Agree completely. I'm old school I guess, don't get into gimmicks and pro sports has lots of them. I don't like that so many teams make the playoffs, cheapens the regular season and demeans and punishes the accomplishments of the best teams as it is very difficult to win three or four short playoff rounds. But pro leagues are now purely corporate enterprises that are set up to have as much parity as possible, which makes them more profitable, which is all that counts.
Don -
There's nothing wrong with being "old school". :icon_wink: Unfortunately, the number of teams qualifying for the playoffs perforce has to be four or eight from each conference.
The corporate machine's nightmare of "only" four teams in a streamlined playoff format would obviously be bad for business (i.e. not raking in nearly as much dough from ticket sales and pay-per-view). Another Jew-unfriendly by-product would be too many potentially "meaningless" (therefore "unprofitable" - see previous parenthesis) games in the latter half of the regular season. On the other hand, the current black quarterback of eight playoff berths per conference allows just over half of the whopping thirty teams to make the cut - which, in purely sporting terms, is ridiculous...
A central issue, of course, is the size of the NHL. In my opinion, the league should never have expanded beyond 24 teams. For that matter, these "Eastern" and "Western" Conferences - regardless of their geographic composition - should be known as the "Prince of Wales Conference" and the "Clarence Campbell Conference", complete with Adams, Patrick, Norris, and Smythe Divisions. This may sound absurdly trivial, but the name changes have provided one of my major gripes over the past two decades. Needless to say, I'm also rather "old school"...
Funnily enough, the Blackhawks have lost their second straight game in regulation time: 5-6 against the Oilers. Yet again, Chicago conceded four unanswered goals in a single period, but this time it was the first twenty minutes, not the second.
Sidney Crosby provided five assists in Pittsburgh's 6-1 demolition of the Islanders - which gives him 45 points in 26 games. Yet ESPN has Eldrick Woods' ugly, smashed-mollusc mug on its home page...