National Hockey League going back to the future with 84-game seasons
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By adopting an 84-game regular season — starting with the 2026-27 campaign — the National Hockey League has stepped back in time.
Fans of a certain vintage will recall the NHL’s brief dalliance with an 84-game schedule in the early 1990s, a fling that corresponded with a taste for neutral-site games as a means of measuring market strength in potential expansion cities like Hamilton, Cleveland, Sacramento, Minneapolis, Saskatoon, Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas and Miami.
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The league first bumped its schedule from 82 games to 84 for the 1992-93 regular season by incorporating 24 neutral-site games in 15 cities.
When Anaheim and Florida joined the fold the next year, the league scheduled 26 neutral-site games in 16 cities. By way of example, the Edmonton Oilers played the New York Islanders in Oklahoma City and the Pittsburgh Penguins in Cleveland during the 1992-93 season, then met the Vancouver Canucks in Saskatoon and the L.A. Kings in Sacramento in 1993-94.
The NHL’s original six franchises — Boston, Montreal, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto and the New York Rangers — played 50 games in 1942-43, then 60 and finally 70 games per season before expansion hit in 1967-68 and the league grew to 12 teams and the schedule was lengthened to 74 and then 76 games. When another two teams joined up, the regular season moved to 78 games and, by the time there were 18 teams, they played 80 games and did so until the early 1990s.
This most recent move to 84 games apparently is rooted in mathematics more than expansion finances. With 16 teams in each conference and eight in each division, the league can ensure that a given team will host its seven division rivals twice per season, will get one or two home games with the remaining eight teams in its own conference, and one home game against all 16 teams in the other conference.
Makes sense. It also makes you wonder how other sports leagues adopted their current number of games played.
Here then is a brief explanation:
BASEBALL
When it comes to amount of games played, Major League Baseball wins, hands down.
Most teams started this year’s 162-game campaign on March 27 and the final day of the regular season is Sept. 28, so it spans 186 days. Between game days and travel days, there isn’t any down time.
However, the argument for playing fewer games isn’t getting much stronger than it has ever been. Commissioner Rob Manfred touched on the issue when he took the job in 2015 and he occasionally revisits the idea of moving back to 154 games, but there is still no real momentum behind a reduction.
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“One hundred and sixty-two games in 183 days, and a lot of those 21 days consumed by travel, is a pretty demanding schedule,” he said in 2015. “By reputation I work pretty hard and I don’t think I work 162 days out of 183. It’s a tough schedule.”
It has been that tough in the American League since 1961 and in the National League since 1962, when each of the leagues moved up from 154 games per season.
Manfred’s message was a little different by 2016, foreshadowing the real issue behind the status quo.
“There are ways to produce more off days in the schedule. Some of those have very significant economic ramifications,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America in 2016. “If in fact we are going to go down those roads, those economic ramifications are going to have to be shared by all of the relevant parties. You want to work less, usually you get paid less.”
In 2018 he said: “They’re going to work less, they’re probably going to make less.”
And in 2020 he said: “A shortened schedule is a major, major economic issue. We sell out in a lot of markets in terms of gates. The gates are really valuable to us. We have television commitments. Each local contract varies, but there are game guarantees that could be affected by a shortened season.”
Baseball has a long tradition of lengthy seasons, dating back to the 200-game campaigns played by teams in the Pacific Coast League, a triple-A loop, as recently as the 1950s. And the PCL record for games played belongs to the San Francisco Seals, who played 230 games in 1905.
FOOTBALL
It is generally acknowledged that among the four major sports in North America, football presents the toughest combination of physical exertion and technical preparation, factors that limit the number of regular-season games to an average of one per week.
In the National Football League, teams currently play 17 regular-season games, but it’s believed a majority of owners want to make it 18 and commissioner Roger Goodell has spoken recently about lengthening the schedule for the second time in a handful of years.
NFL teams played 16 regular-season games and four pre-season games as recently as the 2020 season. In 2021, a regular-season game was added and a pre-season game dropped from each team’s schedule.
“We went to 16 and four, and now 17 and three. So 18 and two is a logical step,” Goodell said in January.
It’s also a financial move. It has been estimated the league increased its advertising revenue in 2021 by 14% over the previous season, to a whopping total of USD $4.4 billion.
However, a move to 18 will not happen without serious negotiations between the NFL and the NFL Players Association, given the potential for more injuries. There was significant resistance among the membership to a 17-game season, but that was collectively bargained into existence and was part of the package ratified by the players.
NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell recently said: “Right now, when I have talked to the players the last two seasons, no one wants to play an 18th game. No one. Seventeen games is already, for many of the guys, too long.”
Canadian Football League teams have played 18 regular-season games per season since 1985, when two games were added to the schedule and two of four pre-season games were dropped.
“We felt that 18 regular-season games was not overdoing it and that two pre-season games was enough to get ready for the season,” said then-commissioner Doug Mitchell. “(The pre-season) was where players used to play themselves into condition. Players are now in a situation where they maintain condition throughout the off season.”
In 1974, the CFL had moved from 14 to 16 regular-season games — and it was not without significant controversy. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats wound up in court, defending a lawsuit launched by Tabbies receiver Tony Gabriel, who contended that he was owed two additional game cheques because he signed his contract in 1973, one that paid him $18,000 annually, believing he would be playing 14 games. In March 1975, a judge ruled in favour of the Tiger-Cats.
BASKETBALL
The National Basketball Association schedule has been incredibly consistent. With exceptions only for labour disputes and the COVID-19 pandemic, teams have been scheduled to play 82 regular-season games each year since the 1967-68 campaign.
Over the same time period, the NHL regular-season schedule has moved from 74 games to 76, 78, 80, 84 and 82, and will move back to 84 in 2026-27.
In the late 1960s, owners of the 12 NBA franchises believed they had struck a balance between the income produced by 41 home games and their annual expenses, which included salaries, travel and venue costs.
They also were of the opinion that player health was not unduly impacted by averaging a little more than three games per week for six months of the year.
Almost 60 years later, there is no significant momentum behind either an increase or reduction in the current length of the regular season.
Here’s a look at games played by teams in some other leagues:
Professional Women’s Hockey League – 30
Kontinental Hockey League – 68
Ontario Hockey League – 68
Western Hockey League – 68
Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League – 64
United Football League – 10
Women’s National Basketball Association – 44
Canadian Elite Basketball League – 24
Premier League soccer – 38
Major League Soccer – 34
National Lacrosse League – 18
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