Dave Hendrickson <[log in to unmask]> made some good points in
his post about shootouts.  He also slipped up a little...
 
>A guy I coach with took his team of 1980-born players to a tournament
>last week in Detroit, a significant trek, and lost in the semis on a
>shootout.  IMO if you can drive for double-digit hours to a tournament and
>get bounced in a shootout, then having a league game that adds a shootout at
>the end of the 5 minute OT and doesn't penalize the shootout loser, may not be
>a bad idea.
 
     Uh-huh.  So, if you can go to Singapore and get caned until you pass
out as punishment for vandalism, instituting the same punishment here for a
slightly more serious crime might not be a bad idea.  Sorry, but the logic
here has eluded me completely.
 
>  *  Teams will play defensively in the 5 minute OT to guarantee the 1 point
>     and then go for the 2 points in the shootout.
 
     This I agree with and I pointed it out the last time this subject was
discussed on the list.  The idea of this being "canceled out" by the NC$$
counting SO games as ties is intriguing, but I'm not ready to buy it.  I
would still expect HE to have a higher percentage of OT games go to
shootouts than they have traditionally had OT games end in ties.
 
Another opinion was offered by Steve Moerland <[log in to unmask]>...
>   I am for shoot-outs largely because I despise ties.  To re-use my old
>analogy, ties are like going to see a whodunit movie without finding out
>whodunit.
 
     To borrow the same analogy, then, a shootout is like seeing the
detective at the end of the film say, "I don't know whodunnit, but it's
one of these two people so I'll just flip a coin to decide."  I doubt
that flick would get "two thumbs up."  Maybe it would even be more
interesting to (perish the thought) leave a little to the imagination of
the viewer.  How important is it just to have a bloody "resolution"?  People
want everything to be black or white in a mostly grey world.
 
     The comments of Coach Walsh and Mike Machnik on the subject are
revealing.  Coach Walsh talked about how this would increase fan interest
while Mike pointed out that among hockey-l types this would probably not
be the case.  Thus it seems to me to be another example of the higher-ups
in a sport considering non-fans of their sport to be more important than
the fans ("oh, they'll grumble but they'll keep coming to games anyway;
they're hooked").  If it's so important to draw new fans to the sport
how about working towards getting more teams and getting more exposure
via TV (and I don't think a shootout is necessary in order to get the
latter; they could try more simple things like not having their championship
game on opposite the basketball semis).  Personally, I wouldn't want to
see college hockey become as insanely popular as the NC$$ hoops tourament.
Imagine having a Dick "Oh, Baby" Vitale type of announcer, or one like
that nickname guy saying "great kick save by Blaine 'Foot' Lacher!"  Makes
me shudder.
     Having said all this, I'll hopefully prove that I'm not a complete
curmudgeon by saying that I wouldn't mind seeing more shootout type
competitions as long as they are not part of the games themselves.  I don't
know if anyone else is old enough to remember the early-to-mid 70s when
the NHL actually had a contract with NBC and they had "Showdown" in between
periods.  It was an ongoing series (throughout the season) of penalty
shot showdowns with two skaters alternating penalty shots on a goalie for
big bucks.  Being just a little kid at the time, I loved this.  My two
friends (one of whom was a goalie) would go out on the lake and the other
two of us would play "showdown", taking penalty shots.  I like the skills
competitions at the NHL all-star game and even the slam-dunk contests in
the NBA.  These are world-class athletes; why not let them show their
stuff.  Just keep it separate from the real games and don't let it decide
outcomes for an entire team.
 
Just a little more kerosene for the blaze...
 
-Glenn