Posted on 02/22/2005 6:15:11 PM PST by SamAdams76
PITTSBURGH (AP) - The changes might be drastic enough to tempt 44-year-old Wayne Gretzky into coming out of retirement.
After years of lobbying for a more scoring-friendly and fan-appealing league, Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux is convinced the NHL is ready to grant his wish. The only problem is ending the lockout that has doomed this NHL season and could threaten another before owners and players agree on a labour contract.
The 39-year-old Lemieux hopes he has some more goals left in him when it happens, now that the league seems determined to crack down on the on-ice mugging and the defend-every-inch-of-ice defences that have made NHL shootouts as rare as football single-wing offences.
The scoring dropoff is so acute that only Tampa Bay's Martin St. Louis (94 points) had 90 points last season - not even half of Gretzky's 215 in 1985-86 or Lemieux's 199 in 1988-89. In only 10 years, the NHL has seen its goals-per-game average drop from 7 to 5.
With the NHL desperate to rebuild its fan base and increase national TV ratings that were lower than Arena Football's, commissioner Gary Bettman is promising drastic rules changes to bring back the speed, flow and offensive rhythm that have been missing since Gretzky was in his prime.
Lemieux's reply: What took so long?
"There's been a lot of talk about making the game more exciting, opening up the game, bringing back the offence that was there in the 1980s and early 1990s," said Lemieux, the Penguins' player-owner. "It's going to be a lot more exciting when the NHL comes back. It's going to be a great game with, hopefully, a lot more scoring and a lot of offence ... and (less) clutching and grabbing."
Many of the new rules are being tried this season in the AHL, which expects to have at least two 100-point scorers (Binghamton's Jason Spezza and Manchester's Mike Cammalleri) and possibly more. Among them are shootouts to decide overtime ties, wider blue-lines that increase the size of the neutral zone, less distance between the nets and the end boards, smaller goaltending gear, no-touch icing and tag-up offsides.
The NHL is also toying with eliminating the red-line, thus doing away with the dreaded two-line passing rule and creating the end-to-end breaks so common in international play.
NHL vice-president Colin Campbell met last month with six coaches to discuss the planned relaunch, saying even fans of winning teams were complaining about the duller-than-dull style of play.
"My gut tells me we will be playing (next season), and the game will be better," Minnesota Wild president Doug Risebrough said. "We have to build the game and built it around the fans."
Because of the NHL's traditionally strong fan base in cities such as Detroit, Toronto, Denver, Philadelphia and Montreal, experts say the first shutdown of a major North American sports league for a full season may not devastate the league. While baseball attendance dropped about 20 per cent after its 1994-95 strike, hockey attendance increased 10 per cent following a half-season shutdown in 1994-95.
think you can make an argument that hockey, compared to baseball, basketball and even football, has a higher percentage of hardcore committed fans," former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson said. "It's a much smaller universe, but NHL owners assume their season-ticket base and committed viewers will return when league play resumes."
The NHL is also counting on the ever-growing popularity of high-definition television to boost TV ratings that are respectable on a regional basis but minuscule nationally.
Hockey, like football, is well-suited for HDTV's movie screen-like wide picture, which is five times sharper than conventional analog TV. The league is also excited about the ever-expanding acceptance of HDTV, which saw more than 1 million sets sold recently during the run-up to the Super Bowl.
To aid the impression that hockey is a fast, edgy game, NHL uniform supplier Reebok plans to outfit players in flashier, sleeker and more formfitting uniforms next season.
"HDTV helps all sports, but it really helps hockey," Pilson said. "Fans unfamiliar with the game can see passes being made and collected without a skip in the picture - it helps with fans who haven't played the game."
The NHL believes the changes will force coaches to play a more wide-open style. In recent seasons, overachieving teams such as the Carolina Hurricanes, Anaheim Mighty Ducks and Calgary Flames relied on suffocating, star-controlling defences to reach the Stanley Cup final.
"Hopefully, we're going to take that out of that game," Lemieux said.
As well, there are too many ties in hockey. Ties suck. When I pay good money to see a game that ends in a tie, I feel as though I wasted my money.
Here is my proposal for dealing with tie games. Have an overtime where it starts out 4-on-4. Then if the game is still tied after 5 minutes, go 3-on-3. If the game is still tied after 5 more minutes, go 2-on-2. If we manage to go 15 minutes in OT without a score, then go 1-on-1 until the game is won!
Now that would make for one hell of an exciting OT!
Of course, we will have to get around to actually playing hockey before any of this can come to pass.
We should boycott the NHL for a month, to show them who is really in charge of their finances....the fans.
I thought too that some were talking about widening the goal posts....also I'd be a big supporter of the no touch icing rule.....too many players get hurt with the rule as it is now...plus you are right about the red line....get rid of the two line pass penalty....
Just the removal of the red line would by itself clear up alot of the problems, I think.
They forgot to list the 95 Devils, the prototype trap team.
The medium is the message. Radio made baseball in the 1920s. TV made the NFL in the 1950s. HDTV and the NHL in the 2000s?
I'd rather watch Rollerball.
Not a single word aboot the salaries/ticket prices issue...
THe NHLPA can kiss 25% of their jobs at a minimum goodbye. Those third and fourth liners are going to the AHL since there will be a contraction of probably 10 teams. Likely candidates are:
FLA ANH NYI PIT ATL LA NASH CLBS SJ PHO
To Boob "not"goodenough- Way to negotiate, ensuring the loss of at least 25% of your membership their jobs. To top it off, there is a net salary decrease for the rest of the membership.
To Gary Butthead: Just remember, we aint gonna see AHL quality at NHL prices when you deign to start the season
These are all good rule changes except for the no-touch icing. I never understood why people are against this rule since it could keep a play going instead stopping the game.
I would also like to see the players serve a full two minute penalty like they use too. This would cut down on all the grabbing that goes on.
MOst of these ideas vary between the pointless and the stupid:
Among them are shootouts to decide overtime ties - shootouts suck, don't care what the sport is, shootouts are trying to decide a game by having the players play a different game.
wider blue-lines that increase the size of the neutral zone - they just moved the blue-lines in to make the neutral zone smaller, now they want to make it bigger again?!
less distance between the nets and the end boards - they just moved the nets further away from the board, now they want to move them back again?!
smaller goaltending gear - won't help much, but might as well give it a shot
no-touch icing - OK I'm for this one
tag-up offsides - and this one
The NHL is also toying with eliminating the red-line - eliminating the red-line does nothing for NCAA, just means teams that are behind camp a guy out at the far blue line and try to get it to him with desperation passes, most of which result in icing
Funny after doing everything he can to destroy the game in this labor dispute NOW all of a sudden Gary wants to save the game! Hey Gary, what kind of TV ratings do you think you're going to get after ESPN opts out in APril because you still don't have a CBA and nobody is convinced they'll even be an 05-06 season?! Get the CBA signed Gary, then resign, and let somebody that knows a damn thing about hockey be the commish.
Jacques Lemaire's trap needs to be abolished! It has ruined hockey.
Getting rid of the Red line is a good start.
Good ideas.
Because it doesn't keep play going, most of the time it results in ticking 5 seconds off the clock waiting for a player to skate down and touch the puck, the rest of the time it results in knee injuries from two guys skating into the boards at top speed.
80% of all penalties go the full two minutes already. I would like to see every hold and hook called though, I think ti would take about a month of teams playing 90% of the game at 3-3 for the players to finally get the point and start playing hockey.
"Hopefully, we're going to take that out of that game," Lemieux said.
It may help some, but defenses always catch up with offenses. It is also easier to build defensive-oriented teams due to the thin talent that you have in an over-expanded league.
Also increasing the size of the goal. Goalies like Patrick Roy and Ken Dryden were tall, 6'2" and 6'4" respectively, but both were under 210lbs. Now guys like Olaf Kolzig 6'4" 220 and Kevin Weeks 6'4" 225 are the norm. Goalies and their pads are bigger than before and there's just no net to shoot at.
The no touch icing rule is good too.
Amen! But just like all major league sports, TV is calling the shots! It seems that all they want excitement for the casual fan. TV doesn't care about the 'purists' or the traditions of the game.
Well, I guess physical play along the boards isn't for everybody. I like to see two players hustling to get the puck and if they run into each other, it's all the better. I can't remember too many players getting severely injured doing this.
You're overestimating the time it takes for a player to touch the puck for icing. It's probably more like 3 seconds and with a 20 minute period that's no big deal.
They always try to enforce penalties in the beginning of the season but it never lasts. My reason for a full two minutes is to establish a tougher penalty. If teams start to see two goals scored on a minor penalty, they might be more careful with their play. Of course like you said 80% of the time there are no goals scored. But who knows, it might help.
"They forgot to list the 95 Devils, the prototype trap team."
Yup. Another reason I hate that team.
I like physical play along the boards, but the icing tag-up doesn't create that, it makes a race to a painful collision, it's not a matter of them running into each other the problem is how they run into the boards, I've seen a few guys get knee injuries from it.
OK 3 seconds, times 10 or so icings a period, is a big waste of time that slows the game down.
They always claim to enforce the penalties at the beginning of the season, I want to see real total enforcement. Going a full two minutes all the time might help, but not if the refs are unwilling to call the penalties in the first place. The really need to irradicate the judgement call from hooking and holding, call them all, all the way through the season, I figure a month or so will see a change in player behavior but the refs shouldn't consider the war won.
I think bigger offensive ice would be good, players are bigger and need more room to operate.
I don't think tag-up offsides was being abused, I thought that was the point of the rule, allow teams to quickly dump the puck back in offensive ice, regroup, and chase. Between getting rid of that rule and stick handling goalies the dump and chase is dead, and that's one of the problems the game has right now. Everyone has gotten so good at the trap you can't carry the puck across the blue-line, and everybody has gotten so good at getting the puck out of the corner you can't dump and chase anymore, which pretty much rules out both the way there are to get sustained offense. Now the best way for a team to get control in offensive ice is to force a defensive turn-over. That's why I actually like the rules they added last year limiting goalie movement, we might never be able to get rid of the trap but at least we can bring back the dump.
IMHO since they already blew the point scale with the OT loss thing they should blow the point scale for games in a way that encourages risk taking. My idea is to make regulation wins 3 points, OT wins 2 points, and I haven't decided what to do about ties, OT losses should just be considered losses though no points. Maybe no points for a tie would be good, push players to win, no more defending a point BS.
Unfortunately with the instigator rule the Hansons would be suspended out of the game in weeks. The instigator rule sucks.
If average to smaller sized white guys play a game with a urinal cake after striking for insanely overinflated salaries.... will people watch?
I say go to a penalty shoot-out after 5 minutes. A penalty shot in hockey is one of the most exciting things in sports, but it occurs so rarely.
I say eliminate the ability for short-handed teams to ice the puck with impunity, make it result in a face-off in their zone just as if it was even-strength.
I rolled that idea around in my head a few years ago, never saw anything wrong with it, it just fell out and now you reminded me. I like it, should improve the effectiveness of the power play, which seems to be a goal of everybody wanting to tweak with the rules, and it would make the icing rule a lot easier for new fans to understand which would probably help get converts.
I love penalty shots, but I'm still againt the shootout.
Here's an idea: all defensive obstruction penalties in defensive ice result in a penalty shot instead of a power play. Increases penalty shots, and avoid ineffective power plays. Just working from the top of my pointy head here.
It's so boring just watching the puck go down the ice and then having to come back up again. Plus if you're trying to protect a one-goal lead with less than two minutes, it's often safer to actually take a penalty, since you can simply ice the puck. The Dallas Stars used to do this all the time. So at least make it so that in the last two minutes of a game, if you are shorthanded, icing the puck will still result in a faceoff. I think that could work also.
I don't blame the Stars for doing it. When I'm playing computer hockey and nursing a one goal lead late I deliberately take a penalty too, for the same reason, ice it at will.
The NHL could change the coincidental minor rules back to what they were in the early 80's and send both players off. That results in more 4-on-4, 4-on-3 and 3-on-3 situations which also open things up. Nothing was more frightening in the NHL than the Edmonton Oilers 4-on-4.
That would be good. Which brings up a permanent reductions to 4-4. Way back in the early days hockey was 6-6, they got rid of the "roamer" because players were getting too big and there wasn't enough room on the ice, could be that time again. Not sure how to handle penalties though, maybe the first penalty the other team adds a player (5-4 power play just like the old days) and the second one the team loses a guy (5-3), dropping to 4-2 seems too cruel.
LOL! Just play by in-line hockey rules and be done with it.
Real purists attend the home games and listen to the distant, crackling late-night AM feed of the away games on their radios as they lay awake at night imagining themselves taking a pass from the Rocket and breaking in on Eddie Giacomin, beating him low to the stick side...
Well, at least that's how WE use to do it. (Of course the season was usually only a couple of weeks long... at best.)
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