Why I am smarter than Gary Bettman

Day two of 2011.

Day eight of the Blunder Years Blog.

To whomever clicked my ads on here yesterday, thank you!  I earned $3.72 in ONE day!  80 years ago I would have been rich!  If I can find a way to multiply that by 100, I could just write the blog full time!  That would be a dream for sure!

Yesterday was a lazy day,  Got a few chores taken care of.  Took down the tree and put away all the Christmas decorations and cleaned out the basement.  Put in a few hours working on a database I have been poking at for work for the past week.  I think it will take me a good 100 hours plus to get it completed though, ugh.

So far this blog has been used to share some personal stories, and not really to beat my chest too much about anything.  Today is going to be my first rant, and it is about hockey.  I may lose a few of you right here, but I promise not to do this too often.

I am not one that falls for gimmicks easily.  However, I did watch some hockey last night.  Not intently, but I stopped on the Winter Classic broadcast a few times.  I was lucky enough to see all the goals.  I am glad Washington got the third goal to make it 3-1.  It would have been a rough way to lose a game is Fleury's gaff had been the deciding factor.  I have to hand it to the NHL.  I thought that this was a nothing more than a fluff marketing ploy when they first kicked it off in Edmonton those few years back.  After seeing the it's recent successes, I am willing to admit i was wrong.  They have created a marketing goldmine with the Winter Classic.  It is almost NFL-esque.  I am a bit leery about them adding the second outdoor game this year, once a year seems like a perfect frequency.  Once a year people will tune in who don't actually cheer for the teams playing just for the novelty factor.  I do understand they may want to test it out to see if maybe twice would work, but for what reason?   I just hope Bettman doesnt get any bright ideas about bringing the outdoor games to Miami or Phoenix.

Seeing the NHL knock one out of the park with the Winter Classic like this, really makes me wonder where all the smart people are hiding in the head offices the rest of the year.  There is a glaring hole in the NHL's most basic make up these days.  I have been fuming over it ever since it was instilled in the league.  To have this group of NHL executives put together a show as great as the Winter Classic and then for the same folks to allow this major blow to the integrity of the league, leaves me shaking my head in bewilderment. 

I will start by saying that the shootout is just wrong and needs to be removed from the game in it's entirety.  To have contests decided by penalty shots strips away the fiber of the the game. On any given night, teams can win games in any number of ways.  A big hit can swing momentum, a bad bounce can sneak by a goalie, a turnover in the defensive zone, or a brilliant move by a streaking winger can drive the final nail into the casket and decide a game.  On the rarest of occasions, a penalty shot does decide the winner.  The thing is, that no matter what single play decided the outcome, so many things have to either go right, or go wrong in the flow of play for the one single play to have actually happened .  Physical, emotional and intellectual battles are fought every minute on the ice, and their outcomes go a long way to deciding the victors.  A penalty shot awarded in the flow of the game was earned by a team making a good play, and the other team needing to break the rules in order to stop them from scoring.  In this instance, a penalty shot is as exciting as anything in sport.  Having said this, penalty shots are a tiny piece of the whole.  Using "free" penalty shots to decide games would be like major league baseball deciding games with a home run contest.  It would be like the NFL deciding games by seeing which team can kick field goals from the farthest distance, or it would be like the NBA having a three point contest to break ties.  Of all the legitimate major sports out there, Hockey is the only one to use gimmickry to determine victory.  Hockey is a TEAM game, and to place such emphasis on a 3 man shootout, which involves 4 players from each team, isn't in the spirit of the game.  It isn't fair to the other 16 guys on each bench, and it certainly robs any genuine fan of the game of any true resolution.  This is my opinion of course, not everyone shares it.  Most debate about the shootout ends here however.  What needs to be looked at in depth, is what happens after a shootout.

In the NHL, the winning team is awarded two points toward their standings.  The losing team is awarded no points.  Of course this is only true if the game is decided in regulation.  If regulation ends, then the integrity of the game goes right out the window, and that same game, which was worth two points a minute before the clock runs out, magically becomes worth three points now.  The winner still gets two, whether they close it out in the five minute sudden death period, or if they win it in the shootout.  The NHL used to award one point to each team in the event of a tie.  When they instilled the overtime period, they awarded one additional point to the victors, but they let the losers keep the point they would have earned under the old laws.  For decades, when a team was battling for a playoff spot, they could count on all the games being worth 2 points.  If a team was sitting one place out of the playoffs, and the two teams above them were playing each other, they knew that one team would get 2 points or both teams would get one.  Now, the teams ahead in the standings, could potentially distribute three points between them, instead of two, making it all the more difficult to get back in the race.   All they have to do it go to overtime.

If the NHL made divisional or even inter conference games worth 3 points, that would make more sense, Realistically however, in a perfect arrangement, all games would carry equal value, regardless of the opponent or the length of game.

OK, another break from factual evidence to offer my opinion.

This can be fixed in one of two ways.  I'm not talking about the overtime, or the shootout here, I am talking about the gaping hole in the way points are currently being awarded.
1- Go back to the old ways.  Give two points for a win, none for a loss.  DO not award the extra point .
2- Make ALL games worth three points.  You would earn three points if you win in regulation, and if you reach overtime/shootout you would use the current arrangement of two points for the winner and one for the loser.

No other system keeps the integrity of the game in place.  Unless you wanted to go to the MLB/NBA/NFL ways and scrap points altogether and just use winning percentages to determine things.  I like points, and I prefer that the league use a better overtime format, going from five minutes of 4-4, to five minutes of 3-3, and even down two 2-2 and 1-1 if it gets that far, then let it run until there is a winner.   You want excitement in overtime?  Try this format.


So, in conclusion,  I am going to put the vote up to you, my readers.  What say you?  Comments please, and vote in the new poll on this subject matter.

Oh, and by the way, when i asked Gary Bettman about this, he crinkled his forehead, rolled his eyes up in the top of his head, said, "Hmmmmmmm," follwed by a long pause, and continued with, "Ummmmmmmmmmm."

He made this face, and some  noises like a chimpanzee and ran out of the room swinging his arms back and forth over his head.
 =-)