Quote Originally Posted by S.A.C. View Post
My point is that, in a league that supposedly has separate divisions and gives first round playoff byes to the division winners, part of that type of arrangement is having an unbalanced schedule. They could no longer realistically get away with pretending to have separate divisions if every team in the league is playing each other the same number of times. It would be difficult to justify arbitrarily designating the team that was in 4th or 5th place in the 10-team league to inexplicably be a "division winner" and give them a first round playoff bye and then a home game in the league's semi-final.
A completely balanced schedule wouldn't be dramatically different that what we have now, where every team in both divisions plays 10 games against the west and eight against the east. If we ever get to 10 teams, I would still want to see all teams in the league once a year in Toronto, and I definitely wouldn't want to see three games against every team in my division. But I'd still retain the two divisions, and I expect the league will do that despite the current noise emanating out of the west for a single division.