Get ready Canadians, you are about to have a sportsgasm. In yesterday’s post, I looked at possible ten division alignments contingent on the Coyotes moving to either Seattle or Kansas. Today we will look at the possible alignments that could happen if the team moves to either Quebec City or Hamilton.

Should the ‘Yotes move to Quebec, it’s pretty obvious that they would lump in with Montreal and Boston, giving the Habs their obvious two rivals. This leaves Buffalo with the two Ontario squads, and the rest of the Eastern Conference to fall into place easily.

The Western Conference is slightly more complicated for a change. Chicago-Detroit-Columbus is a good Central Division, leaving a few choices for the other six Midwest Markets. Winnipeg and Minnesota are going to be partnered up leaving either Colorado or St. Louis to join them. I like the idea of a vertical Midwest Division, putting Colorado-Dallas-Nashville for the Southwest. You could switch St. Louis and Colorado around, but that looks familiar.

Alternatively we could have Detroit-Columbus-Nashville as the Central Division, Chicago-Minnesota-Winnipeg as the Midwest and St. Louis-Dallas-Colorado as the Southwest, but I am really opposed to a Wings-Hawks split, and Columbus is along for the ride.

Now should the former Blackberry CEO get his wish and the team moves from the Desert to the (Canadian) Steel City. My Southern-Ontarian-Heart is giddy at the thought of a Hamilton-Toronto-Ottawa, leaving Montreal-Boston-Buffalo to give us a rivalry rich trio.

Columbus gets booted away from Detroit and Chicago in favour of an old school Norris Division Triad. Columbus may not be “South” but it fits in fairly nicely with Nashville and Dallas, neither of which have strong historic rivalries, also one of them will be guarenteed to make the playoffs every year which will be good for two struggling and one developing market.

From last time you’ll remember…

Schedule and Playoffs

The playoffs are pretty easy here, division leaders all make the playoffs, plus the next three best teams. With five divisions, we really don’t need them to be given the top seeds, but a guaranteed playoff spot is good. Since the divisions are so small geographically, the local networks that would have a much higher chance of covering the playoffs.

As for a schedule, I would set it up as follows:

- 8 games against 2 divisional opponents for 16 games
- 3 games against 12 non-divisional in-conference opponents for 36 games (rotate the extra home game every year)
- 2 games against 15 non-conference opponents for 30 games

Lots of in-division games, fair schedule, lower travel time, teams like Detroit and Nashville don’t have to go to California and Western Canada twice a year, every year.

Now that we’ve looked at the Northwest, the Midwest, and the Great White North. Only one more stop for next time, Vegas Baby!