Pardon My Bias

Under Gary the Terrible the NHL has floundered and flourished, sank into television obscurity and seen booms at the box office, missed a whole season and have comeback success, and have glowing pucks to switching to pre-coverage of a horse race (that last one was a lose-lose by the way). Bettman hasn’t been the greatest commissioner nor provided great leadership what with the semi-failing sunbelt expansion teams, lack of a major network contract airing games, work stoppages, lousy coverage, degradation of the game’s history, and the fact he is booed every time he makes an appearance (you should have seen his reception at his son’s Bar-Mitzvah). He has tried in sense with trying to grow the sport in the non-traditional markets and that maybe his half-brother is just a better commissioner which is why the World Series of Poker is on ESPN (yep, Bettman’s bro ran Gary out of relevancy) and the NHL is relegated to the backwoods of Versus. But out of all the tiny annoyances Bettman offers hockey fanatics there is one thing that I can just not wrap my head around and drives me insane even trying to write about it.

Gary, Gary, Gary...Let it go. The shootout sucks, and so does the point system. Photo courtesy of chicagonow.com

The glowing puck was Fox’s doing, though Gary gave them the go ahead, and the lockout wasn’t really an annoyance (more like crisis). NBC offers coverage of Chicago, Detroit, Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York, and Boston only and that coverage is, how should I say, craptastic? But no, not even that compares. Nor does the sudden switch of white sweaters being the road jersey and dark becoming home that took me almost a year to full adjust to. No, it is the overtime system in the regular season.

Playoffs in the NHL offer inarguably the best overtime in all pro sports. That’s right, inarguably. It just is. Which is why the overtime system during the rest of the season is all the more insufferable. Of the three major sports in America only football has ties and those are rarer than Colin Campbell making reasonable decisions. Hockey for a very long time had plenty of them, with teams splitting the two points. Then came the point given for a loss in overtime along with the change to four-on-four hockey during OT. First big mistake is right there with that third point showing up out of thin air. Since when were teams rewarded for losing? Never anywhere else, that’s where. All of a sudden teams were playing just to make it out of regulation. Next was the idea of getting rid of ties all together which led to the absolutely deplorable idea of using a shootout to decide a winner. Best of all the phantom third point remained with it. So with having the best overtime known in the post-season the NHL countered itself with the stupidest of ideas and having a truly god-awful overtime the rest of the year.

Teams still play just to get the one point, and the shootout is a complete crapshoot to determine a winner. In a sense, getting one point actually is logical in that regard. So the NHL doesn’t want ties, they use a shootout and they know that isn’t exactly the best way to decide a winner so the extra point for an OT loss remains. And thankfully Brendan Shanahan may be on his way to correcting this travesty. Teams should either win or lose, but this can’t completely happen until the shootout is done away with. Having a weaker team try and hold out through overtime just so they have a better chance to pick up the win is utter madness.  Having TWO teams play middling hockey in the third (or longer) when they are tied so they can just get one point is even worse. It has plenty of evidence of happening seeing how it is usually 20 percent of the time, then March rolls around and overtime games jump up to 40 percent. Ditch the point system, use win percentage. Have teams battle just to win. No more conservative stay at home, no risk hockey.

This skills competition actually determined who made the playoffs last year yet somehow no triple dekes were performed. Photo courtesy of theslapshot.com

Which of course means the shootout needs to be done away with. The league and Shanahan has proposed a new idea of using the four-on-four scheme followed by a new three-on-three setup for an additionally four minutes. Sadly the shootout seems to still exist even with the new changes, so that also entails the inclusion of the phantom point. Call me crazy but I would rather see a team decide who wins versus a trio of breakaways still. How about after the four minutes of 4v4 and 3v3 hockey the teams go back to 5v5 except play without goalies. I know this is slightly the inverse of the shootout, but hey you can still have guys block a shot. There is still the high amount of team work needed to succeed but now the margin for error is zero. There is no safe guard in net with the goaltenders at that point which really puts a lot more sudden death into “sudden death”. Line changes would be way more intense I can tell you that much. Perhaps no time limit should be used also. While it certainly isn’t the playoff style the playoffs also don’t have back to back games from Montreal to Toronto during the middle of January. Players would just be to exhausted if the playoff format was used and a game ran til the sixth overtime period. It’s just an idea but it’s fast and far more intense than an ulcer inducing skills competition (aka: less fun). Frankly though, I don’t care what method is used really, just get rid of the damn shootout. Maybe then the NHL can use winning percentage like every other major league in the nation.

So my article on Halak, calling him October’s most valuable player…well there was that 8-1 loss to Columbus. Then there was the piece on the New Jersey Devils and their early struggles this season…and they beat the defending champion Blackhawks. And of course there are the power rankings…

I figured I would try something where I don’t look completely wrong 24 hours later.

I believe it is widely known most people don’t understand every little aspect to hockey and the NHL. In fact, I’d say that the population of those familiar with hockey is highly outnumbered by those who only know that ice hockey is played on ice. It isn’t so much those people are idiots, it’s just that hockey isn’t the most popular sport here in the United States. They are naïve to the aspects of the game. If you want every person to know all about hockey, move to Canada. I would, but I prefer warmer weather and relevant football leagues. Anyways, I am dating such a person that knows diddly about hockey and one evening while I am watching highlights of the Blue Jackets beat down of St. Louis she complains about a topic I hardly really think about when watching games. That would be the goal horns. In particularly, she was complaining that the Columbus stadium was playing a noise that sounded akin to a dying cow.

The bovine mating call goal horn is the leading cause of headaches amongst NHL fans

So I had to point out to her that that noise was the horn played for when a home team scored a goal. She said it was boring and rather obnoxious. I was just glad to hear that was mentioned of something else and not me. In any case, I say that regardless of how it sounds, it makes the fans happy. She says that’s ridiculous and they need something more exciting. She liked the mentioning of a cannon the Jackets used to fire when they scored. She thought even the boat horn for the Florida Panthers was good because, as she put, “They’re in Florida. There’s gonna be boats.” Oddly, enough I couldn’t argue that.

Yet despite all the highlights I was watching I begin to notice the dying cow noise was by far the most common. Also scary, was the fact that she was beginning to really make a point. I had never really just listened for goal horns, and a lot of them were in fact boring. So how does a franchise make their goals more exciting, outside of their talent on the ice? The non-hockey fan’s advice: “Sirens, they are exciting”. Further detail as to why, “You hear sirens, you pay attention”. Outside of me being behind a wheel of a car, I don’t know if this really applies. Anyways, good job Capitals.

Anything else? “They should fit the team’s name.” I had to clarify things for her a bit here, asking, “But what noise exactly does a Maple Leaf make?” I suppose they could just have chainsaws revving. I don’t think the world will ever know though for a Red Wing. The Canucks could use whale song. I don’t know why the Kings use the noise of a freight train, though it is far more deafening than any train I have ever been around.

If you think about it, David Bowie's "Life on Mars" could work with the Sedin twins

The subject changed to goal music eventually. There came plenty more complaints, though again, it was all pretty much justified. How many fans are sick of Blur’s “Woo-Hoo”? Completely unoriginal also. I personally think what Detroit does with their players has always been great. With Brendan Shanahan, Irish music was played, and for Dan Cleary there is Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now”.

Teams could have a lot of fun with this. Kovalchuk could have Pink Floyd’s “Money”. Pavel Datsyuk could use “No More Mr. Nice Guy” from Alice Cooper. Dustin Brown can have any of James Brown. And Sean Avery could have Denis Leary’s “I’m an Assh**e”. And that is just with my limited thinking (which really is limited) so think of what else could be done.

Though by far the funniest part was when I reached a Ducks’ game clip. Saku Koivu scores and the sirens and fog horn go off. Initially, she seemed to enjoy it. “See, they have a siren. It’s exciting. I can’t really hear the fog horn, but yeah, it’s creative and different”. However, then came the music. “Oh…man, their music really sucks”.

If one thing is universal between hockey fans and everyone else in society, it is “Bro Hymn” being completely despised by all non-bros.