Changes to the regular season schedule?

From: Harry

Comments: With the re-alignment of the ECHL Eastern and Western Conferences, will the Regular Season Schedule(s) change? As it is now, the Western Conference’s Midwest Division has 4 teams that do not really play other teams in its’ own Conference. To me that does not seem right or fair.

Reply: I hear ya, Harry. But you know what really isn’t fair? A team with 20 wins and the worst win percentage in the league getting into the playoffs solely because the West doesn’t have enough teams to balance the post-season as its own conference. But that’s what happened this season out west.

It’s not an ideal situation to have Colorado playing all of us out here and shifting to another division for the playoffs, but all things considered it’s a pretty solid move that will bring competition to the playoff race out West like we haven’t seen in several years. As for the Midwest Division playing out here, it’s just not practical to redo the ENTIRE schedule to accommodate those changes. It’s just too complicated a procedure to throw the whole thing out. But the first two rounds of the playoffs will be played within our division, making it almost no different from what we have now as far as playing teams in the playoffs we don’t see in the regular season.

Perhaps next season we will see a change in the schedule that reflects the new divisional and conference alignment.

-The Mailbag Guy