The Red Light District

JACKSONVILLE, FL—Years ago, when I lived in Virginia, a good friend of mine named Fred and I played Strat-O-Matic Hockey. We played it for four years before Fred’s untimely death. The first year, we tried to play and entire NHL schedule with all the teams but that turned out to be impossible. The last three years, we used twelve teams and used an unbalanced schedule. Four games against the other teams in your division and a home-and-home against the six teams in the other division. Made for a 32 game schedule which worked out for both of us. We didn’t have to worry about building availability or holidays or stuff like that. We could have a team playing one game in New York, their next game in LA and then a game in Quebec with no problem. Even that turned out to be an occasional problem. One time I made a mistake and had two teams not playing each other the entire season and doubled up against other opponents. In other words, a schedule is easy to mess up. So, in the real world, it is a lot tougher. You have to deal with building availability, travel (don’t have a team playing back-to-back games on consecutive nights in Trenton and Biloxi) and special requests. So, I’m among the first to give kudos to those responsible in each league to creating a schedule. Having said that, there needs to be some sort of uniform rules for

schedules. The first is very simple……do not realize a schedule until everything is definitely set. I know the ECHL probably thought everything was set when they released their 2008-09 schedule, before the 2008 season ended. Of course, all the best laid plans of mice and men mean nothing if a team closes up shop after that point, like Pensacola did this year. Of course, it is not the first time it has happened to the ECHL. In 1999, the ECHL released their schedule and then had to make massive changes to it, not because they lost a team but because they added two teams (Jackson and Greensboro). I’m sure there have been other instances of a schedule being released before the roster was set, none come right to me. Simple answer…..release no schedule before it’s time. OK, then pick a date. Let’s just say…..oh…..July 1^st. All leagues should, repeat…should, have their members set by then. Then, and only then, release the schedule. One last thing about schedules. No individual team in a league should release their schedule until the league office releases their schedule. Look at what happened this off-season in the SPHL. Some teams, like Columbus and Richmond, released their schedules weeks ago. Knoxville released their schedule this past week, the first full week of August. In fact, you could have put together a Knoxville schedule just going and getting the schedules of the other teams and connecting the dots. I’m sure there was a very valid reason for Knoxville releasing their schedule later than anyone else. I just think it looks a little haphazard when the schedules are released so inconsistently. More coming later…. Contact the author at Kenneth.Holdren@yahoo.com