B R O A D W A Y***B L U E S H I R T S

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- Forgive us for being a bit cynical about the "new" NHL schedule the league's board of governors produced Thursday afternoon.


If it looked suspiciously like the old, pre-lockout schedule, that's because it's exactly the same.


It only took three years of force-feeding fans a steady diet of eight divisional games to realize that the very people they were determined to lure back after the lockout were being turned off by the repetitiveness of the schedule.


The selling point was that the games would create more passionate rivalries. Except no one in Tampa Bay wants to see the Atlanta Thrashers four times a season no matter how exciting Ilya Kovalchuk is. And while teams in the East loved the concept of avoiding expensive trips out West, the format denied Western fans a chance to see Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin.


Starting next season, every Western Conference team will get to see Mr. Crosby.

As if to reinforce that point, Crosby is about to make his first trip to Western Canada since coming into the league, and the anticipation is terrific. Too bad it took three years for it to happen. But at least it did happen after a 26-4 vote in favor of the new schedule that will go into effect next fall.


And so it is that divisional games will drop from eight to six; there will be four games against each of the other 10 conference teams and one game against the 15 teams in the opposing conference. That leaves three so-called "wild-card games," which will be divided up by preference or natural rivalries. To start with, for instance, the six Canadian teams will play home-and-homes against each other.


"And we did it notwithstanding that this is likely to be the third year in a row with record attendance and the fact that divisional games are better attended than any others we did want to be responsive to the fans," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Thursday.


Luc Robitaille, president of business operations for the Kings and the highest scoring left winger in NHL history, said the vote indicated the enthusiasm for seeing a broader cross-section of the league.


"For us, a team like L.A., it's important to see the other teams from the U.S.," Robitaille said. "We've had a lot of discussions that I've listened to, but today, [the vote] was nice and easy."


Curiously, this may not be the last we've heard of the scheduling issue as new union head Paul Kelly told reporters his players would agree to go from an 82-game schedule to 84 games if owners were willing to drop preseason games from the maximum of nine to five.


Going to 84 games would provide for home-and-homes against all non-conference teams, which would be ideal in terms of exposing the entire league to the game's best players.


Bettman seemed agreeable.


"I told Paul what adding two more games might do is give us one division out of conference that you play at home, one division that you play on the road and the third division you play home and away, and then you rotate them," Bettman said. "So, that might be a good way to integrate 84 games if everybody decided that's what they wanted to do.


"That's something I would have to discuss with the governors. Now that I know that the players know I am interested in that, that may be a refinement to what we did."


The league went to an 84-game slate for two seasons from 1992-1994, but went back to 82 in1995-96 after the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season.

and how about Chris Simon going in as the 3rd man in, but the NYR get the only penalty ( Orr for a late hit ? )
Simon ( aka the kamikaze chopper ) was able tyo openly land 3 or 4 punches, and it went absolutely undisciplined , nothing- at all .

what the hell was that all about ?

Im still groveling trying to get a pair or a single for this night, 1-24-08 I believe.


as an alternative option the Garden is now offering this :

http://rangers.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=NHLPage&id=19433