Want to see Sidney Crosby at the Joe? Hurry up and wait, cause it's gonna be a while

McPaper hockey guru Kevin Allen covers one of the big issues I bitched and moaned about in my NHL post. Scheduling, and the strange logic behind it. Western Confrence teams hate the new scheduling set up, while the their Eastern Confrence bretheren basically say, "What? Me worry?"

Kevin was reading my mind when he wrote this...

Certainly, the Eastern Conference has plenty of reasons to like the new format. In the Atlantic Division, for example, the teams now have 32 games that involve commutes more than travel.

And this...

But some of the Western Conference teams are squawking about the new system, saying their fans don't want to see the same teams over and over.

As a fan, I found this next paragraph most disturbing...

The biggest complaint is that teams in the Western Conference might have to wait three years to get Crosby or Ilya Kovalchuk or Jaromir Jagr, and the Eastern Conference teams might have to wait that long to see Mike Modano or Joe Thornton or Pavel Datsyuk.

3 years? Christ, the NHL might not be around in 3 years! The NHL best rethink some of the changes they have made. The hardcore fanbase that has been screwed several times over deserves better.