I have to disagree with most of the serious hockey fans I talk to. They think the shootout is stupid and ridiculous. I think it's not only necessary, but also an improvement.The shootout is necessary because the NHL needs to grow to survive. The league must let go of some of its sacred traditions. Sports fans want excitement. They want scoring. They have to be crowd-pleasers. It's a business. If you can't stand it, don't watch the NHL. The NHL doesn't have a monopoly on hockey.
The shootout is an improvement because it isn't quite as stupid as having dozens and dozens of games without winners. The NHL was the only major sports league that routinely took up hours of peoples time and loads of peoples cash and failed to let the celebrate or complain.
4 comments:
The shootout rule also is actually more common in hockey, outside of the NHL, so really it just means they're getting in line with the rest of the world.
yeah, his post provoked mine :)
Matthew, I must say I genuinely like the shootout. I'm happy 2 have the 5 mins of OT and then go into the shootout. The place I seeing it being a problem is in the playoffs, that's where I loved watchin double and trip OT.
Shootouts will not be part of the playoffs. We'll still have sudden death in the post-season. This is yet another reason I am perplexed by the traditionalists argument.
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