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Originally Posted by MNSOTA
The Eastern teams have no leg to stand on when it comes to voting this down...they're not the ones having to play a DIVISIONAL home and home like Minnesota and Vancouver.
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This is part of the reason why I hate the East/West alignment so much. Teams in the east or midwest (and Minnesota is one of them) are aligned with the western time zones, making them play more games at greater distances than their eastern conference counterparts.
And while watching Columbus and Atlanta (or any of the other expansion/relocation teams of the past decade plus) might turn your stomach -- isn't it important for the sake of the NHL that they get these teams assimilated into the league so they turn your stomach in the rival sense instead of the "could care" sense?
Going ultra-regional and stressing regional rivalries is part of the drawback of the NHL's marketing. Yeah, there are some great regional rivalries in the NHL... But come on -- it's an overkill to put an emphasis on these divisional games when you have to grow the entire league.