Fork in the road for the Hawks
Bob Verdi of the Trib has an excellent column on the Blackhawks' golden- and maybe last- chance to restore hockey to its once-proud place among Chicago's professional sports.
By the way... upon further review, as they say in football, I hate the rule changes. Hate 'em!
By the way... upon further review, as they say in football, I hate the rule changes. Hate 'em!
Comments
Admittedly, this makes hockey's rules a great deal easier to explain, though! ;)
I like that they brought back the tag/touch-up offsides. I like limiting the goalie's puck handling area & resizing the goalie's equipment to non-gargantuan levels. I could go either way about the red line offsides change, but I think it'll be good as long as they truly clamp down on calling interference & obstruction. The addition of video reviews (not in-game, but still...) to penalize diving & embellishments is also a good thing.
I even like the shift to a shootout to determine a winner. It's not ideal, but maybe it'll keep teams from playing for ties. I don't necessarily have anything against ties, but I have a great deal against teams not playing full out to win -- playing not to lose shouldn't be rewarded! Besides, there's nothing wrong with having a little excitement via a one-on-one battle. It in no way detracts from the team nature of the game, no more than baseball's string of one-on-one (pitcher vs batter) confrontations lessens baseball being a team game.
Changes that I would've like to have seen, but that didn't happen -- that's another interesting area. I'd have liked to have seen some sort of no-touch icing introduced. I also would've liked to have seen the ice surface enlarged. Much like the NBA, the NHL needs to have a larger playing area, to accommodate the bigger, stronger, & faster players. Hockey needs to emphasize the speed & skill aspects - physicality & toughness will always be there & show through, but cannot be allowed to stifle the speed & skill/creativity.
Oh yeah, and the league needs to give Bill Wirtz electroshock treatments until he gets with the program & starts to televise all the Hawks games. (Protecting ticket-holders, my a$$!!!)
-ghp