The Busiest Person In The NHL

From now until whenever the NHL lockout is settled, there will be one individual who will be busier than anyone else.  It’s not Gary Bettman, Don Fehr or any of the lawyers and players and owners who are involved in the Labour negotiations.

nhl.com

In fact, I don’t even know his name and you probably don’t either.  The busiest person in the NHL right now is the schedule maker.  As of now, the task that generally takes months to complete, review and get approved by the clubs and was released in June is now garbage.  Now, the schedule maker is going to be working on new schedules, probably more than one at a time.  The longer the lockout goes, the fewer games to be played and the different formats that could take form.  He will have to create schedules with different templates based on the most likely formats based on the number of games to be played in the season.  He also needs to be ready within days of an agreement being reached because once that happens, things are going to move fast.  Especially if the impasse continues and approaches the January Winter Classic.

Whatever happens to the negotiations,  whatever the salary cap, rollbacks and whatnot is finally agreed upon, the person who deserves the biggest bonus is the one who has slaved over who knows how many versions of the NHL schedule, most of which will never see the light of day.