> game.  I think the rules need revision.  I feel assists--in ANY sport--
> should be awarded only to players whose pass results directly in a
> score.  Last week goalie Corwin Saurdiff of the NMU Wildcats was given
> an assist because he sent a clearing pass to mid-ice which was taken by
> a forward whogot it to a center who skated in on the Colorado College
> goal and fired off a shot from about 30 feet which scored.  I mean, come
> on!  Even the SECOND pass wasn't all that instrumental in leading to the
> score-at least, not much more so than any other pass.  Saurdiff's?!
 
        I think that the debate hinges on the definition of a "pass which
directly results in a score." In my opinion, the goal would never have
occured if both Saurdiff and the forward never made the passes to get the
puck to the center. Hence, they both do deserve to get assists. You can
make the argument that going back to the second pass is too much, i.e. why not
just grant one assist per goal? But I believe that two assists usually is a
good indication of where credit should go. Some goals probably
deserve just one, others maybe as many as three, but in practice, I think
two works. It's the old "tick-tac-toe" principle: pass-pass-score.
>
> Again, I realize that this is the rule and the tradition, but I think it
> cheapens the assist concept.  An equally troublesome area, to me, is the
> fact that the current rule/tradition on assist scoring awards assists to
> the player whose rebound is knocked in by the goal scorer.  Is this
> logical?   The "assister" wasn't trying to get an assist, he was
> shooting himself.  Can you imagine how many "assists" would be awarded
> in basketball if shots put in off offensive rebounds resulted in assists
> for the player whose shot missed and was then rebounded by the eventual
> scorer?  We'd all be laughing.  Yet that's exactly what we do in hockey.
> Yes, I know that sometimes teams and individual players deliberately
> fire low-percentage shots at the goalie simply hoping that a teammate
> will pick up the rebound and score with it.  That's good tactics, but it
> doesn't mean that the shot falls into the category of a great pass which
> was intended to lead to a score by a fellow player.
>
        We have to look at the definition again, although I will admit that
this is a little harder to justify. The wording states "pass which directly
results in a goal," but the intrinsic meaning of the definition, at least
how it has come to be interpretated, is "play which directly results in a
goal." That may seem like definitional slight of hand, but I think it is the
real meaning of an assist, de facto if not de jure. The comparison with
basketball is a good one, but my answer would be that the intrinsic
definition of an assist is different in basketball, and so what you are
basically doing is comparing two different concepts used in two totally
different areas.
 
        The argument simply is that I believe there is something elegant,
natural, and just innately right about the defintion of a hockey assist. The
geometry and balance of the game would be marred by a change in the present
rules, even if it is difficult to articulate exactly why. Maybe one thing
that draws us all to the game, subconsciously or otherwise, is the
egalitarianism which states that assisting on a goal is equal to the actual
goal itself. I believe in that, and I wouldn't want to change that.
--
If I could do one thing                                     Rob Callum
I would try to write and sing              [log in to unmask]
A song that ends your questioning
And makes you believe in me.         --Dan Fogelberg