Thursday 5 October 2017

WHL Going to 68 Game Schedule

The Western Hockey League announced today the WHL Board of Governors has adopted a 68-game schedule for the WHL Regular Season, effective for the 2018-19 season. The decision was made at the WHL Board of Governors meeting, which was held Wednesday in Calgary.


The WHL Regular Season schedule currently sees each team play 72 games, which has been the case since the 1975-76 season. Playing four less games during the Regular Season will serve to reduce travel and balance the schedule while providing more time for players to focus on training and skill development, as well as their academic studies. Further details on the schedule format will be released at a later date.

The Ontario Hockey League and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League currently play a 68-game regular season schedule. With the WHL reduction in games, it will result in all three Canadian Hockey League member leagues playing the same number of games.

“By reducing our WHL Regular Season schedule, I believe this further demonstrates our WHL Club commitment to providing our players with the best possible environment to develop, both as hockey players and student athletes,” commented WHL Commissioner Ron Robison. “The WHL takes great pride in being a world leader in player development and education opportunities, and we are fully committed to enhancing our player experience on an ongoing basis.”

(WHL Release)

Thanks,
Pat

1 comment:

  1. "Icing" and the ability to make line changes (at full-strength and while short-handed) is going through some changes in hockey at present. The NHL is considering including icing when teams are on the penalty-kill. USA-Hockey has recently started the process to convert their rules to include this change.

    It has been and is common practice the past two seasons for (all) WHL officials to ALLOW line changes by the offending teams after committing icing at even-strength provided they iced the puck from between (their own) blue line and center ice. Though I am almost certain that this exception was described in the previous edition, the current WHL Rule Book does not include any distinction between the types of icing. While the 2017-2018 edition states that substitutions by the offending team will not be permitted, you will see no less than 10 instances every game where linesmen signal coaches that they may change lines as long as they iced the puck from the neutral zone.

    Could you address this either here or over pizza and beer at one of your weekly Canes podcasts?

    We may as well take down the time clock so that only the officials know when the game ends (stupid soccer).

    Rephu psugh

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