Wednesday’s FTB: Rule change

On Monday the official Twitter Sports account posed this question to the internet: if you could propose a rule change in your favourite sport, what would it be?

It’s a great question, and provoked a lot of fun answers ranging from completely improbable...

...to intriguing...

...to desperately needed for the success of the sport.

I am, of course, going to shamelessly steal that question to once again talk about how much the shootout sucks. Also, I can’t really remember any of the other rules of hockey right now, and at this point have only the vaguest memories of the sport as a whole (there’s... sticks, right? and maybe knives? ice??)

Anyways. The shootout is bad.

I think that’s fairly universally agreed upon – feel free to yell at me in the comments section if not – and yet there it remains in the NHL rule book, an unceremonious anvil falling on the adrenaline rush of 3-on-3 overtime, leaving the goalie to drag the limp body of many a game over the finish line. It’s boring, it’s not actually hockey, and occasional moments of brilliance don’t quite make up for how much of a sad, limp ending it slaps on to what very well might have been an otherwise amazing hockey game.

I’m not saying there’s no place for it at all though. While I do think that if you let 3-on-3 go on for an undetermined amount of time, the game will always eventually end with someone scoring a goal, arguably there is always the off-chance that both goalies might decide to stand on their heads and/or both teams might decide that trying to score goals is overrated. Or, maybe more realistically, a certain union might take umbrage with their members being required to play for an unending and indeterminate amount of time.

Which, of course, brings us to my proposed solution: ten minutes of 3-on-3 overtime, which is then followed by the shootout, because honestly any team that can’t score a goal with ten minutes of 3-on-3 deserves the shootout. If, however, extending 3-on-3 is truly impossible, I do have another, acceptable alternative that just involves a minor tweak to the set up of the shootout itself: the goalies take the shots in the shootout and a rotation of skaters try and stop them from scoring.

I’m ready for the rule change when you are, National Hockey League.

On to the links!

Looking forward to next season, we take a stab at what the Marlies might look like:

Jason Spezza talks the aging curve and the potential of returning as a Leafs next season:

Over on the Athletic, Dom Luszczyszyn has put together a similarity score generator in pursuit of identifying the most unique player in the league:

Brendan Shanahan appeared on Overdrive to talk about the pause in the season as well as his legacy and time in the league:

The University of Lethbridge has shut down both its men’s and women’s hockey teams:

And that’s all for now!

Happy Wednesday everyone!