I’ve been sporadically working on a spreadsheet with the cumulative travel mileage for all teams. I thought I was going to have to hunt down my login/password so I could post about it on the forums, but this seems like the perfect opportunity. I haven’t touched it in a week or so, I’ll bring it up to date this morning and post the results here a bit later.

Posted by shep from california on 12/17/07 at 09:46 AM ET

They’re athletes...making millions a year to fly around North America and play hockey...they can deal with it.

Posted by Steve from New Jersey on 12/17/07 at 10:21 AM ET

There’s only one solution:

Contract the Canucks.

OK, or move them to Brooklyn. Either or.

Posted by Greg Wyshynski from D.C. on 12/17/07 at 10:27 AM ET

Looking forward to your report shep!

Let’s see, Steve and Greg, two East coast guys, hmmmm....

Posted by Paul from Motown Area on 12/17/07 at 11:32 AM ET

Yeah, Id like to see the Devils deal with that.... my guess is they couldnt handle such a travel schedule, the pussies.

Posted by PuckHound61 from Speckville USA on 12/17/07 at 12:23 PM ET

Great ideas, Greg!

And let’s remind the Canucks that although the Devils travel fewer miles, they in fact, make more trips.  I don’t know about you, but the hassle in traveling isn’t the time I spend on the plane—it’s the time spent packing, unpacking, getting myself to and from the airport, the security check and the waiting to take off.

Posted by Pookie from New Jersey on 12/17/07 at 12:29 PM ET

I don’t feel sorry for any east teams for their travelling woes.  EVERY TEAM has to pack/unpack, get to/from the airport, etc.  Put down the feel sorry for me stick.  The Detroit Redwings travel so much that they have their own jet.  And not a cheezy one either… take a look.

Posted by cementslinger from Midland MI on 12/17/07 at 02:55 PM ET

Pussies? Try going on a 9 game road trip to start the season pal...Guess they can handle a schedule like that. Idiot…

Posted by William from Southbury, CT on 12/17/07 at 03:03 PM ET

Estimated cumulative travel thru last night’s games.
The numbers are necessarily imprecise, for a few reasons. The distances between cities (using the distance calculator at http://www.indo.com/distance/index.html) presumably use city centers, rather than the locations of arenas and/or airports--although for the LA and NY teams, I did use driving distances between the arenas. I don’t take into account situations where a team may have travelled back home between consecutive road games. Lastly, if a team made any side excursions (for example, I believe the Sharks went to Banff during a Western Canada trip) these are not included in the totals.

1.  Anaheim 26152
2.  Los Angeles 24966
3.  Edmonton 21926
4.  Vancouver 20626
5.  San Jose 19938
6.  Colorado 19922
7.  Columbus 16985
8.  Phoenix 16915
9.  Florida 16910
10. Calgary 16576
11. Atlanta 16303
12. Dallas 15610
13. Tampa Bay 15486
14. Philadelphia 14573
15. Minnesota 14542
16. Boston 13574
17. Nashville 13573
18. Detroit 13570
19. St Louis 13106
20. Pittsburgh 12294
21. Buffalo 12176
22. Chicago 11818
23. Toronto 11252
24. Washington 10990
25. Carolina 10855
26. Ottawa 10377
27. NY Rangers 9426
28. New Jersey 9214
29. Montreal 8071
30. NY Islanders 5667

No real stunner about Anaheim and L.A. topping the list. If we pretend their season opening home-and-home was in California rather than the UK, the Ducks would drop down to sixth and the Kings clear to fifteenth.

I confess that I’m surprised at the ranking of some of the Southeast teams (Panthers, Thrashers, Lightning), particularly when you factor in that their division won’t travel any farther west than St. Louis this season.

But really, I don’t know if you can draw any strong conclusions from this just yet. The season is barely a third over with, vagaries in the schedule make this simply a snapshot of the travel so far, rather than some general trend. This might be more interesting towards the end of the season, if I can be bothered to keep tracking it.

Posted by shep from california on 12/17/07 at 03:17 PM ET

All I’m saying is that there’s no way to even the odds here. What would make the Vancouver Province happy? If the NHL scheduled more Newark-San Jose-Boston-Vancouver four-game sets for the Devils? Maybe they can break things up for Phoenix, too, as the Coyotes have been on the East Coast for the last five months (or so it seems).

I got it: Make the Devils circle the airport for an extra hour or two before they land. That’ll give them that extra fatigue and finally level the playing field so that a West Coast team can finally win the Stanley ... wait, what happened?

Posted by Greg Wyshynski from D.C. on 12/17/07 at 03:42 PM ET

And let’s remind the Canucks that although the Devils travel fewer miles, they in fact, make more trips. 

I think this depends on your definition of ‘trip’. Your implication seems to be that Eastern teams make more road trips of fewer games, whereas the Western teams tend to make fewer trips of more games? Discounting for a moment whether or not this is the case (and for the Devils and Nucks it most certainly is not at this point in the season), it is still true that each and every one of those road games requires some degree of packing/unpacking, and definitely a trip to an airport--which according to you is the “hassle of travelling” in the first place. You can’t have it both ways here.

Do you think the Devils pack a bag for their “road” games to MSG and the Island?

Any of you Jersey guys know, do the Devils take a bus to Philly as well?

Posted by shep from california on 12/17/07 at 03:48 PM ET

Devils fans will tell you the team jumps on Brodeur’s back and he takes them wherever he wants to!

Posted by Paul from Motown Area on 12/17/07 at 03:50 PM ET

“Devils fans will tell you the team jumps on Brodeur’s back and he takes them wherever he wants to!”

Damn, I nearly choked on my chicken!  Wait.  I mean...I was eating chicken as I was...and then the joke was...nevermind.

Posted by Shane on 12/17/07 at 04:21 PM ET

Maybe there should be a re-alignment? Maybe instead of Eastern Conference and Western Conference, it could be North and South? That way all the teams would have to travel coast to coast.

/just an idea
//not a fan of changing the NHL

Posted by Aaron from Phoenix on 12/17/07 at 05:36 PM ET

“Devils fans will tell you the team jumps on Brodeur’s back and he takes them wherever he wants to!”

You know, in the past, this was very accurate. But Marty’s really gotten into shape this year...I’m pretty sure we could still fit Brylin, Parise and Gionta on his back, but we’d have to charter a bus for the rest of the boys.

Posted by Greg Wyshynski from D.C. on 12/17/07 at 05:37 PM ET

I think this depends on your definition of ‘trip’.

I got my information from this site:

<a >HOCKEY NUMBERS</a>

To me that pretty clearly states that while the Canucks most certainly spend more time in the air, they don’t take more trips than anyone (in fact, they take fewer). 

Listen, Greg’s right—there’s no real solution to this problem, and as Anaheim proved, you can play on the West Coast and still win.  So I guess there’s not really a problem here either.

Posted by Pookie from New Jersey on 12/17/07 at 09:11 PM ET

Oh, those stupid HTML tags!  Of course, I have a great excuse for why I didn’t post the best comment I possibly could—I’m just so exhausted from my hour-long one-way commute to work everyday.  If only someone could make Jersey smaller!

Here’s the link I meant to leave:

HOCKEY NUBMERS

Posted by Pookie from New Jersey on 12/17/07 at 09:40 PM ET

The Detroit Redwings travel so much that they have their own jet.

I think that has more to do with how much money they make than how much they travel.  The Rangers have a jet too (which they share with the Knicks, like the Red Wings share with the Tigers).

Posted by K24 from NYC on 12/17/07 at 10:01 PM ET

With as much as most teams travel, it probably is more economical for many to just buy a private plane instead of dealing with the hassle of arranging for a charter each time.

I’m actually surprised more teams don’t buy their own planes.  It’s not as though they get out of paying more for fuel by arranging for charters instead, and there are probably advantages to not paying extra fees if the flight is delayed by weather if the plane is owned by the team rather than being contracted.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 12/18/07 at 04:48 AM ET

Pookie,

I think the Hockey Numbers guy is oversimplifying things. He’s defining ‘trip’ as a day during which plane travel takes place, but he’s actually counting travel segments. Most of the time this is fine, but it breaks down a bit when teams are very close together. A bus ride doesn’t fall under the Hockey Numbers guy’s definition of ‘trip’, but he’s counting it as one anyway (that’s the only way to come up with 60 trips, you can verify this yourself looking at NJ’s schedule).

According to Hockey Numbers, the upcoming Devils sequence:

BUF(home)--NYI(away)--FLA(home)

includes two(!) trips. Hogwash.

If you don’t count the Rags/Isles as trips for the Devils, they actually make 47 trips. If you choose to also omit Philly (dunno if they take the bus, it’s about 75 miles), the number drops to 42. Just so fair’s fair, Vancouver makes two ‘trips’ between Anaheim and L.A., tossing those out yields 56 trips. Sorry, saying the Devils make more trips is complete bunk.

Posted by shep from california on 12/18/07 at 04:20 PM ET

Pussies? Try going on a 9 game road trip to start the season pal...Guess they can handle a schedule like that. Idiot

Wow, 9 games away from home.... want some cheese with that whine?

There is no real solution, the Canucks, Ducks, Kings and Sharks will always travel more than the other teams, and there is no solution.
The Devils, Islanders, Rangers and a few other very close in proximity teams always have a schedule that favours them because of the distance they travel versus the Western teams, and the only people who are idiots are the ones who fail to recognize that clear as daylight fact.

Posted by PuckHound61 from Speckville USA on 12/18/07 at 05:49 PM ET

Puckhound is absolutely right.  A good example of how close the teams in the East are is that Rangers fans used to refer to the Meadowlands as MSG West, Nassau Coliseum as MSG East and the Capitals’ arena as MSG South, because it was so easy for large groups of Rangers fans to travel to these places for games.  (Notice that Philly is not included even though it’s closer than Washington.  Guess why.)

Posted by K24 from NYC on 12/18/07 at 11:31 PM ET