Mid-December Kansas City Hockey Related News Report

There are an awful lot of honkeys in this picture.  (Screen cap via)

Just a reminder that the hockey version of the Border War continues Friday, January 20th, 2012 at the Independence Events Center (home of the Mavs).  I cannot promise the hockey will be top notch Division I caliber stuff, but I can promise a good time will be had by hockey fans, Mizzou fans, Kansas fans, and all sports fans alike.  Go here to get tickets.

Also, there is speculation that Craig MacTavish, the current head coach of the AHL's Chicago Wolves (the Mavs affiliate), is a possible candidate for the recently vacated Los Angeles Kings head coaching position.  His only head coaching gig in the NHL was with the Edmonton Oilers from 2000-09, going 301-252-47-56 and losing to Carolina in the 06-07 Stanley Cup Finals.  He is in his first season with the Wolves, and as of this date he is 11-9-4.  He currently coaches two-way Mavs Charlie Effinger, J.P. Testwuide, and Dustin Friesen.  He is also the last player in the NHL to play without a helmet.  Just thought you should know.

Oh yeah, by the way, Mavs goalie extraordinaire "F-bomb" Effinger was called up to the semi-big leagues the other day.  This means the Mavs will once again use their insurance policy, Gerry Festa, in net for the time being.  Brian Mahoney-Wilson will also see time between the pipes.

Hey, how about some NHL stuff?  Sure, why not.  Continue...

Recently, the NHL mulled over an idea to realign the current divisions and conferences setup instead of moving a few teams in the wake of the Atlanta-to-Winnipeg relocation.  You may have heard a lot about this already.  If not, I encourage you to peruse this article from NHL.com.  Basically, the NHL will operate with four geographic-based division/conferences, two with seven teams and two with eight teams.  The top four teams of each div-con will make it to the playoffs, facing off in the first two rounds and then filtering into a final four semi-finals of teams that do not see much of each other.  There are some schedule balancing things in there too, and the article does a good job of explaining how that works.  You may ask, "Why does this matter to Kansas City?"  Well, the optimist in me would love to show you.  Plus, who doesn't like to look at maps???

Let's imagine, "pretend" if you would like, that Phoenix relocates to Kansas City.  Well, according to CBC Sports, KC continues it's role as outcast.

3. Phoenix: The NHL wants to keep the Coyotes in Arizona and will likely adopt the "Atlanta timeline," ie. waiting until the last possible minute before announcing any move. It's been reported the four potential sites are Seattle, Las Vegas, Quebec City and Kansas City. (Technically, the league can't talk to another city until Jan. 1). If it is one of the first two, the team wouldn't have to switch conferences. If it's Quebec, you're looking at the Montreal grouping. Kansas City? No idea.

Let's have a look-see, shall we?

Here is the proposed realignment:

Pittsburgh is highlighted because they are upset about something or another...I don't care and neither should you.

Here is a scenario with the city of Kansas City in the mix:

There, I fixed it.

The whole problem with rearranging teams has to do with rivalries being destroyed, reiterating the fact that Detroit could essentially be placed in any one of these divisions (let that be a lesson to all of you; if you are good at something, others will consider you their rival).  If Detroit must remain a Western team in the div-con of Chicago and Minnesota that will henceforth be known affectionately as the Big Ten, then Nashville or Columbus could be bounced to an Eastern division (possibly Toronto and Montreal's, thus helping their attendance issues), or KC could just be a lone wolf out west, staying in the same division and basically solving nothing.  Or be an independent.  But no, Quebec City will get their precious NHL team back because of snow and tradition or some such nonsense.


If you need a better visual, well, here you go: