problem would be to move the Kootenay Ice, which is not in the B.C. Division despite being based in Cranbrook, B.C., to the Western Conference and even out the conferences.

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[chilly666]

to me it makes sense...or else just do what the QMJHL does and take the top 16, no matter of what division/conference.

[HordiBrusk29]

It does make sense but Kootenay moved to the Eastern Conference not too long ago so I don't see them moving back to the West any time soon. While Cranbrook is technically in BC the next closest BC team is Kelowna which is about a seven hour drive. That is the reason they moved to the East to begin with. All the travel.

Personally I think Kootenay should just move to another location, somewhere in the West. There are several different locations that could be suitable.

[chilly666]

like abbotsford??

[HordiBrusk29]

Abbotsford could be a potential destination but I doubt it with the Heat there. The league would like another team on the island (Nanaimo) but there needs to be a new arena built in order for that to happen. Even though they just lost a team there have been plenty of rumors about Chilliwack getting another team via relocation. Langley could also support a team and they have a brand new arena. I believe all of those areas are a better market than Cranbrook, although that doesn't really say a whole lot.

[mh34444]

Is another U.S. based team even an option? Boise sounds geographically insane but it would expand recruiting into a new territory and they have supported an ECHL team for some time now. Or even Bellingham WA, a 200,000+ population metro area.

I hate seeing the smaller market teams relocating to larger markets but it seems to be the direction the league is heading. I wouldn't have a clue where Swift Current or Prince Albert were on the map if it weren't for the Dub!

[HordiBrusk29]

I don't think you'll see another team in the U.S. anytime soon. And I agree on not wanting to see the smaller market teams moving to bigger cities. Unfortunately some of these smaller market teams are struggling financially and unless that changes in the near future it seems like a realistic scenario.

[cougar fists]

Makes sense but it wouldn't help the Cougars get into the playoffs. As long as we have the same GM, we'll need all the help we can get.

[w1nman]

I don't have a problem with the current format. The thing to remember is that there is more points to be hand in the eastern conference with the 2 extra teams, strength of schedule gets watered down with the more teams you have to play where as the western teams had to play portland/tri/kamloops a ton of times. It makes it worse actually to be in the west when its this much stronger.

To give an example of what I'm talking about, my team, Spokane, had to play Tri 12 times this year, portland 10 times and kamloops 4. That's 26 games, or about 1/3 of our season against 3 powerhouse teams. Spokane additionally was something like 12-1-1 against the eastern conference and we finished 5th in the west.

Swift current, one of the teams you mentioned that 'would have made the playoffs in the west' played in a division with with 4 teams that couldn't crack 85 points. If they played a western conference schedule they probably would have finished where victoria or seattle did. You can't just look at points alone in an unbalanced schedule.

As far as kootenay is concerned, I'd hate to see them move, they are the only other team outside of Tri that's within 5 hours of spokane. Even tho they are in the east we still play them 5 times a year. I also think they are in a good spot for all the other western teams as it makes bus rides back east less of a long haul cuz most of them will stop in cranbrook first and/or on the way back.

Just some thoughts

[avamania2003]

Originally Posted by w1nman

I don't have a problem with the current format. The thing to remember is that there is more points to be hand in the eastern conference with the 2 extra teams, strength of schedule gets watered down with the more teams you have to play where as the western teams had to play portland/tri/kamloops a ton of times. It makes it worse actually to be in the west when its this much stronger.

To give an example of what I'm talking about, my team, Spokane, had to play Tri 12 times this year, portland 10 times and kamloops 4. That's 26 games, or about 1/3 of our season against 3 powerhouse teams. Spokane additionally was something like 12-1-1 against the eastern conference and we finished 5th in the west.

Swift current, one of the teams you mentioned that 'would have made the playoffs in the west' played in a division with with 4 teams that couldn't crack 85 points. If they played a western conference schedule they probably would have finished where victoria or seattle did. You can't just look at points alone in an unbalanced schedule.

As far as kootenay is concerned, I'd hate to see them move, they are the only other team outside of Tri that's within 5 hours of spokane. Even tho they are in the east we still play them 5 times a year. I also think they are in a good spot for all the other western teams as it makes bus rides back east less of a long haul cuz most of them will stop in cranbrook first and/or on the way back.

Just some thoughts

seattle is only 4 hrs away for some people lol