Pods It was announced that the season would be centered around what are called
pods. The pods were constructed around geographic regions and did not follow conference lines. Teams within the same pod played each other four times, twice at home and twice away. Teams played one team outside of their pod four times, twice at home and twice away, and played the rest of the teams outside their pod twice, once at home and once away. This resulted in a thirty-game season for each team, and had the additional advantage of reducing travel costs. The season ended a playoff format to crown a league champion.
Playoff format At the end of the regular season, the top teams in each conference qualified for the playoffs as the top two seeds. In addition, the remaining six teams with the highest point totals, regardless of conference, also advanced to the playoffs. Each round of the playoffs was a
two-game aggregate goal series (the
away goals rule was not applied as a tie-breaker). In the event that the aggregate score is tied after the second game of the series, the teams played two 15-minutes periods of
extra time. If the score is still tied after extra time, the series was to be decided by a
penalty shootout. ==2010 season==