Little Big League

If your a sports fanatic like myself you probably find yourself on ESPN.com and other sporting websites once, twice, fifteen times a day. Reading about what basketball players have done over the summer, your fantasy teams downfalls and other fluff articles. One of these articles really caught my eye the other day. It was on creating a long-term survival plan for the NHL through contraction or re-alignment. Pierre Le Brun, a highly regarded NHL analyst, went the way of many others and brought up the argument for having a European expansion. Barry Melrose, a one time player, coach, and now analyst suggested swapping a few teams in warmer markets for "real" hockey cities. The one plan that really struck a note with me was John Buccigross'. He opted to add many more teams "with smaller arenas in some of the new markets (12,000-15,000), with an aggressive shared-revenue system". With Buccigross' plan the league would exploit their already established hockey hot spots (ie; Toronto and Minnesota) and move into many other cities where the game is flourishing in the minor levels. Hockey needs more progressive minds like Buccigross in their head offices rather than that man-troll Gary Bettman.

Check out the full article here.