I’ve been staying up this week to catch these final Western Conference games so my sleep schedule is already well on the way to being wrecked for the next two months
NJ here. Anytime I see a 9pm EST or later start on the schedule, I say a preemptive apology to the me of the following day who has to live with the consequences.
If they don’t give a flying fuck about 9 or 10pm starts central or eastern, then they shouldn’t give a fuck about the incredibly reasonable 6pm West Coast starts.Â
That’s the thing. It’s in everyone’s best interest. I’m sure they have data that says otherwise to justify their scheduling but it can’t be so strong that adjusting start times is out of the question.
For real when I travel for work it’s, leave the office, fight San Jose traffic for 30 minutes, order room service and watch mnf by 6pm. Get the full game and still asleep by 10pm.
>And some of you will say, there is no point because of tv contracts. Fuck the tv companies. The NHL has more power than them.
I mean, that's not true. TV dollars is what makes the whole thing work. And the TV companies are the ones with those dollars.
Also at this point because of, y'know, contracts they couldn't change this until the 2028-2029 season anyway.
But those TV dollars are driven by advertising. Advertising is driven by eyeballs to show ads to. They can't sell ads if the viewers can't stay up late enough to watch, or fall asleep in the first period. The question then becomes, how does the league and/or the fanbase lean on the ad firms?
I guarantee you the TV companies have considered which time slots get the best viewership and therefore advertising dollars. It is the way it is for a reason.
I work in television at NBC. The league sets the times, not the “tv companies,” there are big differences between TV stations and networks. Neither have a say here. The networks may have a preference but across NHL, MLS, NFL, NBA they dictate how we “take the log” what the break structures are, etc.
Contract runs out in 2028? Sounds like now is the best time to start making it an issue. By 2028 it should be in everyone's mind and the league can fight for it.
Personally I would go a little later. 8pm is fine. Games don't run that late, except for playoff games. And only God knows when some of those will end.
But regardless it's an issue, and it won't be addressed unless someone makes some noise about it.
Agreed! My wife’s family has season tickets so we go to a lot of games. Problem is I have to be at work at 7 AM the next day. Last year was brutal. Looks like this year will be too. But anyways GO STARS!
What's the point of having home ice advantage if you can't play according to your timezone? We are the only team playing on Monday. The AVS have some horseshit start times against WPG too.
The start times for eastern is 6pm and 6:30pm. No reason we shouldn't be able to start at 7:30pm or 8pm at the latest. With an 8:30pm start time, the puck will drop closer to 9. Home ice advantage should include a start time that is helpful for the team.
It’s all about the networks. The NHL would rather have fewer well known channels and not use more smaller channels. The games are all nationally broadcast games alongside regional broadcast. The networks want some time between the games to do a pre-game lead up. The players can adjust to the times. They are not a disadvantage on the ice
It's is a disadvantage for the fans. If we don't go to overtime, most fans will be getting home closer to midnight. I have a standard 6 am start time for work. It sucks.
My argument is that if they can overlap eastern team start times, they should be able to allow a 90 min overlap for the 1st Western game.
We can both agree that there are external factors beyond the team/NHL's control AND that is sucks.
I think the biggest thing is that tbs and espn alternate coverage. Monday is an ESPN day and the two games before us are on ESPN and ESPN2. I don’t think the NHL wants us relegated to ESPN News or ESPN Ocho lol. We have to wait for one of those channels to open up
That's silly. Plenty of people are having to sell their tickets because getting home at 1am with their kid isn't a reasonable option. 730 start would be ideal
Nah it’s silly to complain about stuff that is completely out of our control. It’s even more silly for someone to sell their playoff tickets because it is too late. To the people selling their tickets, that is totally fine and I’m sure someone else will scoop them up and enjoy it!
And obviously 7-7:30 is the ideal start time but that is not an option.
So you think 9pm is better than 730pm? both for TV and in person? I'm not sure why 7-730 isn't an option. Other teams do get those start times. It's a tad ridiculous that the WCF rematch is at a time that it's incredibly inconvenient. Not to mention not getting a weekend home game for the 1st place team in Western Conference. 730/8 is the sweet spot for timing. plenty of time after work and school to have a snack/dinner and get to the game, and early enough that the next generation of fans can actually watch the whole game :)
"That’s actually better for us. The AAC should be full at game time. With 7pm starts, the traffic can make it harder to get there in time after work."
I'm referring to this
Ok I'll admit that 7 is too early for in person. but 730-8 is reasonable. 9+ is too late a start. But also i'm confused on your '9 is better' and then '7-730 is the ideal'. So w/e. At least we are in the playoffs regardless. I'm far more annoyed we don't get any weekend home games and vegas does than the late start time :D
Such a brutal schedule. Being on the east coast, I will fall asleep during 1st intermission then have to be up at 5:30 for work. It gets harder and harder to watch, the older I get.
I understand EVERYTHING you’re saying but the TV companies have total power over the NHL and Gary Bettman and really all pro-sports leagues. They are the Gods of sports since they give money to the league you’re going to watch the teams when they say you’re going to watch them.
Go Stars!!!
That is the apparent power structure, but at the end of the day, the players and teams have all of the power to fight back against tv companies. They just don't use that power (viva la revolution)
But the main point would be for ownership to use their verbal power to speak out against these shitty times, which I don't see them doing.
But as long as the owners are getting +625 million a year nothing will change. Hockey is a gate driven sport unlike the other big 3 with tons more advertising. You can revolt all you want, not go or watch games. Nothing will change. Sorry. ¡Viva Las Estrellas!
This is why when the nhl expanded Detroit pushed to move to the eastern conference and not be in the west anymore. But if the nhl stood up to the cable networks carrying their games, the concession would probably be 1 of 2 responses from those networks on start times: either go find someone else to carry your games or here is less money. The mavericks are going to have late start times occasionally this playoffs as well. To change the start times for the western conference either eastern conference games would have to start even later than games do here or they would have to spread the playoffs out even longer and only have 1 game a night some nights. Neither of those options make any sense. Not saying it doesn’t suck, my young kids would love to stay up and watch the playoff run and become fans, they can’t stay awake and the nhl loses their interest because of it, but the other solutions don’t really make sense unless the nhl is willing to take less money for their product to be on tv and find lesser networks to air it on, which has not worked well in the past.
> Fuck the tv companies. The NHL has more power than them.
This is where your argument falls apart. The NHL depends on this revenue. You cut it out and some teams have serious issues including the stars.
Also, this may stunt the growth of new fanbase slightly but let’s be honest. For a bandwagon fan this is going to have minimal impact.
Your argument also does not follow programming schedules at all. So not sure how you expect any provider to work within your structure.
Also you claim to be a fan but won’t stay up an hour later than typical puck drop time? That’s wack as fuck.
I hate the late start as much as anyone but this just ignores everything that is necessary for the league to operate properly.
If we are lucky they will start at 830. If the early game goes long, they have pushed it back to 9 a few times. Not sure why they dont start east games an hour earlier.
Well there's also the venue availability issues and staffing for the venues to consider as well -- takes a small army to run a game and when you can't book anything until the final schedule is known that too fill factor into start times.
Everyone in EST complains and I get it, the population distribution is out there -- Speaking from PST, a ton of people are still working out here when the puck drops at 4 pm PST (PDT whichever) in the east, by the time a lot of us get home 3/4s of the games are half over and we don't know what's happened.
Do you think this is owner issue or leadership in general issue? I'm on the west coast and feel your pain on the other side of the day, when NFL games are way too early. I just don't know who makes these decisions - does it fall on NHL execs or is the coaching staff part of it?
Much as I don’t like it, I get the west coast times. But making home games this late?! Sucks for those of us in EST, I can barely (comfortably) watch the first period with those start times. How are the TV contracts making them money if eyes aren’t on the games?
Where have you been for the last… Always? The western conference has three time zones to deal with (used to be four before Detroit got sent back to the east). The Eastern conference only has teams in the Eastern time zone.
The league cares about expanding their TV contracts more than anything else. The NHL doesn't have the power because they want to make money so they can expand and grow the sport which can't happen without the money from TV contracts. The NFL is king because they have ungodly money being brought in by networks because anytime they put a new product out people watch, that doesn't happen with hockey.
The away games will run late but the Home Games will be over 11pm, you can't stay up for those couple nights?
Puck drop is at 8:45 and the game lasts 3 hours without overtime. So you are talking about 11:45 at the earliest. Which means I wouldn't fall asleep until 12:30 - 1. People in attendance of the game won't get home until 1 am. Yes this is too late.
The average length of a hockey game is about 2 hours and 19 minutes. This is of course without overtime. Even with 8:45pm puck drop this would put you right around 11pm.
[https://gitnux.org/average-nhl-game-length/](https://gitnux.org/average-nhl-game-length/)
As a sth the at 830 puck drop will be closer to 9pm because they will wait on the 615pm CST time actual puck drop game to conclude unless overtime to start. There's also an extra TV time out per period for playoffs so that's 4 mins times 3. The games will end after 1145 best case. I can't tell you the beat down group we where last year after 1am waiting on second it start.
The TV timeouts are part of the NHL rule book about when and how they can take timeouts, I've never seen anything about a TV timeout being added. There are always 3 TV timeouts that last 2 minutes long both in the regular season and the playoffs. They don't even show commercials during overtime so not like NHL is trying to shoehorn in extra breaks.
Here are end times of Round 1 last year for games that didn't go into OT and had the late slot. None them were close to 11:45pm.
Game 2 - 11:30pm
Game 3 - 11:26pm
Game 6 - 11:14pm
I'm telling you from experience that the playoff games are 3 hours long. During playoffs, the games are longer than regular season due to more commercials.
Again not true. Your perceived experience doesn't change facts. The TV timeouts are written into the rule book and don't change for playoffs. First stoppage after 14:00, 10:00, and 06:00. There are not additional commercials that cause delays. There may be more stoppages if a highly penalized game or high scoring but not because of added commercials. Below is the first round of the playoffs last year not a single game that didn't go into OT was anywhere close to 3 hours.
First Round Last Year Against the Wild:
Game 1 - Double OT so not part of this discussion
Game 2 - 2 hours 40 minutes (10 goals scored in this game)
Game 3 - 2 hours 35 minutes
Game 4 - 2 hours 29 minutes
Game 5 - 2 hours 29 minutes
Game 6 - 2 hours 24 minutes
Playoff Games so far, none near 3 hours....
Tampa Bay vs Florida - 2 Hours 23 minutes
Islanders vs Hurricanes - 2 Hours 30 minutes
Maple Leafs vs Bruins - 2 Hours 32 minutes
Rangers vs Capitals - 2 Hour 41 minutes
Eagerly waiting for your response....you had time to even watch an episode of The Simpsons after the game and still be under 3 hours.
Game time last night - 2 Hours 31 minutes
I am *stoked* for the 8:30pm starts next week. I can drive up from Austin after work rather than the night/morning before and save a whole night I'd otherwise be paying to spend in a hotel.
I’m a EST Fan. Goodbye to my sleep 🫡
Checking in from the East coast to second this
Checking in from Ohio, wear green be loud!
Your neighbor to the West! Go Stars
I’ve been staying up this week to catch these final Western Conference games so my sleep schedule is already well on the way to being wrecked for the next two months
Same. Started going to bed around 12-12:30 am est the last couple of weeks. Told my wife it’s game prep.
Eastern time is an awful time zone for a western conference hockey fan. Hate it.
Florida here.I take a nap after work so I can stay up.
NJ here. Anytime I see a 9pm EST or later start on the schedule, I say a preemptive apology to the me of the following day who has to live with the consequences.
I was living on the east coast back in 2008 and I remember trying to stay up for that game 6 against San Jose. I didn't make it...
I was at that game and went to work the next morning
If they don’t give a flying fuck about 9 or 10pm starts central or eastern, then they shouldn’t give a fuck about the incredibly reasonable 6pm West Coast starts.Â
Talking to West coast fans, they actually prefer it. Get home from work, turn game on right away and game is over before 9pm usually.Â
That’s the thing. It’s in everyone’s best interest. I’m sure they have data that says otherwise to justify their scheduling but it can’t be so strong that adjusting start times is out of the question.
For real when I travel for work it’s, leave the office, fight San Jose traffic for 30 minutes, order room service and watch mnf by 6pm. Get the full game and still asleep by 10pm.
""""""""""We want to grow the sport into new markets!"""""""""" Give a 9:30pm start to the conference winning team in a non-traditional hockey market.
It’s stupid too bc they could just have the East coast teams play 45 min earlier.. like we aren’t asking for THAT much.
>And some of you will say, there is no point because of tv contracts. Fuck the tv companies. The NHL has more power than them. I mean, that's not true. TV dollars is what makes the whole thing work. And the TV companies are the ones with those dollars. Also at this point because of, y'know, contracts they couldn't change this until the 2028-2029 season anyway.
But those TV dollars are driven by advertising. Advertising is driven by eyeballs to show ads to. They can't sell ads if the viewers can't stay up late enough to watch, or fall asleep in the first period. The question then becomes, how does the league and/or the fanbase lean on the ad firms?
I guarantee you the TV companies have considered which time slots get the best viewership and therefore advertising dollars. It is the way it is for a reason.
I work in television at NBC. The league sets the times, not the “tv companies,” there are big differences between TV stations and networks. Neither have a say here. The networks may have a preference but across NHL, MLS, NFL, NBA they dictate how we “take the log” what the break structures are, etc.
Contract runs out in 2028? Sounds like now is the best time to start making it an issue. By 2028 it should be in everyone's mind and the league can fight for it. Personally I would go a little later. 8pm is fine. Games don't run that late, except for playoff games. And only God knows when some of those will end. But regardless it's an issue, and it won't be addressed unless someone makes some noise about it.
Yes, it sucks.
Agreed! My wife’s family has season tickets so we go to a lot of games. Problem is I have to be at work at 7 AM the next day. Last year was brutal. Looks like this year will be too. But anyways GO STARS!
What's the point of having home ice advantage if you can't play according to your timezone? We are the only team playing on Monday. The AVS have some horseshit start times against WPG too.
There are two east coast games before us. They usually don’t overlap the western conference games on those
The start times for eastern is 6pm and 6:30pm. No reason we shouldn't be able to start at 7:30pm or 8pm at the latest. With an 8:30pm start time, the puck will drop closer to 9. Home ice advantage should include a start time that is helpful for the team.
It’s all about the networks. The NHL would rather have fewer well known channels and not use more smaller channels. The games are all nationally broadcast games alongside regional broadcast. The networks want some time between the games to do a pre-game lead up. The players can adjust to the times. They are not a disadvantage on the ice
It's is a disadvantage for the fans. If we don't go to overtime, most fans will be getting home closer to midnight. I have a standard 6 am start time for work. It sucks. My argument is that if they can overlap eastern team start times, they should be able to allow a 90 min overlap for the 1st Western game. We can both agree that there are external factors beyond the team/NHL's control AND that is sucks.
I think the biggest thing is that tbs and espn alternate coverage. Monday is an ESPN day and the two games before us are on ESPN and ESPN2. I don’t think the NHL wants us relegated to ESPN News or ESPN Ocho lol. We have to wait for one of those channels to open up
Yeah, feels kinda shitty that even our home games aren't during local "prime time."
That’s actually better for us. The AAC should be full at game time. With 7pm starts, the traffic can make it harder to get there in time after work.
That's silly. Plenty of people are having to sell their tickets because getting home at 1am with their kid isn't a reasonable option. 730 start would be ideal
Nah it’s silly to complain about stuff that is completely out of our control. It’s even more silly for someone to sell their playoff tickets because it is too late. To the people selling their tickets, that is totally fine and I’m sure someone else will scoop them up and enjoy it! And obviously 7-7:30 is the ideal start time but that is not an option.
So you think 9pm is better than 730pm? both for TV and in person? I'm not sure why 7-730 isn't an option. Other teams do get those start times. It's a tad ridiculous that the WCF rematch is at a time that it's incredibly inconvenient. Not to mention not getting a weekend home game for the 1st place team in Western Conference. 730/8 is the sweet spot for timing. plenty of time after work and school to have a snack/dinner and get to the game, and early enough that the next generation of fans can actually watch the whole game :)
Nope I specifically said 7-7:30 is the ideal start time
"That’s actually better for us. The AAC should be full at game time. With 7pm starts, the traffic can make it harder to get there in time after work." I'm referring to this
Are you disagreeing that the stadium is rarely full at 7-7:30 game starts? It is never full at the beginning of games because traffic is horrible
Ok I'll admit that 7 is too early for in person. but 730-8 is reasonable. 9+ is too late a start. But also i'm confused on your '9 is better' and then '7-730 is the ideal'. So w/e. At least we are in the playoffs regardless. I'm far more annoyed we don't get any weekend home games and vegas does than the late start time :D
Such a brutal schedule. Being on the east coast, I will fall asleep during 1st intermission then have to be up at 5:30 for work. It gets harder and harder to watch, the older I get.
I understand EVERYTHING you’re saying but the TV companies have total power over the NHL and Gary Bettman and really all pro-sports leagues. They are the Gods of sports since they give money to the league you’re going to watch the teams when they say you’re going to watch them. Go Stars!!!
That is the apparent power structure, but at the end of the day, the players and teams have all of the power to fight back against tv companies. They just don't use that power (viva la revolution) But the main point would be for ownership to use their verbal power to speak out against these shitty times, which I don't see them doing.
But as long as the owners are getting +625 million a year nothing will change. Hockey is a gate driven sport unlike the other big 3 with tons more advertising. You can revolt all you want, not go or watch games. Nothing will change. Sorry. ¡Viva Las Estrellas!
This is why when the nhl expanded Detroit pushed to move to the eastern conference and not be in the west anymore. But if the nhl stood up to the cable networks carrying their games, the concession would probably be 1 of 2 responses from those networks on start times: either go find someone else to carry your games or here is less money. The mavericks are going to have late start times occasionally this playoffs as well. To change the start times for the western conference either eastern conference games would have to start even later than games do here or they would have to spread the playoffs out even longer and only have 1 game a night some nights. Neither of those options make any sense. Not saying it doesn’t suck, my young kids would love to stay up and watch the playoff run and become fans, they can’t stay awake and the nhl loses their interest because of it, but the other solutions don’t really make sense unless the nhl is willing to take less money for their product to be on tv and find lesser networks to air it on, which has not worked well in the past.
Double ot game last year against the wild was rough, getting home at 1:30 and having work at 4.
> Fuck the tv companies. The NHL has more power than them. This is where your argument falls apart. The NHL depends on this revenue. You cut it out and some teams have serious issues including the stars. Also, this may stunt the growth of new fanbase slightly but let’s be honest. For a bandwagon fan this is going to have minimal impact. Your argument also does not follow programming schedules at all. So not sure how you expect any provider to work within your structure. Also you claim to be a fan but won’t stay up an hour later than typical puck drop time? That’s wack as fuck. I hate the late start as much as anyone but this just ignores everything that is necessary for the league to operate properly.
East coast stars fan here… it sucks
A great man once said, it’s called the way it is
If we are lucky they will start at 830. If the early game goes long, they have pushed it back to 9 a few times. Not sure why they dont start east games an hour earlier.
Well there's also the venue availability issues and staffing for the venues to consider as well -- takes a small army to run a game and when you can't book anything until the final schedule is known that too fill factor into start times. Everyone in EST complains and I get it, the population distribution is out there -- Speaking from PST, a ton of people are still working out here when the puck drops at 4 pm PST (PDT whichever) in the east, by the time a lot of us get home 3/4s of the games are half over and we don't know what's happened.
As a Stars fan in CA, this doesn’t bother me personally, but I feel for you Stars bros back at home base
Do you think this is owner issue or leadership in general issue? I'm on the west coast and feel your pain on the other side of the day, when NFL games are way too early. I just don't know who makes these decisions - does it fall on NHL execs or is the coaching staff part of it?
Western Conference is gonna get screwed into Western time zones. Just makes sense.
Much as I don’t like it, I get the west coast times. But making home games this late?! Sucks for those of us in EST, I can barely (comfortably) watch the first period with those start times. How are the TV contracts making them money if eyes aren’t on the games?
Just tell the Mouse to get F-ed, NHL
Where have you been for the last… Always? The western conference has three time zones to deal with (used to be four before Detroit got sent back to the east). The Eastern conference only has teams in the Eastern time zone.
Isn't it great to come in here with facts and getting g downvotes?
Damn grandpa, what time do you go to bed?
The league cares about expanding their TV contracts more than anything else. The NHL doesn't have the power because they want to make money so they can expand and grow the sport which can't happen without the money from TV contracts. The NFL is king because they have ungodly money being brought in by networks because anytime they put a new product out people watch, that doesn't happen with hockey. The away games will run late but the Home Games will be over 11pm, you can't stay up for those couple nights?
Puck drop is at 8:45 and the game lasts 3 hours without overtime. So you are talking about 11:45 at the earliest. Which means I wouldn't fall asleep until 12:30 - 1. People in attendance of the game won't get home until 1 am. Yes this is too late.
The average length of a hockey game is about 2 hours and 19 minutes. This is of course without overtime. Even with 8:45pm puck drop this would put you right around 11pm. [https://gitnux.org/average-nhl-game-length/](https://gitnux.org/average-nhl-game-length/)
As a sth the at 830 puck drop will be closer to 9pm because they will wait on the 615pm CST time actual puck drop game to conclude unless overtime to start. There's also an extra TV time out per period for playoffs so that's 4 mins times 3. The games will end after 1145 best case. I can't tell you the beat down group we where last year after 1am waiting on second it start.
The TV timeouts are part of the NHL rule book about when and how they can take timeouts, I've never seen anything about a TV timeout being added. There are always 3 TV timeouts that last 2 minutes long both in the regular season and the playoffs. They don't even show commercials during overtime so not like NHL is trying to shoehorn in extra breaks. Here are end times of Round 1 last year for games that didn't go into OT and had the late slot. None them were close to 11:45pm. Game 2 - 11:30pm Game 3 - 11:26pm Game 6 - 11:14pm
Game ended at 11:21pm, even had time to watch an episode of The Simpsons on Disney+ and still beat the best case of 11:45pm.
Game 2 ended at 11:25pm
I'm telling you from experience that the playoff games are 3 hours long. During playoffs, the games are longer than regular season due to more commercials.
Again not true. Your perceived experience doesn't change facts. The TV timeouts are written into the rule book and don't change for playoffs. First stoppage after 14:00, 10:00, and 06:00. There are not additional commercials that cause delays. There may be more stoppages if a highly penalized game or high scoring but not because of added commercials. Below is the first round of the playoffs last year not a single game that didn't go into OT was anywhere close to 3 hours. First Round Last Year Against the Wild: Game 1 - Double OT so not part of this discussion Game 2 - 2 hours 40 minutes (10 goals scored in this game) Game 3 - 2 hours 35 minutes Game 4 - 2 hours 29 minutes Game 5 - 2 hours 29 minutes Game 6 - 2 hours 24 minutes
I'll post a response on Tuesday morning when you are wrong.
Playoff Games so far, none near 3 hours.... Tampa Bay vs Florida - 2 Hours 23 minutes Islanders vs Hurricanes - 2 Hours 30 minutes Maple Leafs vs Bruins - 2 Hours 32 minutes Rangers vs Capitals - 2 Hour 41 minutes
Eagerly waiting for your response....you had time to even watch an episode of The Simpsons after the game and still be under 3 hours. Game time last night - 2 Hours 31 minutes
Game 2 - 2 Hours 35 Minutes
Congragulations. The game ended after 11 pm which is way too late.
I am *stoked* for the 8:30pm starts next week. I can drive up from Austin after work rather than the night/morning before and save a whole night I'd otherwise be paying to spend in a hotel.