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Great piece Jay. Parity sucks. The league has become a league of teams playing it safe snd trying not to lose and it’s producing some boring hockey. Here are some suggestions:
Sadly the shootout is here to stay, so make games worth 3 points and eliminate the loser point in OT. You win during the team portion of the game, you get 3 points, the loser gets squat. Only shootout wins would be worth 2 points and only then does the loser get a point.
Next, let goalies play the puck wherever they’d like. However, once out of the crease and playing the puck, the goalie becomes fair game.
Eliminate the automatic penalty when the puck goes in the crowd. The refs can still call delay of game if they feel it was deliberate. Also stop calling both players when a player takes a dive or blatantly embellishes, just penalize the faker.
Finally reduce the amount of games against non conference opponents to once per season and add more divisional games. Familiarity breeds contempt and hate makes for better rivalries and more entertaining games. Division teams should play at least one back to back set of weekend games every season too.
It’s worth a try, no one wants a league where every team plays not to lose and finishes with 90-95 points. |
