Another supporter of most of the suggestions in RickJay’s post - note that the AHL has also had some great success this year with both no-touch icing and a shootout-after-OT rule. Not to mention the AHL has expanded to, what, 30ish teams now, and is a bona fide, comprehensive triple-A style league that the NBA would kill to have its NBDL look like. Of course, this probably has a lot to do with silly little things like affordable tickets, a general concentration in areas of the country conducive to hockey, and providing a fun, cheap, family-night-out atmosphere… some other things the NHL could look into getting back to.
I am a huge sports fan in general, but there’s a special place in my heart for hockey. It’s a lot cheaper and easier to see in person than pretty much everything else, it’s a sport that’s really exciting in person, and the only thing that even comes near the feeling of a close playoff game for me is a close March Madness game.
Of course, I’m also ridiculously depressed because my AHL team, the Worcester IceCats, is moving to Peoria, Ill. after this season :eek: :mad:
Both football AND baseball had fighting as part of the game for much of their early histories. Fighting was quite common in both sports in the 19th century and didn’t really die out until the 1910s and 1920s, largely because they began enforcing rules about such behaviour.
Hockey is not some natural law of the universe. What’s a part of the sport or isn’t a part of the sport is purely what we choose to have in it. You could eliminate fighting in two weeks with the right attitude and approach.
As for the comments about reducing the schedule, well, I can’t disagree with that, but I was limiting myself to the GAME, not the league structure. If it were up to me I’d eliminate ten teams, move four to Canada (Quebec, Winnipeg, Hamilton and Halifax) and go to a 72-game schedule with a 20-team league, two conference of two 5-team divisions. And I’d make myself the Pope and I’d get a new pony and there’d be pie and ice cream for everyone.
I agree completely. I say remove overtimes altogether; regular season games should end in regulation. The single most annoying aspect of the 5 minute overtime is the point awarded to teams that “tie in regulation”. Are you kidding me? It is possible, if highly unlikely, for a team to outright lose every single game of the regular season and still make the playoffs. A loss is a loss, people, and sports should always be a zero-sum game. The fact that the NHL is not is an abomination.
Now, plenty of times I’ve reaped the benefit of watching my hapless Rangers get a point when they lose outright, but in every single instance, I’ve felt cheapened as a sports fan that I’ve reaped the benefit of what online gamers would consider “cheese”.
I agree that 20 minute overtimes are unwieldy. Kudos to the NHL for addressing that. But why the aversion to ties? Why is it so strong that the best solution is to award points to the loser. That’s insanity. Just abolish overtime altogether. And now it’s coding time to respond to the wave of replies my last post garnered.
(In reply to my suggestion of removing the goalie position altogether.)
True. But the goalie is a seriously unbalanced aspect of the game. In fact, it is the most unbalanced aspect of any game ever devised. Pitchers in baseball cannot play every game, but imagine if they scaled back the MLB schedule to be 30 games, once every 5 days, and your starting pitcher could start every game. Would that not greatly imbalance MLB? It can and does happen in the NHL.
A pitcher rests. A QB can be pressured, or his receivers pressured, or he can be kept off the field. Basketball was mentioned as a refutation. Fair enough. If the goalie is such a worthy aspect of the game, please explain to me two things: Why is goaltending illegal in basketball, and how is the hockey goalie different from goaltending in basketball?
I disagree. Playoff hockey is awesome, and overtime play during the regular season is pretty exciting as well. But overtime does not equal excitement. I’d say that 9th inning come-from-behind wins and game-winning drives in the final two minutes are about a thousand times more exciting, and fulfilling for the fans, than any overtime game ever played. And I’ve seen some great ones. (I witnessed the Midnight Miracle in person.)
Look through the pantheon of fantastic finishes in any sport, and the vast majority are games won at the end of regulation by the losing team. That is not a coincidence. The greatest game ever played (football) was admittedly considered that because it was an overtime game, but I’m here to tell you that overtime is almost always anti-climactic, regardless of the sport. (Basketball may be an exception; I haven’t watched enough to know, because even worse than the Rangers, I’ve got the Knickerbockers. Ugh.)
Preference of the players and viewers is irrelevant. All fundamental game rules were decided long ago, and not by committee. I posit that (to borrow your perfect term) structured play has, as part of its fundamental design, more strategy built into its gameplay. One of my many sportsbar debate positions is that strategy is inherently good for a sport, and more strategy makes a sport intrinsically better. Your position that you can’t stay with football during the downtime is similar to mine between pitches. Both valid complaints that could be addressed by a pitch clock and a 25 second play clock. (Not that I’m advocation the latter; possibly 30 seconds would be good, though.)
But the unstructured games simply have less strategy in them, making them less appealing to Americans, and I would say the same for all people in general. Don’t point to soccer’s worlwide popularity as a counter-example; soccer is as popular as it is for exactly one reason only: it costs nothing to play. When you look at countries with money, then the more costly sports (football, hockey) become more popular. Maybe not more popular than soccer in most cases, but soccer was entrenched while everyone was poor. Notice that football grew as the economy grew in the US.
I would compare football to billiards and hockey to foosball. Billiards clearly involves more strategy, while foosball is all about unstructured flow. Hockey and soccer are both hamstringed by lack of strategy. Soccer has the bonus of having zero material requirements, greatly inflating its innate appeal. Hockey does not.
I wouldn’t use the term snatching in that case, which denotes quick, if not immediate, turning of the tables. In fact there is no possible way to go from losing to winning in a single play. That reduces the number of lead changes, which reduces drama.
You said sport, but what you really mean is “athletic event”. In that I agree. Any person who has ever laced up his skates and put on the pads will tell you with zero hesitation that a game of hockey takes far more out of you than a game of football. But then again, the same could be said about the marathon versus the sprint. The sprint is simply more exciting.
I would argue that there is more decision making by players going on in football than in any other sport, including soccer and hockey. At every position. And I’m not even thinking about Peyton Manning. Option routes have the receivers reading the coverage, centers read the linebackers and attempt to predict who is blitzing, running backs must decide how much to chip, or which hole to hit, offensive linemen must decide in the heat of contact which direction they should try to deflect the rushers, not to mention every defensive player on virtually every play is playing a mindgame of anticipating the play. QBs have it the worst and the best; they have enormous pressure for decision making on the pass, but can take a break on running plays.
I watch soccer and rugby occasionally. I’ve heard these arguments before, possibly from you. (That’s why I watched.) I’ll agree that a few times, (forgive me for not knowing the terms) I would see breakaways that had my adrenaline flowing and my heart pounding. But what you seem to be describing in the nonstop action is not what actually happens. I would say easily over half the time the clock is moving, not much is actully happening. Contrast that to football, where when the ball is in play, there is more stuff happeneing than can possibly be digested. You’d need coaching film and about 11 viewings to take it all in. Soccer? Not so much. Hockey? Not so much. In hockey, however, the no-touch icing would go a long way toward fixing that. I dig a good cycling of the puck, which I can appreciate when the opponent does that to my Rangers. (I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Rangers cycle the puck.)
When was the last time you had a tie in the World Cup, with two countries being declared the co-winners?
Yes, often people (especially Americans) criticize what they don’t understand. The fact that you could even say it’s possible to lose in overtime without getting an opportunity to score is difficult for me accept when I know you are a football fan. Defense is as valid in football as offense. Some teams, my Giants in particular, are more effective at scoring points on defense than offense. Both teams have a chance to score on every single play, with the exception of the conversion attempt. I saw a recent game go to overtime and end on a safety. How did that game end, if the defense didn’t have an oppotunity to score?
It is possible, due to the flexibility in the design of the sport, to attempt to gain an advantage by focusing on a single aspect. Notably, the offense. Look at teams like Indy and KC. They put all their eggs in the offensive basket. Now if they get to overtime, it is pretty much up to the coin toss. But they do not play true football; they play a bastardized version of it that manipulates the game in attempting to gain an advantage. (By manipulate I mean spend all their money on O to the detriment of the D.) That’s not football, that’s arena league. One of the drawbacks to their imbalanced system is they are at the mercy of the coin toss in overtime. So be it. Most teams, who put at least half their focus on defense, are quite comfortable with the overtime format as it is. Some teams, like the Ravens, would be justified in choosing to kick.
Ah, but that’s exactly my point. They were tied late in the game. That’s not a bad position to be in. In fact, that’s no different than when you started the game. When tied, it would be understandable to play more conservatively, more defensively, to avoid a loss. When behind, you’re going all out at every opportunity by definition. Coming from behind is more exciting than breaking a tie, because by definition, more happened.
The real problem with nonstop action is the fact that because it’s nonstop, the action is less. Hockey deals with this beautifully with line changes, making it quite a bit more exciting than soccer and rugby. Watch a soccer and rugby game and just watch a single player for a while. How much time is s/he going all out? Now watch hockey and football, and do the same thing. In hockey the players are going all out much more so than soccer and rugby, and in football, it would be extremely rare to see anybody taking much “time off” at all. Hell, Randy Moss, who has publicly admitted to taking plays off, is going all out at a much greater percentage than the non-stop “action” sports.
I’ve seen plenty of walking going on in soccer and rugby while the ball was in play. You almost never see walking while the ball is live in football, and even the defensemen in hockey are pretty busy almost all the time.
That’s awfully long, so let me recap my hockey opinions:
The tied in regulation point is an affront to humanity. Just remove overtime altogether.
The goalie position is incredibly unbalanced, which gets highlighted by the deluded talent pool brought on by expansion.
Remove fighting altogether by enforcing rules. If you take off your required equipment to do something, then by definition that something you are doing is not “part of the sport”.
Hasn’t been mentioned, but could we please reduce the number of playoff spots? How impressive is it to make the playoffs when the majority of teams make it? (Please, Rangers jokes already duly noted.) That devalues the regular season to the point where it is mostly moot.
And whomever said the Rangers would have a time lmit to get good or be contracted, for shame! Have some respect for the original six, even if that team’s owners do not.
I tell you what, we give the owners a chance to sell the team to somebody who cares. If they don’t, they get dropped. I respect the original six and all, but these teams suck. Chicago used to be a rival of the red wings. Now they are just another clutch and grab pain in the ass. New York… :rolleyes: If I had it my way they’d be turned to an AHL team or tossed out of the league entirely. The only reason that they are entertaining is because of their “Who will we overpay next?” strategy. It’s like watching an endless series of Americas Funniest Home Videos nutshot tapes.
As for your other points.
Keep the overtime. Give teams the chance to win a tie or avoid the dread 0-0 result, but lose the point for the tie. If the game ends tied, no points for anyone.
Goalies have become slightly unbalanced, but not enough to lose the position. The drama is in the scoring chance, not the goal itself. Drop the pad size a smidge and enforce the rules every game. Fines for players and teams using oversized pads. To many bulks just squatting in goal.
Also, enforce the rules on goalies killing the play by covering up. The only time I’ve ever seen a goalie get called for covering the puck outside of the crease was last year Detroit v Nashville and only because he came halfway out to the blue line to do it. I’ve seen a lot of 'tenders cover up around the crease or behind to stop play. Give 'em a penalty for it. It kills the flow and drops chances.
As I’ve said, fighting is a part of the game. I would be incredibly sad if future generations missed out of the joy of watching a person get a Gordie Howe hat trick (goal, assist, and a fight). Enforcing the rules will cut back on it, and that’s fine. But sometimes the players need to police themselves and they should be allowed to in a manner consistent with the rules of the game.
Cutting back on playoff spots is a good idea, but it will never ever ever ever happen. Those spots mean money for a team. They help build interest. They provide at least two extra home games. I’d love it to happen. I really would, but it’s just not meant to be.
Good Lord. Because they’re two different sports, man!
Besides, explaining these aspects would neither strengthen or refute your belief that hockey doesn’t move fast enough for you. In fact, I’m sort of at a loss as to why you think hockey should be more like basketball.
Hockey is a game of finesse and strategy. It sounds to me like you want to turn it from a team sport to one that values individual accomplishment over team play – like basketball.
What you are proposing (i.e., the elimination of goalies) would basically turn the sport into a free-for-all, high-scoring event. I can only speak for myself, but one of the primary reasons I don’t watch basketball is because it’s too flippin’ easy to score. I don’t really want to watch a 102-94 game, because it minimalizes the effort and teamwork that is required to score a goal.
Hockey can be saved, but not by throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as you’re suggesting. I’m inclined to side with RickJay on his points instead.
There’s a disconnect. Hockey moves plenty fast for me. That’s why I like it. I even said that the “walking time” in hockey is done away with beautifully by line changes. And for the record, hockey is much faster than basketball, making it much better than basketball. (One of the many reasons, actually.)
No, and in fact, my position is the exact opposite of your interpretation. I want to turn hockey, currently mostly an individual sport due to the overwhelming imbalance of the goalie position, into more of a team sport. I’m surprised you read my words and came away with a meaning diametrically opposed to what I was saying.
Fair enough, my idea is over the top. First off, a goal the size of a shoebox five feet off the ice would not translate into basketball frequency scoring. In fact, it would probably keep scoring in the single digits, but each shot would be pretty impressive, similar to the shooting challenge in the skills competition. And hey, maybe a bullseye in the center of the (already small) goal that was worth two points, giving more lead change possibilities. But okay, I get it, I don’t want to piss off the purists too much in this thread.
(In discussing contracting of original six teams)
Now you’re talking. I cannot stand Rangers ownership. They are owned by Cablevision, and it drives my batshit insane. Cablevision doesn’t know fuckall about sports, and should not be allowed to have any kind of controlling interest in any team, much less an original six professional league team. I wouldn’t let them touch the Bridgeport Wildcats, and they own the Rangers. And you know who else they own? The Knicks. It’s eeeevil, I tells ya.
I think a tie should count for more than a loss. Half a win and half a loss, like the NFL. Just please, no more half-a-win points when the team actually loses.
I think you’re right. I’ve seen pictures of oldtime goalie uniforms, and the pads (except for that rectangular whos-its) seem to be much bigger and bullkier nowadays. Scale them back and I wouldn’t consider the opponents net to be a brick wall every game.
Oh yeah, preach it brother! Now you’re talking.
I thought it was a goal, a fight, and a penalty, but then again what the hell do I know?
Let’s just hope the glass stays strong then. If we get another incident like the time Tie Domi pounded the ever living shit out of the fan (who fell through the glass into the penalty box) now that we’ve had the debacle in Detroit, you can kiss fighting goodbye.
If the NHL would adopt full revenue sharing like the NFL, maybe that would facilitate paring down the playoff spots. Is that possible?
Fighting isn’t allowed in the NBA, yet there was a huge brawl in Detroit (like you said) so I don’t see a connection between fighting in a sport and incidents with fans. Fighting also isn’t allowed in baseball, and how many incidents with fans was there this year alone?
I guess if the NHL could get a halfway decent TV deal like the NFL has, and then maybe revenue sharing would be more realistic.
One of the things I like the most about the NHL is the rivalries, and lots of good ones are formed by having a 1vs8 and so on. I would hate to see this change.
The problem I see with the clutching and holding isn’t that every single incident won’t get called, but the teams that use this as part of their strategy aren’t routinely getting the majority of the penalties in the games, forcing the coach to come up with a different strategy. When one team gets four penalties in a row, the other team can’t even cough funny without drawing one of their own, and the few times that the offending team does get way more penalties than the clean team; it’s the refs fault. The clutching and grabbing teams (New Jersey Devils) need to be made an example of, and force coaches (Pat Burns) to come up with a new, non-boring plan.
Oh come on, that was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Not as funny as Cujo charging a ref to dispute a call and falling on his ass, but funny. Overweight Philly Fan drops in on Tie Domi and takes a swing at him. What colossal noive. Just thinking about that puts a smile on my face. 'Sides, wings fans tend to be more behaved than pistons fans. When we do get bent out of shape, we tend to take it out the team for underperforming than on the opposing team. And if we can take what Claude Lemieux did to Kris Draper without a riot, we can handle about anything.
Coming in way late to this thread, but I did read quite a few good posts.
This season I was looking forward to taking my aging (82 years old) Father In Law to an NHL game this year to see his nephew play for the first time in a live game. That nephew has been busting his butt for about 9 years (ECHL, OHL, AHL) in the minors and ended up getting called up into the NHL last New Year’s for the Capitals (I know, laugh all you want…it’s not saying much) and played out the season for the hapless Caps. This season, the Caps would have had a West Coast roadtrip which would have been against the Ducks and the Kings last week, and the opportunity was squashed by the lockout. I doubt that my FIL could make the next game next time around not to mention that his nephew may not be in the NHL next year either. It just hurts to see my FIL disappointed on how this turned out. The nephew could have cared less about the money that he was getting in the NHL, he was just happy to make it and play against the best. He went back to his dad’s farm in Saskatchewan during the lockout to help his dad, but got called back in by his AHL affiliate, the Portland Pirates. I am by no means touting his awesome play, because he is not an awesome player. Without expansion, he would not have been in this position in the first place. He knew it, I knew it, and everyone else here would agree. But damn, this “kid” has a lot of heart and loves to muck it up with the opposition as a 4th line center, and that’s what got him there since he’s dealing with the here and now. Maybe someday, we’ll get an opportunity to watch him play out here in California, but it’s not looking too good right now.
OTOH, I think that the league needed this cool off period to see how much they themselves (players and owners) are missing the game (or the money) and whether or not to continue this current downspiral between higher contracts and weak TV revenue that falls short to cover it and then re-evaluate what was lost this year and correct it. Since the owners staged the lockout, I feel that they will miss it less and the players will be forced to comeback and accept more terms from the owners. If the owners were “hiding” money from the players, they would have just kept “hiding” it from the players and still keep the league running. After all, if you were making money, would you just quit and lock up and then earn no money? Highly unlikely. A bluff like this would have been called a long time ago. Players already called this “bluff”, but then…here we are.
Also, the Instigator rule should be abolished and the players policing themselves should be reinstituted back into the game. What would be better for the sport…the fighters having bloody knuckles and broken noses, or the star players having his eyes gouged out by a stick? Less fighting usually means more highsticks and slashing which is much more dangerous than a “fistcheck”.
The player (if it matters to you) is DarcyVerot . We’re bummed.
Oh hell yeah, I’m laughing as I type this thinking about that incident, because it truly was funny as hell.
Yes, but the penalties for the people involved in the incidents you mentioned are decidely not measured in minutes, but rather in seasons. (And possible jail time.) That’s the difference.
The connection is that the current atmosphere surrounding sports is a negative one. If the NHL were to suffer an embarassment even substantially less than what basketball and baseball have gone through, I believe there would be enormous pressure to “clean up” the sport, which would translate into much stiffer penalties for any activity that might instigate fan problems. The number one example would be on-ice sanctioned fighting. I wouldn’t agree that they were related, but as they say, perception is reality.
I think most sports fans consider hockey to be bush league because of the fighting, and thus ignore it altogether. I have a buddy who is a huge hockey fan, and we’ve had this conversation many times. I do not like the fighting. First off, it’s amateur night when it comes to fighting in hockey. When I want to see fighting, I go to Mohegan Sun to watch the UFC. That is fighting. Second, it’s not part of the sport. I have claimed that they take their required equipment off, which proves it is not part of the sport. But then I realized that batters take off their helmets when they get on base, so that argument holds no water. So I ask how much practice time is spent on fighting. Do the coaches coach how to fight? If the coaches don’t teach it, it ain’t part of the sport. If the coaches do teach it, then the league is alienating me as a fan.
My buddy is adamant in his position. He likes fighting, and would hate to see fighting officiated out. Even if it would mean popularity as big as the NFL’s, he’d much rather hocky stay unpopular and keep the fighting. He’s cool as long as he can see it; he needs no other fans to enjoy his favorite sport.
But I think he’s living in a fantasy world. The NHL desperately needs to attract a larger fan base, and I gotta tell you, I am exactly the kind of fan they should be courting. I, like most sports fans, do not like to see fisticuffs in my sports.
1vs8? I’m confused. But I agree about rivalries being necessary. I don’t hate any New York teams except the Islanders. And hating the Islanders gives me a nice warm glow in my belly.
Why do you guys think that the lockout is almost completely being ignored, and that nobody on talk radio is even mentioning it? It’s because the NHL has virtually no fans. Both the XFL and MLS get (got) higher ratings. If this is an acceptable status quo, then players must accept a salary cap in order for the league to continue, end of story. If it is not an acceptable situation, then how does the NHL get more popular? Changes clearly need to be made. But think about some of the proposals in this thread, many of which are excellent. The average sports fan is so indifferent to hockey that they probably wouldn’t even understand the changes, so how could they possibly be enticed to watch because of them?
One of the many large problems with the NHL is that the continent’s biggest market has a franchise that is a blight on the sports landscape. The reason is because they overspend on former stars, which drives up free agent salaries league wide. They would be unable to do this against a hard salary cap. Just getting a respectable franchise in New York would go a long way toward raising the league’s profile. Really, it’s not just for me. Honest. No, I swear!
He actually became a crowd favorite of the Caps for playing gritty hockey for a gritless team last year. He also mixed it up with Matthew Barnaby when the Penguins and Baby Pens had their pre-season camp back in 2000 or 2001. He’s a fighter in a swimmer’s body though, that’s the knock on him.
If you don’t want players losing eyes, simply mandate proper face shields, and it’ll never happen. End of story.
Note that when I say proper face shields, I mean an actual CSA-approved shield, not the little half shield things that and stapled onto the odd helmet.
If you want to know what can happen to a sport that cracks down on fighting, look up the history of the Australian Football League and what happened when they got rid of fighting.
It was the same thing. According to some, fighting was “a part of the game.” Fans would allegedly leave the sport if fighting was banned, and banning it would cause cheap shots and other injuries.
None of that happened. The sport’s popularity increased; cheap shot injuries did not increase. Whaddya know.
RickJay, that would be a great idea, but two things that are drastically different between ARF and Hockey (aside from normal and legal body contact in each sport)…
In hockey, sticks are inanimate objects that are extentions of the players hands and can impart a much nastier contusion or fracture than a punch could ever do. Sticks have been known to fracture ulnas and radius bones if struck on unprotected areas between the glove and elbow pads, from peewees (and possibly pre-teen divisions) all the way up to the pros. Austrailian Rules Football does not have extensions like sticks or skates, but much less padding. I can believe that players in ARF have much more bruises because of less padding, but for every cheap shot given in ARF, the offending player also experiences some level of pain in return (which becomes a limiting factor when cheap-shotting) in giving the cheap shot whereas in Hockey, that is not the case with sticks…sticks are considered weapons…hands, elbows, shoulders, and knees are not weapons. I’d personally rather take a punch to the face or arm instead of a slash, spear or crosscheck to the face, arm, lower back (back of the legs), neck, etc.
Fighting in some European leagues has been banned, but yet injuries from sticks are much higher than the incidents in the NHL because of a player’s (rational or irrational) need to retaliate without starting a fight. I’ve heard this repeatedly on radio, but yet to have found a cite.
Also, hockey tactics described in Wikipedia has a short blurb by Don Cherry on fighting (as if we didn’t know what side of the fence he’s on!) as well as the Wayner.
:mad:
