NHL Schedule Makes Leafs’ Visit An Uneventful Event
By Steve Sirk

To Western Conference teams, they are the NHL’s version of Halley’s Comet. The Toronto Maple Leafs made a rare appearance at Nationwide Arena on Friday night, as their triennial orbit of the Western Conference took them to Central Ohio for only the second time in their history.

And who could forget the first? In one of the most memorable nights in Nationwide Arena, Tyler Wright capped a hat-trick with an overtime game-winner against the Leafs. The Columbus Dispatch ran the indelible photographic image of Wright leaping higher than any man ever has in ice skates, as the fans behind the Plexiglas stood and cheered and pumped their fists and chucked their caps onto the ice. That was way back on March 20, 2003.

In a sport that revels in tradition, it is a shame that the most famous white sweater in the NHL graces each sheet of Western Conference ice only once every three years. The Leafs are considered the New York Yankees of hockey, and for 60 minutes, Columbus shared the ice with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Pretty cool, eh?

I do not mean to make it sound as though Columbus is on par with those igloo-dwelling moose jockeys from Mystery, Alaska, who received a royal visit from the New York Rangers for a major game of pond hockey. But wouldn’t it be nice to get more than just a fleeting glimpse of a legendary club?

The NHL has switched to a lopsided schedule that favors division rivalries at the expense of the rest of the league. Teams now play eight games per year against division rivals, four games per year against conference foes, and the sum total of ten games annually against clubs in the other conference. For every visit by the Maple Leafs, you’ll get 12 servings of the St. Louis Blues and six servings of the Phoenix Coyotes. Uh, yummy.

To put it in perspective, the city of Columbus has hosted Mexico’s national soccer team in World Cup qualifiers as many times as it has hosted the Leafs in a simple NHL game.

And while the Leafs are the topic at hand because of their visit, it applies to other club as well. What of the Montreal Canadiens and their 24 Stanley Cups? Or other Original Six clubs like the New York Rangers or Boston Bruins? Or a regional rival like the Pittsburgh Penguins? And that’s not to mention non-historical teams of the Southeast Division that possess such sparkling young talents as Atlanta’s Ilya Kovalchuk and Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see these clubs every year? And let’s not forget that the Eastern Conference is denied seeing historical clubs like the Detroit Red Wings or young stars such as, say, Rick Nash or Nikolai Zherdev. Yes, a more balanced schedule would help put the Blue Jackets on the national map too.

Another problem with Friday’s rare appearance is that the Leafs don’t have much meaning to local fans beyond their name. With such an unbalanced schedule and the lack of a major TV presence for most of the season, the opposing NHL conferences are becoming invisible to one another. With no appreciable head-to-head history or regular TV exposure, a visit by the Leafs becomes more of a circus novelty rather than a compelling hockey game. But maybe if the teams played twice a year, there would be some substance to the game beyond “the Leafs are actually in town for once.”

The NBA, to its credit, has stuck by the notion that a season ticket holder should get a chance to see every team in the league at least once each year. Fans in Portland get to see a famous team like the Boston Celtics every year, while fans in Orlando are guaranteed to see the Los Angeles Lakers. Fans in Sacramento can drop their jaws at LeBron James, while fans in Charlotte can boo Kobe Bryant. In the NHL, a fan in Columbus or Minnesota gets to see the Leafs or Habs about once every election cycle and can witness the skills of Sydney Crosby just about every time he needs to renew his driver’s license. But don’t forget to come see the Anaheim Ducks twice a year!

The NBA has a more balanced overall schedule that deemphasizes division rivalries, but the NHL can make for the best of both worlds. They can let every team visit every arena, but still stockpile division games. The math is easy. Two games versus all non-division teams equals 50 games. The current eight games against division foes equals 32 games. And that right there adds up to an 82-game NHL schedule.

As it stands, the current NHL schedule is eroding the league-wide identity of the opposing conferences. This is a hockey town that lives to boo Jordin Tootoo, yet on Friday night, the reviled Darcy Tucker was just an anonymous Maple Leaf. Fans who have been repeatedly burned by the greatness of Steve Yzerman had to wait for the red light to come on before learning that leaving Mats Sundin untouched behind the goal almost always has dire consequences.

If Eastern and Western Conference teams toured the entire league each season, a game like Friday’s visit from the Leafs would be less about the crest on the front of the famous white sweaters and more about the players inside of them.

Substance makes for more interesting hockey than does style.