Imagine it: Hawkes Bay win the Championship, so now their second tier players become too expensive to retain.

I don't see how this works. The players all get giant salary bumps when they win? Who have you got doing your contracts?

A team with good scouting and coaching (on which…

As a Bay of Plenty supporter my hatred is directed towards Canterbury. At least it is now. It used to be Auckland in the 80s ...

Of course it is. And of course it was. And that's where your re-jig proposal (salary cap, different team winning each year etc) falls…

As a Hawkes Bay supporter, the demise of Otago is the cause of much deep satisfaction

As a Bay of Plenty supporter my hatred is directed towards Canterbury. At least it is now. It used to be Auckland in the 80s (stupid yuppies taking our players!)

It's harder than it looks to please all of the people all of the time.

...and even harder to be an Otago supporter. The Otago NPC side really has been a shadow of it's former great self in recent years, with this year being perhaps the worst for over two…

The record in the NHL is 484 consecutive games – held by the Colorado Avalanche at the 20,000 seat Pepsi Centre (where the Democrats recently did their thing).

Hmm, that's disputed. By both Toronto and Montreal. Toronto from wikipedia:

Earlier, they sold out every game at Maple Leaf Gardens from…

Boccia is also one of three Paralympic sports that have no Olympic counterpart; points shall be awarded to those who guess the other two in the comments.

Well, one would be "the bastard child of rugby, rugby league", the other I had to turn to wikipedia – can't say I…

the 20,000 seat Pepsi Centre (where the Democrats recently did their thing)

I thought they were at Mile High?

there's a big difference between "sold out" and "full"

I completely agree. Moreover Fenway used to have a different number of seats depending on if it was a day or night…

However, there's a big difference between "sold out" and "full", at least in the NHL: the popular teams sell a vast proportion…

Yet, despite the huge number of games and the huge capacity of the park (albeit the fourth smallest), they sold out Fenway a record-breaking 456 consecutive games.

Given that The Red Sox represents a potential fan base of between 4 & 6 million people, most of whom would be within driving…