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Read, Listen If You Missed It and Thanks For The Words Jim
by Paul on 05/16/07 at 01:31 PM ET
Comments (4)
from Jim Kelley at Sportsnet,
No less a hockey authority then Bill Daly, the Deputy Commissioner of the National Hockey League agrees.
Now to be perfectly upfront here, Daly, who by the way loves the game as much, perhaps more, than the business of the game, isn’t calling for a change (not yet anyway), but in a brief audio interviewed that is still posted here (KK audio of interview with Bill Daly), a respected hockey blog site, Daly states in no uncertain terms that several of the designs are barely noticeable in terms of perception of being oversized and that they deserve to be looked at, maybe even under game conditions.
“It’s absolutely true with some of the testing we’ve had,” Daly said about the changes not being all that noticeable. “Even keen and ardent observers of the game (admit that) if you’re sitting in the stands you really wouldn’t notice the difference. Adding three or four inches on both sides and whether you add it to the top of the net or not, it’s almost imperceptible from a fan’s standpoint.”
Filed in: NHL Talk | KK Hockey | Permalink
Comments
I don’t care if a game is 1-0. Sometimes those games are the hardest fought, most interesting games. Watching teams score 9-6 isn’t usually very interesting. Changing the size of the nets to allow more goals is just dumb. Why not just get rid of the goalies? That’ll make for more goals. Why not just completely change the game to make it nothing but shootouts on empty nets? That’ll make for more goals. I get so frustrated when I hear this kind of talk. I’ve been a fan all my life. I don’t see the need to change what is already working fine with the game that I love. If new fans don’t get it, they’ll have to learn how the game works just like the rest of us did.
Posted by Jenn on 05/16/07 at 01:20 PM ET
Being a traditionalist, I say enough has changed. Make the game better through marketing not scoring!
Posted by Tony from Mid-Michigan on 05/16/07 at 01:38 PM ET
First off, kudos to Paul and the site for landing the interview and making some news. It’s a great, great accomplishment and you should be proud of it and everything else KK has given to hockey fans.
As for Daly’s comments, this one struck me: “Theoretically (the exposed area) could create a lot more, certainly a lot more scoring opportunities and likely more goals...”
A shot on goal is a scoring chance. A 2-on-1 is a scoring chance. A power-play, unless my Devils are involved, is a scoring opportunity. A larger net will create more goals, but it will not creat more scoring opportunities. That’s a matter of offensive flow, which is actually what people are talking about when they want “more offense” in hockey. No hockey fan wants 7-4 games every night…
Posted by Greg Wyshynski from Washington, D.C. on 05/16/07 at 10:20 PM ET
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Hmmm… there are some questionable premises in this article. (1) Since when are hockey fans and hockey traditionalists two different groups? Who are these “new fans” Kelley is talking about? It sounds kind of strange that somebody would decide “hey, I like this game… they should change one of the fundamental rules.” (2) Since when are people rejecting the idea of enlarging the nets because it “looks” different. Who cares if the change is perceptible from the upper deck? Does that make it less important of an alteration? Not to me. Changing the size of the nets remains a dumb idea.
Posted by Pat on 05/16/07 at 12:52 PM ET