In my opinion, if a team is wanting to get a playoff spot, it's almost better to have been a top team in the bottom flight to have a sure spot to play in the playoffs??? Granted, you are stuck playing the same teams over and over again (is it a challenge to the kids???) and have gotten screwed with travel, but hey if you belong in the top and now are placed in the bottom flight, at least you know you are sure thing when Feb/March comes along and you have already clinched a spot to play for the championship!
Of course sarcasm is involved here...
In all seriousness with a high degree of parity and 10 teams, every week will be a challenge for the top flighters. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the last couple of spots come down to the wire.
I recognize the healthy dose of sarcasm leveled at the logic involved in this "hey lower flight people - see how we have a control for that thing so many of you warned us about, where a team gets better and surprises people by mid season?"
All winning Flight2 gets is a 1 game playoff with the 8th seed to get into the playdowns. The entire idea is nonsensical on so many levels it boggles the mind. Quite frankly, if a team isn't good enough to even compete with the teams in the top flight be that 3, 6 or 10 teams, then why should they even get the opportunity to beat out another team that had to scrape and battle their way into the playdowns, and settle this all via a one game playoff?
If you really wanted to create something interesting, how about having a playdown for the 7 & 8 Spots, where you take the 6-10 teams in Flight1 and the top 4 Flight2 teams, and playdown for the 7 & 8 spots? I guess that would be too fair, and is not punitive enough to the Flight2 teams.
Of course, the original proposal included the idea that the #1 seed in the top Flight was going to get a free ticket to the championship. Obviously a lot of people must have complained vociferously about that, because it disappeared just before SJ.