ORLANDO, Fla. – The bright lights of Las Vegas have become an inviting home for hockey’s off-season of league meetings and awards shows. This year, Vegas drew the Southern Professional Hockey League to hold its annual Board of Governors meeting ahead of year seven for the single-A level circuit.
When the two days of discussions ended, fans had plenty to talk about based on changes made and not made for the upcoming season. Most of the banter centered around the playoff format and a new regular season points format.
Arguably the biggest item on the table for the SPHL was how the 2011 playoffs would be conducted. Last year, the league reverted to a format that included six of the seven teams. The first place team was pitted against the sixth place team in a best-of-five series with the winner going straight to the best-of-five finals series. The other four teams paired off (two vs. five and three vs. four) in two best-of-three “quarterfinal” series with the winners meeting in a best-of-three “semifinal” to decide the other team in the finals.
Fans and some of the players and coaches were not enamored with the format, believing that it rewarded the sixth place team for not playing hard in the regular season in order to get a possibly easier route to the finals. SPHL President Jim Combs said that after some long deliberations, it was decided that the playoff system will stay the same for the coming campaign.
“We worked on it (playoff format) for three hours after the last couple of weeks going through all the different proposals,” Combs said. “The Board evaluated several different scenarios in trying to come up with a format that gave equal weight to competition and economics. Ultimately, the Board voted to retain the playoff format that was used last season and while not perfect, we feel it offers the best overall balance for the teams involved.”
With Augusta joining the league, upping the membership to eight teams, Combs said the league governors agreed that maintaining the relevance of the regular season was a must. The idea of “play-in” games (a format that was used in the first year of the SPHL’s existence) also wasn’t a fair way to do things either.
“We don’t like it but it works out the best number-wise. If you go with eight teams then everybody makes the playoffs and the regular season becomes irrelevant. If you do four, there’s not enough teams,” Combs said.
As for the idea of top seed playing the sixth seed for a spot in the finals, Combs said that the feeling amongst the board members was that it is a fair reward for playing in a longer series.
“If you look at it from the number one spot, they should be able to beat the worst (seeded) team to go to the finals,” he said. “If you look at it (the other way), the sixth team was irrelevant all year and they’re all of a sudden in the finals but they did have to beat the best team in the longest series.”
Competition level was also at the heart of the biggest change that was announced. With teams being guaranteed a point if a game went into overtime or a shootout, concerns were raised about teams playing third periods to get a point instead of going all out to win in regulation.
It was decided that for the 2010-2011 season, only the team that wins the game in OT or a shootout will get two points for the victory. The losing team will not get any points.
“We feel that eliminating the point for an overtime or shootout loss will increase the quality and intensity of play throughout the league,” Combs said. “In researching what effect the loss of the additional point would have had on past standings, we found that the point differential between teams actually decreased, making the overall standings much closer.”
The research that the league released was a comparison of last season’s standings as they came out against how they would have looked if the new points rule had been in effect. Top seeded Mississippi would have lost eight points (from 76 down to 68) but still would have won the regular season crown over second place Huntsville (71 down to 62). Had the no OT points rule been used, the Havoc would have ended up in a tie with Fayetteville, which would have lost only three points (65 to 62) from the actual final point totals.
The biggest change in the comparison was at the bottom. Columbus finished the season with an actual total of 51 points to claim the sixth and final playoff spot while Louisiana was on the outside looking in at 48 points. If the rule had been instituted last year, the IceGators would have finished with 46 points while the Cottonmouths would have ended with 44, meaning that Columbus would have missed the playoffs while Louisiana would have gone on to face Mississippi in the one vs. six series.
“In the past, teams that have been tied late in the game would change their style of play in order to finish the third period still tied, knowing they were getting a point by doing so,” Combs said. “Now that it’s either two points or none, the emphasis is back on playing to win instead of playing not to lose.”
A smaller but nevertheless noteworthy change will take place with playing rosters. In the past, teams were allowed to dress 16 skaters and two goalies for a total playing roster of 18. This season, the teams will be allowed to carry 18 players but dress only 17, meaning that the coaches will have one less forward or defenseman available since they usually dress two goalies.
Combs said that the research showed that using a 17-man roster could be just as beneficial as dressing 18 players.
“It will help motivate the players to get into the lineup and it would cut down on IR spots (being used) because you have a guy there (extra player) anyway,” he said. “We did some stats on a team that played with 17 players or less and they would have made the playoffs last year.”
This year, the marketing portion of the meetings was split off and held in Charlotte in May. The league brought in speakers from other pro sports to talk about how they do things in their venues. Combs also hinted at a future marketing collaboration that could be announced in the coming months.
“We had speakers from NASCAR, baseball and lacrosse come in give us their take on their sport and how they motivate and drive their fan base and keep their customers happy,” Combs said. “(The NASCAR people talked about) customer service, access, giving some priority to some of the bigger sponsors. I think you’re going to see in the next two months a relationship with people from NASCAR that’ll be very prominent.”
Combs added that equipment deals, including one involving players using one-piece sticks, will be announced in the coming weeks. It was also announced that the league’s trade deadline will be February 28, 2011 and the last date for teams to add players who had played outside North America at February 1, 2011.
In non-hockey related business, the Board elected Pensacola owner Tim Kerr as Chairman, Knoxville President / G.M. Mike Murray as Vice-Chairman, Huntsville owner Keith Jeffries as Treasurer and league V.P. of Hockey Operations Doug Price as Secretary.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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