some good suggestions here, some bad ones too.
i like the idea of combining both socal franchises into one, i was in Anaheim in '07 around this time and they don't give a shit about hockey at all. not only that, but most southern franchises are terrible places to host hockey to begin with (Washington being the only glaring exception).
i'm with Proggyman, Sharks over Blues for sure. St. Louis (like Detroit) is a dying town but (unlike Detroit) happens to sit on a horrendous hockey franchise and terrible fans to boot.
i'd also like to propose that the NHL revamp its policy towards calling penalties. there's been too many chippy calls and borderline "penalties" called, even in the playoffs, to such an extent that referees feel pressured to make even-up calls. it's stupid, they miss as many as they call wrongly and it's absolutely absurd to let a bad call ruin a game. let coaches get the option to contest a penalty once a game (using the timeout as collateral, much like the NFL), and send it to Toronto.
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