Originally Posted by jibber

It was mainly an exaggeration to prove my point. It is true that a lot of Ontario natives root for buffalo as opposed to other teams (like the leafs) because of the proximity. All I was saying is that Canadians generally are more interested in hockey than Americans, so I chose buffalo, a city that actually does have fans (rare in american hockey) and stated that half are actually from ontario. It was only an exaggeration for effect.

Having cleared that up I hope, another reason I think cutting out that many teams would be an awful idea is that the divisions now make a whole lot more sense than simply Canada and American divisions. The two conferences and six divisions that exist now group teams by geographic location, which makes a lot more sense than grouping them by country.

Finally, if it was canadian and american conferences, it would again focus more on canada vs. the states, which is not what NHL hockey is about.