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I am a relatively new hockey fan who actually grew up in the south. I fell in love with the sport when I moved to DC 6 years ago (go Caps!), but it pains me to go to games against the other Southeast division teams. When teams like the Penguins, Flyers, Devils, Rangers, Sabers and Bruins come to town, there is an excitement in the arena that does not exist when we are playing the warm weather teams of the south. We are closer proximity to cities like Philly and New York and there are many of those opposing fans that come to the games, which adds even electricity to the atmosphere.

DC is a cold weather city and I think we belong in the Atlantic Division with other cities like us. People in the south don???t consider DC to be in the southeast anyway.

Now this is purely speculative and completely self serving, but chime in on what type of realignment/relocation/expansion would need to take place to get the Caps into a division with the teams from Pennsylvania, New Jersey or New York and therefore, have us playing more games against those teams.

Examples:

1) NY Islanders relocate to Kansas City and the Central division. Nashville moves to the Southeast division. Washington moves to the Atlantic.

2) Hamilton gets a team and joins the Northeast. Seattle gets a team and joins the Pacific. The NHL realigns to 4 team divisions like the NFL, resulting in a 4 team Eastern Canadian division, a Northeast division with the Rangers, Isles, Bruins and Devils, and an Atlantic division with the Flyers, Pens, Sabers and Caps.

3) ?????

If your team is in a division that you hate, throw out your own scenario so that the Hurricanes end up playing in the Northwest division, or whatever!