A big bite to swallow

MONTEREY, California -- The personality trait that separates hockey players from football and basketball pros is their wish not to stand out from the team. Terrell Owens or Allen Iversen wouldn't have lasted a season as a hockey player, without either being shunned or brought back into the group.

Just look at the evolution of Sean Avery, He went from a brash, look-at-me guy to a player who now quietly just tries to fit in.

But what about the men who employ that typically selfless hockey player?

When it comes to the realignment discussions that are on tap this week at the Pebble Beach Resort where the National Hockey League's Board of Governors have gathered, the battle lines are clearly drawn. It is the needs of the many versus the wants of the few.

Will that group of old-school, Northeastern U.S. clubs whose travel budgets come in at 40 or 50 per cent of the Vancouver Canucks, vote to spend a little more money and travel a little bit more, so that a group of newbies like Dallas, Nashville and Columbus can grow the game in their markets?

Will the Devils, the Rangers, the Islanders, the Flyers, the Bruins, the Maple Leafs, the Canadiens, and the Sabres agree to spend more nights out of their own beds, so that the Red Wings, the Stars, the Blue Jackets and the California teams can have a few more nights in theirs?

Will those who have a competitive advantage because of lesser travel, choose to mitigate that edge for the greater good?

That is the essence of the debate over realignment: The cushy Eastern schedule will get a tad less cushy, so a Detroit - which has paid its dues, as an Eastern time zone team in the West - can get a fairer shake.

It's a vertical alignment they'll be talking about, with teams sharing the same time zone. So a Dallas, Detroit and Columbus don't have more than a quarter of its road games starting after 9 p.m. locally, as they do today.

It may make Conference opponents out of Montreal and Florida, or Edmonton/Calgary and all of the Pacific time zone teams. But if the theory is that better time zone management can healthy up teams like Columbus and Dallas, then perhaps what those Eastern teams spend on travel they will recoup in revenue sharing from the weak sisters.

To the fan, playing home-and-home with the other 29 clubs, with the rest of the games inside one of four Conferences, is quite appealing. But what will the owners be discussing here?

Well, the first thing you should know is that Gary Bettman doesn't put proposals on the table to see them laughed off of it, like so many of Brian Burke's whacky ideas. He is a consensus maker, which means Bettman has been working the governors hard on this four-Conference scheme, which was borne from his incessant habit of reconfiguring his league's alignment whenever he finds himself with some free time on a flight, which is often.

(He once told me that the best he'd ever come up with was a three-Conference system. But try to make a playoff system out of that.)

The second thing you need to know is, while on some teams a decision like this is made purely by ownership, on others the hockey department is consulted. And the minute the GM and coach get involved, the process becomes insular. It becomes, "What's best for us," not, "What's best for the league."

Really, most of this realignment comes easy.

You've got the Western Conference -- Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Colorado, San Jose, Anaheim, Los Angeles, and for now Phoenix. And in the Central you've got Winnipeg, Minnesota, Chicago, Dallas, St. Louis, Detroit, Columbus and Nashville.

It is the East where the Bettman will face his obstacles. He may have to break up a traditional rivalry like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, or Boston and Montreal, and in a system that will have the first two rounds of playoffs being played in-Conference, that could be tough.

The East has geographic groups that just can't be split. The New York-New Jerseys: Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Philadelphia -- teams that bus to games against each other.

You have the (near) Canadian rivals: Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, with Buffalo and Boston. And you have your Southeast teams: Florida, Tampa, Carolina.

But how do you fill out those two Conferences? Do you take the Flyers away from their New York pals, but leave them in a Conference with Pittsburgh? Do you separate Florida and Tampa, and toss them into Montreal's Conference.

Do you have to make sure the Canadiens are in a seven-team Conference, so there is room for Phoenix to become Quebec City?

How do you make up the extra handful of games, once Conference teams play each other five times, and everyone else in a home and home?

Then there are the playoffs…

It's a big bite for this group to swallow. Considering how slowly they tend to move, we'll be surprised if they finalize anything in two short days in Monterey.

Mark Spector is the senior columnist on sportsnet.ca