More On Hockey OT

I've noticed, belatedly, that someone else has picked up on how bad Kara Yorio's rant against playoff overtime in the NHL was. (I covered the issue here). From Greg Wyshynski at the AOL Sportsblog:

Keith Jones and Brian Engblom of VERSUS have proposed different variations of a plan in which OT would drop to four-on-four after one or two periods; they appeared close to throwing a tantrum last night as an entertaining Detroit/Calgary game crept deeper into OT. In an editorial in the Globe and Mail, Steve McAllister floated the idea that a regular-season skills competition could one day determine the Stanley Cup champion. (Is this what happens in Toronto when the Leafs miss the playoffs?) Whoever was wearing the antlers for The Bellowing Moose column on NBCSports.com last week agreed that it was time to consider a shootout:

"Here's a suggested compromise for the NHL: play one overtime period five on five. If the game is still tied, play another period of four on four. If no one has scored by then, have a five round shootout to decide it. If that's too much for the traditionalists to handle, only use it in the first three rounds of the playoffs, and let the Stanley Cup finalists play 'til they drop."

Brilliant. The NHL would then have exactly three different overtime formats in its regular season, postseason and Stanley Cup Finals. And people complain that the standings are too complicated for casual fans to follow?

To the league's credit, it's been steadfast in its defense of the postseason overtime format. Gary Bettman told me at the National Press Club two years ago that we'd never see the shootout in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Gary Meagher, the NHL's vice-president of public relations, told the Canadian Press that the league had discussed altering overtime "in a very general way" but ruled out the shootout, at least in the Stanley Cup Finals. He did indicate, however, that a change in the OT format could be rationalized as a way to protect the players from injury or complete physical collapse during a close series.

Kara Yorio of the Sporting News, whom I'm pretty sure hasn't actually enjoyed a hockey game since her days as a Devils beat reporter many moons ago, agreed, and offered a plan (since pummeled by the die-hards on the HF Boards) that featured two 20-minute 5-on-5 periods followed by a shootout:

"Asking these players to play beyond two overtimes is unfair, unhealthy, mentally and physically exhausting and detrimental to the quality of hockey that comes in later games. During the regular season, teams cannot play three nights in a row. Why is it OK to ask them to play more than nine periods in three nights during the playoffs?

...But the good stories wouldn't be lost. Five periods is plenty of time to create lasting memories. And you could talk about where you were after living and dying through 100 minutes of hockey, then watching that shootout goal go in. The great moments would be there. And if your team were to lose in a nonelimination game, it might have enough left to come back and win the series."

I couldn't disagree more with her last point. In writing the "Flippin' Quarters" countdown on FanHouse, I've discovered several series in which a team lost an early multi-overtime game and then came back to win the series -- Edmonton and Detroit in 2006, for example. The Iconic Midwesterner of (Get) A Sporting Life also disagreed with Yorio, only a bit more vehemently:

"Should we end a baseball after 14 innings to spare the poor dears? (We could decide the game with a bunting contest.) We could also do away with multiple OT's in basketball as well, by playing a game of HORSE after the first overtime. Jesus Christ. It is people like this that have made the NHL the third tier sport it is today. They have systematically removed each and every thing that gave the game its unique identity. Enough is enough."

Indeed. Because whether you're in favor of changing the overtime format out of disdain for marathon games or out of concern for the health of the players, then you should be fine with going directly to a shootout immediately after regulation. No 5-on-5, no 4-on-4...just fast-forward to the money shot and be done with it. Any proposal that keeps some semblance of team hockey in a shootout format is an acknowledgment that ending a game with a skills competition is a pathetic downgrade from the current model and outright inferior to the much-heralded tradition of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. As Vancouver GM Dave Nonis said: "I do believe you have to end a hockey game by playing a hockey game."

I quite enjoyed the mention, but I've noticed that a lot of the time I'm quoted I'm presented as an intemporant fellow.

As Snoopy said when he was sent to the penalty box 2 minutes for slashing, 2 minutes for cross checking, 2 minutes for elbowing, 2 minutes for roughing, and a 10 minute misconduct:

I'm such a nice guy!