Home games we go down to the morning skate and talk to teams and players from both teams. Then I come home and do a few hours of work on the computer and preparing my game notes and lineup sheets. Around 4 PM we head down to the Air Canada Centre. We have a meal and then do some pre-game radio voice over work, or tape some things for TV, do a little bit of a rehearsal. The game starts at around 7:30 and by 11:30 I'm home so it's a full day.
Derek: Since the lockout you have been quite opposed to the NHL's post lockout division schedule. Late last season the league announced they would make a change to a more balanced schedule. This makes a lot of people, including yourself I'm sure, quite happy. In a time when the NHL is trying to be so fan friendly, how important is it to have a more balanced schedule?
Joe: We're very fortunate in the East that most of the game's young stars are here, Crosby, Malkin, Richards, and Ovechkin are all in this conference. If I am a Western conference team season ticket holder, I bloody well want to see these guys more than once every three years!
I know they wanted to build some sort of a rivalry based schedule by playing your own division an absorbent amount of times, but rivalries are only made when you play a team in the playoffs. That's where the bad blood, bragging rights, and the finger pointing comes from. It doesn't come from playing eight times a year in the regular season, except when teams get sick and tired of seeing the same team all the time. But if I am a season ticket holder I want to see every team once a year. I want to see Dion Phaneuf more often. I want to see Joe Thornton come to Toronto. I think it's important to make a more balanced regular season schedule and the rivalries will be created in the playoffs.
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