What's with the travel?!

OK, this is my rant for the day, and it's basically for any team that's had to deal with this mess of a traveling schedule that's set up (aka, most teams in the Western Conference. The Eastern Conference? Puh-leese!)

Anyway, the Stars left Vancouver at 10 a.m. Monday morning after they were snowed in on Sunday night. So they head to Montana, where they have to go through customs, refuel the plane, deicing, etc. Then it's headed home, where they arrive in Dallas at approximately 6 p.m. Now considering they don't have lengthy travel days all the time, I'm only slightly sympathetic to that part.

Here's the part that's ridiculous: The Stars are just getting off that Edmonton-Vancouver trip, which had back-to-back games (dumb). They got back here last night. They practiced today, will practice tomorrow and then they're off to Detroit and Phoenix.

Detroit and Phoenix on the same trip. Two days (roughly) after traipsing through Western Canada, which is always a good 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours on the plane. In time zone talk, the Stars went from Mountain (Edmonton) to Pacific (Vancouver), back to Central here for two days, and are now going into Eastern (Detroit) then back to Mountain (Phoenix sans daylight savings time) before coming back to Central on Sunday. Wow. That doesn't mess with the body clock at all.

Seriously, who the heck plans this stuff? And that's why I say I don't want anyone backing an Eastern Conference team to say a word. Those teams have NO idea. They usually take one five-game trip out of the Eastern Time Zone, and that's it for the rest of the season.

I'll make one more empassioned plea to the NHL: Home and home for everyone from now on, please. Yes, the Eastern Conference will still won't suffer much but at least the playing field will be evened a bit.

OK, I'm done. And I feel better. The schedule won't change, but it was worth a shot.

Comments

[Dwain]

Good Wednesday article on chemistry. I think a lot of people that just watch hockey every now and then don't realize the importance of chemistry.