If the intention of the coach's challenge was to kill the spirit of the game, mission accomplished, NHL.

This goes beyond what happened in Friday night's affair between the Chicago Blackhawks and the St. Louis Blues. In which the two teams, competing hard for a victory to advance their team closer to the ultimate prize - the Stanley Cup - were both caught in a maelstrom of happenstance that unfortunately cost one team a win.

Whether you agree or disagree on the call is largely immaterial - the fact that the NHL has come to this point is the issue at play.

Playoff hockey has always been special. Call me old fashioned, but whatever you think of what has been done to the game on Gary Bettman's watch has, until now, largely been relegated to the regular season. Playoffs are "when the real hockey starts". That's what hockey fans have said for decades. That's why every building is standing room only, and why the cities of the teams involved come to a stop when their club is playing in the postseason.

It's what has made the NHL, in my view, the best sports league in North America.

But now, we're doing away with the 'specialness' of the playoffs. From coach's challenges to lack of fighting (which is naturally going away and has always been less in the playoffs..and is probably debate worthy in this context anyway) to referee's making thin penalty calls, to a mentality that "we can fix it" even when there is no problem, we're no longer being treated to the kind of hockey that has branded the NHL as can't miss from April through June.

What is worse is that the NHL clubs are only doing what they can within the system. You can't fault Joel Quenneville for taking a shot at a review by using his coach's challenge. What's the worst that can happen? You lose a time out? Big deal - the odds, even at 100 to 1, of getting a goal called back in a 1-1 playoff game late in the third outweighs by a magnitude of a thousand the loss of a 30-second breather.

And what's to stop any team from doing this in every tight game? If I'm an NHL coach, regardless of the fine print in the NHL rulebook relating to how precisely offside and goaltender interference penalties work, I'm using my challenge on any goal in a tied or one goal game deep into the final period of regulation. Why not? Even if the chances are slim, I'm giving my team every chance to remain in the game. Isn't that my duty as a coach?

And is this the intention behind this addition? Was the advent of the coach's challenge meant to provide riveting five minute (or longer) looks at 15 angles of a replay while watching referees and linesmen squint at a six-inch tablet? It's an absolute mockery of the game, and the fans in attendance and watching at home (or at the bar) shouldn't have to sit through it.

Whatever you think of the idea behind the coach's challenge, and whether or not you agree with a call made as a result of the challenge, it's hard to defend what it's done to the game to date. In an effort to 'modernize' and get with the times technologically, we've reduced this thing we love, a game always known as one of inches, and we've reduced it to a game of millimeters or a game of "guess which pixel on your screen is white or blue."

It will never be perfect, and there will never be a system that gets it right 100% of the time. We know this to be true...so why not leave it to the human beings on the ice? I'm not saying there shouldn't be video replay and goal reviews - but in trying to re-create something that is seen as popular or entertaining in another sport (you have to admit - the NFL has the coach's challenge down to a science at this point...and even they still don't get it right every time), the NHL has killed the very thing they are intending to preserve - the spirit of the game.

In baseball, the umpires make judgment calls on balls and strikes in every inning of every game. Shouldn't Major League Baseball champion the use of technology to make sure every pitch is actually a ball or a strike? Of course not. Baseball knows there will be room for judgment as human beings are the ones making the calls. Why can't hockey do that?

You may disagree, and that's fine. Maybe I'm too old school and was spoiled growing up on this game from the early 80's up to now. I've seen hilarious gaffes (Brett Hull's foot in the crease, eh Sabres fans?) and some great calls too (non-call of goalie interference on Marty Brodeur on a goal with 0.2 seconds left in regulation during the Hurricanes 2009 playoff run). But in the path of trying to change things for the better, the NHL has lost sight of basic things that has made the NHL Playoffs the amazing thing it is.

Here's hoping it's not beyond being saved.


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