My sports pet peeves, part 1

This will be an ongoing series here at The Wayne Fontes Experience. We all have pet peeves, especially sports fans. There are a million pet peeves in the big city, this is of them...


Why are the Detroit Red Wings in the Western Confrence?





Can someone explain this to me? OK, I realize why, but lets be realistic. Every time I go to the Joe (Once in a blue moon, like most fans) and get a couple of beers in me, I go off about confrence alignments. Being in the west really puts the Wings at a competitve disadvantage. As we all know, they are one of two eastern time zone teams in the west. Their travel is insane, especially when compared to teams on the eastern seaboard. Is there such a thing as a rough road trip for the Rangers, travel wise? Oh, they might catch some bad traffic on the way to play the Islanders, but come on... And what about that killer Philly to Pittsburgh commute?

We've all rolled out of bed bleary eyed after watching a Wings west coast playoff game that ended after 1:30 in the morning. God forbid if there's overtime. Sucks to be us. Then again, it sucks even more to be the Wings considering they have to fly back home immeadiately as the next scheduled game is within 48 hours. Games every other day, I'll admit, is great for us fans. (I'll spare you my rant regarding the asinine NBA playoff scheduling for another time) But I truly wonder how the players pull it off. I'll get pissy sitting in a car for 2 hours, and let's not even talk about flying. Yet the Wings have to criss cross the damn country countless times during the regular season and playoffs. That's not cool.

Then we have the Original 6 issue. We rarely never get to see the Habs, Bruins, Rangers, and Leafs. Over the years, for the most part, they have been consistently good teams with rabid fan bases. But what does this rabid fan base get? The Wings get stuck playing one of the most ineptly run charter franchises in sports, the friggin' Blackhawks. They don't care about the Blackhawks in Chicago, so why should we? Yet the powers that be in the NHL feel the need to force rivalries, even when none currently exist. A rivalry requires the other team to win occasionally. The Wings are a hammer, the Blackhawks a nail. That's not a rivalry, just a team that you play too damn much. So the Wings are stuck playing the awful Blackhawks 8 times a season.

The NHL is such a wonderfully run minor league.

Postscript: After rereading this, I think should change the the original focus of this piece. It's not just the Red Wings' western alignment that give me pause, I have a pet peeve with the entire entity that's known as the NHL...