Many have suggested in the past that four divisions of four teams would be a more natural setup for the USCL, and that is what will happen in 2013 for various reasons. Read on to find out why!
The debate between having two divisions of eight teams versus four divisions of four teams has many arguments on both sides, but in the past we have chosen the former due mostly to the fact that larger divisions are apt to create very exciting playoff races (a keen example from last season: 2012 Eastern Division Playoff Race). That, along with the fact that the larger divisions lend themselves toward more balanced schedules amongst the teams, has generally made us inclined to go in that direction.
Unfortunately, with ten out of sixteen USCL teams residing in the Eastern Time Zone, this invariably forced two of those ten teams into the “Western Division” which meant many more matches for those teams against teams in the Pacific Time Zone. This unfortunately made things very difficult on those teams, having an excessive number of late starts along with many more matches with a much faster than usual time control - which tend to be disliked by most.
With that in mind, in order to make things more fair, we will be switching in 2013 to the above mentioned other configuration as such:
Eastern Conference:
Atlantic Division: Manhattan, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia
Northeast Division: Baltimore, Boston, Connecticut, New England
Western Conference:
South Division: Carolina, Dallas, Miami, St. Louis
Pacific Division: Arizona, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle
Under the new configuration, each team will play the other teams in their division twice each, two teams in the same conference from the other division, and two teams from the other conference.
This will ensure that no team in the Eastern Time Zone plays more than two regular season matches against teams in the Pacific Time Zone which should make things better for all teams involved.
We look forward to an exciting 2013 season which will begin as usual in late August!