Probably the most scrutinized position in all of professional sports is that of the official. Any time an official makes a mistake it enrages fans, it spurs arguments over whether or not the official’s blown call cost a team the game. On Saturday night, the Flames and Canucks were a centre of this sort of debate. There are two components to this discussion: first the way that NHL officials call the game as it stands; and second, why the NHL is so hung up on tweaking the rules to increase scoring.
What’s a hook?
Since the end of the lockout in 2005 the NHL started a crusade to change the way the game was called. They wanted to open the game up, increase scoring, and reduce the “clutch and grab” hockey that was ruining the game. While most fans will agree that watching a Stanley Cup Final between the New Jersey Devils and the Minnesota Wild in 2004 would have been the most excruciating of experiences, and it was actually quite obvious that the game was indeed in need of some changes to bring back some speed to the game, the NHL made the mistake of thinking that it’s simply more scoring that makes the NHL game so exciting. So they implemented the infamous “new NHL.” The emphasis of which was supposed to be on cleaning up the play in the neutral zone, restricting the ability of trapping teams to impede forward progress of players, and make puck retrieval in the offensive zone easier for the offensive team.
But what’s resulted over the past three years, and is continuing into today, is a question of what’s actually a penalty. You hear it in almost every game on television; a colour commentator spouting the following infuriating phrase: “He got his stick on the hands, that’s going to be a hooking call every time!” (I’m looking at you Glenn Healy) My frustration is that it’s not always the case! Hooking is the easiest example and it’s almost always called wrong now. A hook should require an actual impediment of progress or ability to make a play. Simple contact of a stick to a players glove does not immediately mean a hooking penalty has occurred.
What results is a myriad of penalties that you can expect to see each and every game, but that really aren’t penalties. Then you get the plain old blown calls that can cost a team a game (even if they should have won it by not taking the second period off) because the ref doesn’t want to call a penalty late in a game or the age old concept of the even up call. Our examples from Saturday night’s contest. I’ll wager that the ref made the boarding call on Flames forward Todd Bertuzzi for two reasons:
1. Bertuzzi’s reputation
2. He didn’t call the flying elbow Bertuzzi threw on a Sedin the sequence before
It was clearly NOT a penalty to anyone with an open eye. Even at the speed of the NHL game someone should be able to tell that Bertuzzi PUSHING the Canuck forward into the glass from the hip AND from the side is not boarding, and that the reaction of said Canuck forward was Avery-esq in it’s blatant use of embellishment. There is no way that call should have been made. But at the same time, there is no excuse for Bertuzzi not have been called for elbowing. It was directly in-front of the official.
More Scoring, More Fun!
As previously stated, the NHL has made a bunch of changes to open the game up. I’d like to present the argument that they’re doing just the opposite now, and with each tweak of the rules to get more scoring, they make it harder and harder to watch. If you ask any fan of the game and ask them what they consider a great hockey game, they’ll tell you that it’s end to end action, speed, intensity, battles in the offensive zone and scoring. But I’m complaining about these changes to increase scoring, what’s the deal!
The deal is, the changes the NHL have made under the guise of opening up the game have in fact done just the opposite. Watching a game where more than half of play is spent with either team on a power-play is not fun. It slows the game down and the changes the NHL keeps making only encourage more power-play scoring. A Bobby Orr end to end rush is far more exciting than a Dion Phaneuf slap-shot from the point.
So how do we fix it?
Someone needs to first of all, talk to the fans and ask them what they really want to see changed in the NHL, and the NHL is talking to the fans, but the focus is on marketing not actual game-play satisfaction. Restricting goaltenders playing the puck needs to be eliminated. A defenceman should be allowed to move a forward from in front of the net (within the rules, i.e. no cross-checking). Leave the size of the nets alone, and examine the size of goaltender equipment to determine what a goaltender really needs to be protected, and what he relying on to make a save. Officials should be subject to reviews of their previous game as a learning exercise, and officials should be allowed to admit that they made a mistake without severe repercussions. Officials are human, and they are going to make mistakes, but they also need to LEARN from those mistakes. The league can’t let incidental stick contact, collisions, and positional play continue to be ignored if they don’t actually consist of being a penalty. The NHL will continue to degrade as long as the league continues to ignore how to properly change the game to make it more exciting for fans.
That’s just my take, let’s hear yours!
