NHL Schedule conflict?

[repenttokyo]

So on the NHL site, it lists that there are regular season games in Europe on these dates:

Sat Oct 4, 2008
Rangers Lightning (Prague, CZ)
12:00 PM ET
6:00 PM

Penguins Senators (Stockholm, SE)
2:30 PM ET
8:30 PM

Sun Oct 5, 2008
Lightning Rangers (Prague, CZ)
12:00 PM ET
6:00 PM

Senators Penguins (Stockholm, SE)
2:30 PM ET

BUT - the pre-season doesn\'t end until the 6th - how is this overlap possible?

[angus]

Those games start before the official puck drop in NA by a few days. I didn\'t know there was an overlap, though.

[repenttokyo]

The official puck drop in North America is the 9th of October.

So what is happening, is that those teams start their season while most others are still playing pre-season. That weekend is filled with pre-season games, with one final pre-season game Monday night on the 6th.

[angelofharlem]

Yeah, they did this last year too. The Ducks/Kings games in London were played on Sat/Sun I think, and the rest of the league didn\'t start till the following Wednesday. I\'m pretty sure there were still exhibition games being played that weekend.

[repenttokyo]

it\'s making it a hassle for me to schedule my draft, i can tell you that much!

[duballstar014]

There werent any preseason games going on last year when Anaheim/LA played in London. They did however play on Sat/Sun and the rest of the league started on either Wed or Thurs.

Anaheim really got screwed by that schedule as right after they got back into NA, they had like 8 of 10 games on the road, and all very close together. Los Angeles meanwhile, had a much lighter load with far less games back to back, and much more games at home.

Great team Bettman\'s got over there....great team...:unsure:

[Capn Jimmy]

I thought that there were some preseason games last year after the games were played in Europe... but I could be wrong. Whatever the case, it does seem wrong.

[fantasyhockeygeek]

Schedule your draft whenever it fits. If it\'s after a couple of regular season games are scheduled, it\'s no big deal.

You can only hope that a GM lets the results of the first 2 games of the season affect draft decisions. It\'s like the guys that rate Jon Sim highly when he rips it up in preseason...

Hopefully Pesonen puts in 2 goals in that game and gets taken too early, which will let you make a level-headed pick...

[repenttokyo]

pooladdict wrote:

Schedule your draft whenever it fits. If it\'s after a couple of regular season games are scheduled, it\'s no big deal.

You can only hope that a GM lets the results of the first 2 games of the season affect draft decisions. It\'s like the guys that rate Jon Sim highly when he rips it up in preseason...

it is a big deal, because the scoring system I use will start counting from day one - so anyone with players on those teams will miss out on points.

The draft is scheduled before the beginning of the season.

[angelofharlem]

Last year I had to change the date of our draft because of this. We used Yahoo to run our league, and it lumped the early European games (Sat/Sun) in with the following week. Lineups for that first week had to be set in Yahoo by the Monday prior to the European games (pushing it into late September), or we would\'ve lost the whole first week of action. So, we\'ve moved our annual draft to the 3rd Saturday in Sept. instead of the last Saturday in Sept. Seems like they want to keep doing this in the future.

[narduch]

I\'m confused as to what the big deal is here. You know what the date of the first NHL regular season game is. Schedule your draft before that day. Why is that so hard?

Pre-season games taking place on the same day as regular season games are irrelevant.

[repenttokyo]

not to be a dick, but scheduling 10 people who live in different countries to all appear in the same place online for a draft is not a simple task.

also, our keeper lists are made on the first day of the preseason, and the draft was supposed to occur on the last day of the preseason. This gives people 2 weeks to evaluate their draft choices. Since this is impossible, with league games starting before the end of the pre-season, it compresses the amount of time between keeper lists and the draft.

So it is not irrelevant at all, as you can see.

[narduch]

How long have you been running a keeper league?

Shit happens and things change. So you have to make a new set up now. That\'s the way it goes in sports.

Personally, my favourite date for the draft is the Saturday before the regular season starts. But one of our league mates was away at law school so the past few years we\'ve had the draft in early September. Its called compromise. Its not the end of the world.

So maybe you need to slightly alter the rules a little. You may as well because it appears the NHL will start the season outside North America every year now. This is probably going to be the new normal.

Why can\'t you just alter the dates? You still have nearly 2 months to lay everything out....

[duballstar014]

I\'m pretty sure repent has figured this much out narduch. The issue is that it\'s pointless for NHL management to schedule this sort of thing. Would you expect anything less from Bettman?

Going back to the question here...my thinking is that repenttokyo is not asking how he can fix his keeper league. He is simply stating \"did this really happen?\" It\'s just one of many bonehead moves by the league. And as you pointed out, it looks like this is something we need to get used to. However, it\'s only the 2nd year this has happened, so it\'s not something everyone was prepared for.

[repenttokyo]

narduch wrote:

How long have you been running a keeper league?

Shit happens and things change. So you have to make a new set up now. That\'s the way it goes in sports.

Personally, my favourite date for the draft is the Saturday before the regular season starts. But one of our league mates was away at law school so the past few years we\'ve had the draft in early September. Its called compromise. Its not the end of the world.

So maybe you need to slightly alter the rules a little. You may as well because it appears the NHL will start the season outside North America every year now. This is probably going to be the new normal.

Why can\'t you just alter the dates? You still have nearly 2 months to lay everything out....

obviously we will have to alter the dates. what is up with the hostility dude? relax.