As a Boston Bruins fan, I found the 2004-05 NHL season delightful. The Bruins did not lose a single time that season, never once scoring fewer goals than their opponents. Of course, like every other NHL team, the Bruins didn’t actually play any games thanks to the lockout, which became a canceled season. However, it’s once again time to cry out “Game on” as the NHL prepares for the 2005-06 campaign.
But does anyone in Indiana really care?
Hoosiers are currently focused on the Indianapolis Colts’s training camp, Ron Artest’s return and the Cubs’s annual disappointment, among other water cooler topics. However, I sense the majority of sports fans ‘round these here parts aren’t excited about the NHL’s second coming. This could be, in part, because fans are either unaware of the league’s upcoming rule changes, or they don’t understand why these new rules are the coolest alteration since cavemen upgraded from animal skins to Levi’s Dockers.
The primary purpose of the rule changes is to increase scoring. After all, soccer isn’t popular in America because most fans simply don’t enjoy a “high scoring” contest that ends in a 1-0 score. The big change is allowing a pass to cross a blue line, then the red line. In the past, if a player passed across the blue line and the red line, this two-line pass was considered illegal. Essentially, hockey now has the equivalent of a fast break.
Also, if the pass comes from after the red line and passes the blue line closest to the goal in question, the receiving player can go back to the blue line and “tag up” to get the puck for a break, avoiding the previously naughty offsides call. The blue lines — which create this neutral zone that discourages fast breaking — have also been moved closer together, shrinking the neutral zone from 54 to 50 feet.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just flip on a game when the season starts. That is, if you can find a game on the, ahem, Outdoor Life Network, now that ESPN has declined its NHL contract (and rightfully so, judging from past ratings).
One more rink change worth noting is the new trapezoidal area behind each goal that will be painted so that goalies are not allowed to leave the area when behind the net. Also, goalies’s days of armoring up like Sir Lancelot are over. Goalie pads will be reduced by 11 percent, and they will no longer be allowed to park their Cadillacs in front of the goal, either. After the lockout, goalies probably had to sell their cars to NBA players, anyway.
Here’s some bad news for those who enjoy hockey brawls: If a player starts something in the last five minutes of a game, he will receive a game misconduct and a one-game suspension. This elimination of fighting can’t be good for NHL video game sales. Oh, and the player’s coach will also be fined $10,000, which must thrill coaches to no end.
Speaking of thrills, I recall being enthralled as a youngster when my hometown Fort Wayne Komets would head into a shootout, after a winner failed to emerge in overtime.
Thankfully, the NHL has finally decided a shootout is more riveting than finishing games in a tie. After the first overtime, each team will select three players to shoot. Whichever team has the most goals in the shootout will win the game by a single goal. If the two teams both score the same amount of goals after six shots, then the shootout turns to sudden death.
Without these rule changes, that’s just what the NHL would experience — a sudden death.
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