Just got back from an 8-day visit to London. Hated to leave you good readers in the middle of the season and flew home feeling guiltier than a Blue Jacket taking the ice in Vegas. But as Torts explained, that’s a good thing because you are going to get my best the rest of the way.

Besides, I see that Luke Schenn, who didn’t have any goals when I left, still doesn’t, so it doesn’t seem like I missed anything. And I got to tour castles and cathedrals that blimey, have been around almost as long as the Hurricanes have been building.

It was disappointing to learn that getting an audience with the Queen was almost as difficult as obtaining permission to talk to a Flyer assistant coach. But I did visit the cell at the Tower of London where the Avalanche held Matt Duchene for eight years.

Saw some beautiful stained glass windows, which colored views even rosier than a Sabre fan filling out his season ticket renewal form. Was fascinated by the Parliament War Rooms, where Winston Churchill ran World War II in an underground bunker even harder to find than Rangers in the dressing room following a loss.

Rushed to the Victoria and Albert Museum in the belief that half of it was devoted to the career of Andrew Alberts, but alas, mostly what I saw were ancient vases once used as trash cans for Blackhawk scouting reports on Kyle Beach. All the displays had Do Not Touch signs on them, which I thought was a great idea for keeping Micheal Neuvirth healthy, since everything else has failed,

The only hockey I saw was on roller skates in front of Hyde Park. But I did brush up on my football by attending two Premier League football games, including a 3-0 gobsmacking of defending champion Chelsea by Bournemouth. Having been to many NHL games in Montreal, I recognized the steam coming out of the head of the suffering chap next to me and tried to remind him that even Admiral Nelson lost a few on shootouts. But he was inconsolable, telling me it was particularly humiliating to lose to a team in danger of being relegated.

“Relegated to what?” I asked.

“Bloody booted out of the league,” he said.

Yikes, in the NHL we like our coups bloodless, like with the Panthers every few months. But it turned out that in the Premier League every season the bottom three teams get sent to a lower level league and the three top performers from their version of the AHL get promoted.

Now, there are things about soccer that I’m not so sure about. Saw no sign of a blueline, but practically every good scoring chance was ruled offsides regardless. They must have a secret room somewhere to judge these things, just like the NHL has.

Other things seemed curious. In hockey, the happy goal scorer rushes to celebrate with his joyous teammates. In soccer, the striker runs away from them and they have to chase him to the corner like 10 GMs waving checks at John Tavares. The clock never stops, not even for injuries, it being up to the referee to extend the contest with something called added time. Seems only fair, but if the NHL contests were given extra time whenever a Ranger gets hurt, their games never would end.

But I loved that idea of relegation. And apparently so does Bill Peters who, after Sunday’s loss to San Jose, threatened to relegate practically his entire team to the press box or to Charlotte. As we say in the UK—or as Pavel Bure used to say while hanging at center ice and banging his stick on the ice–here, here!

Relegation would give the bottom feeders something to fight for, besides each other in the locker room, we mean. Having been relegated to covering the Leafs when Michel Petit had to be the rock of their blueline, I understand the motivation of pain and humiliation and think maybe the Sabres should try it. Boot ‘em out for a year and bring up the entire Rochester Americans, most of whom must think they could do better than a lot of the Sabres, anyway.

Besides, relegation is not the end of the world. Look at Zdeno Chara, practically relegated for assisted living at age 40, this season defending as well as any defenseman in the NHL. Or consider the Jets, relegated to being irrelevant, no more.

All right then, we are agreed! We will carry on and relegate:

1) Brad Marchand to the press box for 40 games the next time he raises an elbow to anything but to lift a mug of beer. Just five games for a five-time offender? And then put the Little Ball of Hate on display amidst all that is supposedly good about the game in the All Star tournament? Bollocks!

Having covered The Broad Street Bullies in their heyday, we heard every apples vs. oranges argument for every suspension being too tough or too soft. But some of the arbitrariness– or the perception of such–would disappear if there was a strict scale of suspended games depending on the number of times a player has been an offender. Let him know the hefty minimum if he doesn’t clean up his act.

2) Video replay for goalie interference should go the way of forcing a tie-up in the corner. Be gone with it. Replay was correctly intended to overturn grievous mistakes. To apply it to judgment calls is causing more problems than it solves. “We don’t know what’s a goal anymore or what interference is,” said Justin Abdelkader after the Red Wings were tied by Florida with seven seconds to go on a goal Saturday night that looked a lot like others that have been disallowed.

This is the majority view around an increasingly baffled league. This off-season, the NFL is going to study, and hopefully simplify, the rules on juggling catches on the goalline, sideline and end line. The NHL needs to follow.

3) Relegate the use of the word “great” on hockey commentators for use only on old Mario Lemieux, Gordie Howe and Bobby Orr highlight videos. Any color man who utters a word that the dictionary defines as “considerably above the norm” to describe a pass by Jordan Martinook should be relegated to the broadcast booth of the Quad City Mallards for no less than a month. Wayne Gretzky was great. Sidney Crosby is great. Give Connor McDavid another five years and he likely will be forever considered great.

But the term never should apply to hustle to keep the puck in the zone or a routine backchecking play. Splendid, excellent, superb, sharp and fine are acceptable, enthusiastic adjectives and much more credible.

4) Relegate the embellishment penalty for use only when, in the opinion of the referee, no foul was committed by a defending player. To give license to the referees to hand them out against a player legitimately fouled is illogical: He went down too hard for the degree of force of the crosscheck or the stick between the legs? Ridiculous. The player either was fouled or he wasn’t.

There is not going to be an epidemic of diving. Chronic abusers will be subject to great shame by opponents and even teammates.

5) Having made the excellent and successful decision to cut back on shootouts by making overtime competition three-on-three, take the next step and get rid of the shootout altogether. Play a ten minute three-on-three and for the 20 per cent of the time or whatever that nobody scores, declare a hard-earned point for each team, no additional cheapie. The NFL still has ties and besides, no true fans complained about them in hockey until they were done away with coming out of the lockout.

Playoff spots are being decided by a skills contest between four players out of the 20 on a team, and that competition doesn’t include an essential and exciting component of the game we all love—the pass. I relegate anyone who buys a ticket in the hope of seeing a shootout to conversion therapy. Like Ryan Reaves trying to break a tie in the ninth round, the concept is just unnatural to the sport.

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