NHL Emperor Tgirsch
Posted by
tgirsch
Kevin and I always like to talk about what we would do if we were Emperor of the NHL. Since the season is now over, I thought I’d make a list, in no particular order (below the fold):
- Scrap the points system. Align with the other three major North American team sports, and have wins and losses be what matters. If you care so much about overtime losses, use them as a tiebreaker only when wins and head-to-head record aren’t enough to break a tie.
- Contract the league back down to 28 teams. I nominate Florida and Phoenix as the teams to contract.
- Move teams back to Canada and the Northeast:
- The Carolina Hurricanes go back to being the Hartford Whalers.
- Quebec gets the Nordiques back, but since Colorado has proven a worthy NHL city, they get to keep the Avalanche. Instead, give Quebec the Ducks. Anaheim doesn’t care about them, and that way Quebec city gets back a team of roughly the same caliber as the one it lost years ago.
- The Jets can go back to Winnipeg, too, but they deserve better than the lowly Coyotes (whom I’ve already contracted) — give ‘em the Thrashers (Atlanta barely even cares about the Braves any more, much less a hockey team…).
- Tampa Bay is on notice: fan support there seems to be quite good, but if it slips, you’re off to Portland or Fredericton or Halifax or somewhere…
- Modify the schedule to ensure home-and-home with every team in the league every year. Now that I’ve contracted down to 28 teams in the league, that accounts for 54 games. Add an additional home-and-home against every other conference opponent, and that puts you up at 80 games. If you want to keep an 82-game schedule, you could have the last pair be home-and-home against a rotating opponent; otherwise, you could just leave the regular-season schedule at 80 games.
- Downsize the goalie equipment. Guys like Giguerre and Nabokov are freakin’ ridiculous these days. You mean to tell me that in the modern age of polymers and kevlar and solid, lightweight protection, you have to dress up in one of those inflatable sumo wrestler costumes before you climb in net? C’mon, man, Sawchuk didn’t even wear a mask! I’m not saying every goalie should look like this, but they sure as hell shouldn’t look like this. This seems like a happy medium, although I’d like the sweater to be a bit more snug. Institute a mandatory three-game suspension for oversized goalie equipment.
- Call a delay-of-game penalty when a team makes an illegal substitution after an icing call. I’ve seen too many teams try to sneak out a new player after icing has been whistled, and use the ensuing confusion as a free time out. Bullshit. Two minutes for delay of the game, to be served by one of the fresh-legged players who was improperly on the ice.
- Fix the schedule so that you don’t have points in the season where some teams have played as many as five more games than some others. Also, install baseball-like travel rules: No night game the day before a travel day (day game or no game).
- Install high-speed cameras in net. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a video goal review where in one frame, the puck is halfway across the line, with 2/3 of the puck visible, and the next frame, it’s invisible. The pucks move fast, so have a camera that can keep up. While you’re at it, install a second overhead camera above each goal, so that you have one from slightly in front of the goal line and one from slightly behind the goal line.
- Scrap the trapezoid. If a goalie wants to wander way out into never-neverland and risk leaving a wide-open net on a bad turnover, let him.
- Ban fighting. Every other major team sport can live without it. Why not hockey? I’ve heard all the bullshit reasons about how the aggression would manifest itself in other ways, but that simply hasn’t been the case in, say, the NFL, and wouldn’t happen if you continued to be serious about calling roughing, boarding, and high-sticking penalties. Get serious about it, and get rid of it. An automatic one-game suspension without pay per punch thrown ought to get their attention.
- Keep calling penalties. Look, I’m all in favor of good, physical, defensive hockey, but that shouldn’t mean hooking, holding, tripping, and chipping. You can play good defense with good positioning and with solid, clean hits. “Let them play” shouldn’t mean “let them cheat.”
- Scoring on a delayed minor penalty no longer nullifies the penalty. If you score in a delayed penalty situation, you get the goal and the full two-minute power play.
- Return to named divisions. No more of this generic “Atlantic” or “Southeast” bullshit. Go back to Norris / Adams / Patrick / Smythe. Hockey, like baseball, reveres its history. Turning its back from that is a mistake.
- Return to a divisional playoff format. You still have sixteen teams making the playoffs, four from each division. Seed the top four teams from each division 1-4, and play until you have a winner from each. Then you have a Norris-Smythe playoff and a Patrick-Adams playoff to determine who makes the cup finals. You want deep divisional rivalries? This is how you get them.
gotta disagree on the fighting. Fighting has always been a part of hockey and if you talk to anyone in the game, fighting is what gives the stars the space to operate. You think Alfredson would have taken that slapshot if he knew someone would take him out behind the woodshed? Also, fighting is the one way to keep the stickwork down. The other sports are different in how they do things so fighting doesn’t fit, but it does fit in hockey.
Otherwise, I’d go along with the other ideas.
Comment 6/11/2007
You think Alfredson would have taken that slapshot if he knew someone would take him out behind the woodshed?
Which is more likely to get his attention: A bout of fisticuffs, or a twenty-game suspension without pay? If you wanted to get serious about getting rid of that nonsense, you could do it, without all the doom-and-gloom. You’d just need to send a message loud and clear to any and all offenders.
Same goes for the stickwork. You take cheap shots at people with your stick? You get a suspension, period. Couple that with the five minute major, and you’ve just hurt your team. Coaches wouldn’t put up with it. The only reason they do right now is because they can get away with it. Make it so they can’t.
Fighting is a devil’s bargain for hockey. It attracts casual fans (and, yes, a few die-hards like it, too), but it ultimately detracts from the sport.
Comment 6/12/2007
Uh … in this reducing the number of teams idea you have, I am assuming you have no desire to get rid of my Sharks. Cause really, I’m sure you wouldn’t do that to such a nice person like me.
Comment 6/12/2007
During the 72 series, Canada played a couple exhibition games against the Swedes. No fighting was allowed in Sweden. The Swedes were so good with their sticks that they would scewer guys in the corners and the refs wouldn’t even see it.
Yes, the blatant, wide open stuff can be stopped but the stuff that does the real damage can easily be hidden and never penalized. Re: Alfredson - prove to me that he did it on purpose. No way would he get any kind of suspension because intent would not be provable thus a long term suspension would not be possible.
Fighting always has been a part of the game and when it was around, there were far fewer concussions, virtually no running from behind, and no trap. The removal of fighting has removed the fear of marginal players to abuse the starts. Unlike other sports, fighting creates space and an aspect of safety in hockey.
Again, just so I am clear, blatant stickwork can be caught but the guys who are good with their sticks will never be caught but will do the most damage. The possiblity of being in a fight reduces that significantly.
Comment 6/12/2007
Tgirsch, so there are only about 17 things you would change concerning the NHL. And you are a fan. No wonder so many teams have attendance issues.
Comment 6/12/2007
Ted:
Of the fourteen items I listed, only five of them involve how the game is played on the ice (six, if you count the fighting ban). Of these, one (calling penalties) involves preserving the status quo, and only one (the delayed penalty change) can be viewed as anything more than a tweak. None of them fundamentally changes how the game is played.
You’ll also notice that many of the changes I’ve suggested (at least half, by my count) involve undoing fairly recent changes to the game, and returning to a more traditional version.
Regarding attendance, if I’m not mistaken, the NHL is second only to the NFL among the four North American team sports in average % full; whatever attendance issues the league has are relatively minor, and exist because of over-expansion and teams in inappropriate locations — which is why I’d make the contractions and relocations I’ve suggested.
Finally, sports fans discuss what they would change about the games all the time. Most baseball fans I know have plenty of things they would change, from how balls and strikes are called, to whether interleague play should be expanded or eliminated, to raising the mound, etc. The NFL implements half a dozen rule changes every year, and relatively frequently re-aligns divisions, modifies playoff formats, etc. The NBA is even worse with yearly rule changes. So why is it somehow awful that NHL fans would want to change certain things about their league.
Angie:
The Sharks are safe.
Good fan support, and the residents of their host city have a decent chance of actually having encountered naturally-occurring ice.
Big U:
We’ll have to agree to disagree. If the refs are trained to look for that sort of stickwork, they’ll see it, and they’ll call it. This season is proof of that, as they were calling some fairly subtle hooks (which a lot of fans complained about, actually) that I didn’t see until the replays.
Concerning Alfredsson, you probably wouldn’t get a 20-game suspension to stick, but I bet you could get a five game suspension to stick. And contrary to your point, there is fighting in hockey today, and it didn’t stop Alfredsson, now, did it? So much for that theory.
I am curious, however: Do you defend the fighting because you view it as a necessary evil or because you like it? I’m not saying this is the case with you, but most of the people who defend fighting will give the sort of reasons you give for keeping it, but when you boil it right down, the biggest thing is that they like it. Don Cherry springs to mind in this regard.
Comment 6/12/2007
Having followed hockey all my life, I see fighting as a necessary evil. I like tough hockey (lots of hitting, etc.) but I’m not a big fighting fan. It’s just that having been involved in hockey all by life, I can say without question that the more restrictions that are placed on fighting, the worse the cheap shots get.
As an addition to your list, I would add get rid of the rock hard elbow pads and bring back the soft shell ones. It would definitely drop the number of concussions.
Comment 6/12/2007