Longing for the old days

I don't really like the Northwest Division. My angst is simple, the late night games. Yeah, call me an old man if you must. But since I am an early riser, I like my sleep to start the day before I awake. And with the way the games are played in 'the new NHL', with overtime and shoot-outs, it sometimes seems to be more the rule than the exception that a divisional match-up will carry on to early the next day, especially when we get this far into the season. And thus when the Wild play two time-zones away from the X, I find myself falling asleep then waking up in the same day.

When Minnesota was awarded and NHL franchise, the obvious division to place the Wild in was the Central. But as we all know, Bettman & Clowns don't always do right by the teams and fans. Instant and old-time rivalries were already there, with Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis. Instead we got a group of teams that really did not mean a whole lot except that they were in Canada (yeah, in Colorado too). Truthfully though, as far as the fans go, our divisional rivalries are pretty weak if you ask me. If it were not for the teams unexpected and improbable playoff run back in 2003, we would not have much for divisional rivals at all. Yes, we see those teams more during the regular season, and we get the usual hack play from Vancouver, but that is where it would end.

The good old days featured Minnesota's NHL team as the North Stars. Back 1967 when the team entered the league, with only 12 teams, they had simply an East and West Division. That is the way that it stayed for several seasons, as the league added only a couple of teams and always had and equal number in East V West. Then in the 1974-75 season, the NHL came up with those foreign named conferences and divisions that I remember well. First you had the 'Prince of Wales Conference' that had the 'Adams' & 'Norris' divisions, as well as the 'Clarence Campbell Conference' that had the 'Patrick' & 'Smythe' divisions. Yeah, unique names but the history behind them is very interesting. The North Stars did bounce a bit back & forth between the two conferences but one thing remained fairly consistent, none of those late night games. In fact, there was a period where the team was in an 'eastern' conference with Boston, Buffalo, Quebec, & Toronto...and that was a bonus because that meant an early road game. Of course back then, there was not the television exposure that we have now...but I recall spending many nights listening to Al Shaver call the play on the radio.

Ah, the good old days...