Addendum

Shootouts.

I meant to put my thoughts in on this very interesting wrinkle the NHL is trying out this year.

I haaaaaate 'em.

I know, they had to do it, it adds excitement to the game, a tie is like kissing your sister and all that...well, not having a sister, I can't really say, now can I? Suppose my sister was really gorg--

Okay, never mind that. People don't like tie games. Gotcha.

Still, I don't like shootouts. It's akin to deciding a baseball game with a home run derby, or a football game with a field-goal contest, or a basketball game on a series of uncontested three-point shots. Hockey is supposed to be a team sport. Reducing it to a one-on-one battle between goalie and shooter...well, why bother playing the game in the first place? Just have a series of players take potshots at the goaltender. Defense? We doan need no steekin' defense.

Granted, it's exciting. In fact, I can't think of a single sporting spectacle that gets me so het up.
But I can't think a shootout win is near as satifying as a win in regulation...and a shootout loss is excruciating.

When my wife was learning the game, she often seemed to put a huge amount of pressure on the goaltender. Every single goal he allowed was his fault, nobody else's; since the keeper's putative job is to keep pucks out of the net, a goal was a damning indictment. I, by contrast, feel that the defensemen and backchecking forwards are at least as responsible for most goals against as the 'tender is. Even the breakaway goals, where there is no defenseman to be found--well, where are they? Barring the power play, teams play at even strength. For someone to break free of defensive coverage implies a breakdown in that coverage, something for which the goalie bears no blame.

That's all removed in the shootout. Fans welcome the "stripping down of the game to its essentials", as if defense wasn't one of them. Ugh.

My solution? Simple: let the players play until somebody scores, just as they do in the playoffs. You'll never see that, of course--the owners like their money too much to ever condense the season enough to allow that proposal to fly. You'd have to have no more than three games in any week, with no matches on back-to-back nights. Or just allow ties. What's so bad about a tie? It means that on that night, the two teams were evenly matched. I like a game that doesn't have to have a winner and a loser. To me, that's a Canadian game.

And that's how I feel about that.