NHL Should Shed Their Stuffed Suits And Create An Original Six Division

The idea for the NHL isn't sexy, nor will it produce more offense, or create something cute and minor league like a shootout. It won't place a franchise in a poorly-chosen U.S. city, and it won't place the league in dire financial straits. So, naturally, it won't happen.

But if the NHL is looking for some sort of additional shot in the arm to keep from alienating its already fragile fan base, it might want to try this:

Place all six original teams in one division.

No more force-fed rivalries like Detroit-Columbus or Detroit-Nashville. Even Detroit-Colorado is losing its oomph because it's becoming so one-sided.

The Red Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks get the short shrift, because the other four Original Six are in the Eastern Conference and get to beat up on each other. So this proposal is mainly for Detroit and Chicago.

But it's a league thing, too.

Today's newer fans would be better served to be brought into the fold of the league's history, and the casual fan who doesn't care about that stuff as much will still have his Atlanta-Carolina game to watch -- and better him than me.

Of course, with today's sterile, geographical divisional names like Atlantic, Northeast, Southeast, etc., I don't know what you'd call such a division. Maybe the Erie. Or Mid-Eastern. Or Semi-Midwestern. Or, simply call it "The Original."

"The Red Wings have another Original Division battle tonight, as the Toronto Maple Leafs invade Joe Louis Arena for the third time this season..."

Doesn't that have a nice ring to it?

Home-and-home games with the Rangers. A few Saturday nights in Montreal. A Sunday matinee at home against the Bruins. A Tuesday night in Chicago, followed by the Leafs here on Thursday. And a return match in Toronto on Saturday.

I'm getting so excited, I can hardly type straight.

But I needn't get my hopes up. The NHL, I'm sure, would look at that idea as one of exclusion, not inclusion. They'd say that to make such a move would alienate more fans than it would enrapture.

Tell me -- what has the league done in the Gary Bettman era to secure fans? Shut a team down in Winnipeg and relocate it to the desert of Phoenix? Place a team in Atlanta? TWO teams in Florida? Let a team in Quebec evaporate? Allow labor strife to tear the game apart? Lose a big-time TV contract?

Ahh, but we have shootouts and a trapezoid behind the goal and no center line. Yippee.

Red Wings fans are splayed all over this country. Give them an Original Division, and they'd be able to get more of their friends and family into the game, because surely they'd never shut up about how great hockey was in those days, and how awesome it is to have all of the Original Six teams in one fantastic division.

Weren't all those games against the Blue Jackets this season simply heart-stopping? As in, you got bored to death.