But a goalie who’s on his game is a thing of beauty. I’ve seen proposals for the NHL to decrease pad size (which has already been done), to increase the size of the net, and to move to Olympic sized rinks, each of which would likely increase scoring. I’m fairly agnostic on those issues. I don’t see lack of scoring as much of an issue in hockey today, at any level.
They could just get rid of the icing rule while they’re at it. The puck can be anywhere, the players can be anywhere. Just let them do their thing
One of the parts of the game that you seem to enjoy the most, would be eliminated if soccer got rid of keepers.
In drills and pick-up games where we used a smaller “goal” and no keeper, players almost never took shots that were much more advanced than really solid passes. If you beat the last defender, there is no good reason to fire the ball into the net. All you really need to do is pass it in since no one will be able to stop it. With the current rules, some of the most spectacular goals bend just out of the keeper’s reach. You would lose a lot of highlight goals by eliminating the position.
The purpose of icing is to prevent defenders from just slapping the puck down the ice to the opposing side, and then everyone chases it back to the other side, and then the new defenders slap it back to the other side and everyone chases it back again.
The icing rule is to make players keep control of the puck when attacking. Similarly, the off-sides rule is to keep attackers out of the defenders zone unless they have control of the puck.
Without a goalie you’d have to make the nets tiny, like in basketball. That’s how we sometimes used to play pickup hockey games if there weren’t any goalies. Put the nets on their sides, with the top facing forward. To get a goal you had to put the puck into the top net.
Shots are incredibly fast in hockey, but long shots take long enough that a decent goalie can block almost all of them. Without the goalie you could easily score points from the other side of the ice unless net was tiny. Then the game would be: get control of the puck and shoot as soon as you can. And it eliminates completely an exciting feature of hockey, when an attacker is past every defender and it’s one forward vs one goalie. No goalie and the forward just flips the puck into the net from center ice.
If you want to see high-scoring hockey, watch the NHL all-star game. Just try staying
awake through it.
Well, actually it was to prevent stalling. Teams would get a one-goal lead late in the game and shoot the puck down ice. The other team would have to get the puck and bring it back into their attacking zone. The defending team could shoot it back as soon as they got near it. Fans hated that; some teams iced the puck 50 or more times in the game. It was dull.
I think baseball would be more exciting if they got rid of the catcher.
I actually had an idea about baseball. It strikes (heh) me that it would be more exciting if there were two batters on the pitch at once. And four is an awkward number of bases - why not reduce it to two bases, so that each batter could occupy one of them?
Then, well, this whole idea that an umpire makes a call about a strike is pretty arbitrary. I suggest we use an actual target for the pitcher to aim at. Perhaps we could have three stakes placed in the ground, each about three feet tall, and topped with smaller pieces of wood. A strike would be called when the small pieces of wood are knocked off the upright stakes.
Of course, baseball purists would insist that such changes would turn it into an entirely different game, but what do they know? They’re just fans.
Listens, hears the sound of crickets chirping.
cricket=soccer (IOW see my post about Europe’s ungratefulness to the US)
:rolleyes:
Og, this post deserves nothing further in response. But, whatever. Here’s a bit more.
What did Isaac Asimov say? Something about how in the U.S. people think “my ignorance in as good as your knowledge”? Yeah.
Being one of many women who think that the main attraction of a Real Madrid or Furia Roja match is Iker Casillas, I find myself in the obligation of answering “nope”.
Casillas aside, for many years the best player in the German team was their goalie, the aptly named and extremely scary Kahn; he’s also the only German player this non-soccer-watcher can name. A good catch is a beauty to behold. And the OP, like so many people who’ve complained about soccer’s low scoring in these boards, understands soccer less than I understand golf.
This.
I think the OP greatly underestimates the ability of the worlds top soccer players to accurately place the football wherever they want it. Without a goalkeeper the likes of Paul Scholes or Xavi could easily just pick the ball up in midfield and float it gently into the top corner of the net about 90 times out of a hundred. You would have to make the goals about chest height only in order to give them a challenge.
On goal, yes, into the top corner, no. However, you’re right that the entire game would be 50+ yard lofted shots and would completely destroy the sport.
Just another anecdote. When I play footy, “Crossbar Challenge” is a regular ad-hoc training exercise.
Just messing around you try an float a dead ball from the centre spot onto the crossbar. Not easy but then I’m a long way from pro-standard.
Get a team of top quality players drilling that for hours a day and you would soon see that being a major tactic and ridiculously high scores resulting.
As Mr. Miyagi once said “If do right…no can defend Daniel-san”
I wouldn’t mind seeing a bit of football played without goalies just to see how professional sides would approach it. I don’t think long bombs on goal would be first tactical choice because possession would be such a priority. I would want to play like Barcelona and spend lots of time with the ball looking for higher percentage opportunities.
If the defence hang back it should be relatively simple to control possession in mid field. The back line can hardly play for the offside because the absence of a goalie leaves huge amounts of room to push the ball ahead of a fast breaking forward.
I imagine that both teams would end up having to flood the zone the ball is in and you’d end up with an adult version of 8 year olds running around in a mob.
That is a definite possibility too. I suspect the long bomb would be the tactic of choice (at least at first) but I may be wrong your scenario is the more likely one. Regardless of which comes to pass we can be sure that the game would evolve in a radical way and will end up bearing little resemblance to the current way of playing.
I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re getting at.
Never claimed to be an expert, Nava.