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The Hangover, Canadian edition.

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Dirk Hoag, stats wiz slash fantasy hockey mastermind, has taken it upon himself to draw up a look at how difficult the travel schedules are for all 30 NHL teams, and has discovered that, this coming season, Calgary's got the toughest road over 82 games. (Dallas and Phoenix are second and third, while the Isles and Caps have the easiest hauls.)

This year's schedule is remarkably condensed, with the regular season starting a week earlier and ending one day earlier than 2008-09 while having a 14-day Olympic break stuffed in the middle. Teams will likely be tired, especially those with a half dozen or more Olympians, and the Western Conference clubs (as always) get it worse than those in the East. 

The good news is they've shifted the balance a little bit:

As Dirk writes, "it looks like Mike Gillis was successful in lobbying the NHL for relief for his Vancouver Canucks." Perhaps to the benefit of the entire conference?

Here's a divisional breakdown:

So, on average, the Northwest and Pacific Division teams have had their travel clawed back nearly 2,000 miles apiece (or about 4 per cent), with the difference tacked onto the Atlantic, Northeast and Central.

The differences, however, remain pretty pronounced. Per road game, the average Atlantic team travels about 750 miles, the equivalent of going from New York to Buffalo and back. The average Pacific team, meanwhile, travels about 1,230 miles, the equivalent of something like one way of a San Jose to Colorado trip.

It's hard to fathom doing that 41 times in a six-month span.

A lot of it just comes down to geography. Teams like the Avs, Stars and Wild really aren't very close at all to any of the clubs in their divisions, making it tough to limit their miles barring making some of their opponents' stopovers two-game visits.