5 WAYS I'D CHANGE THE NHL

Over on the Exclamation Point's Fake Hockey Blog Page, Greg "Puck Daddy" Wyshynski had a bunch of complete nobodies write about the 5 Ways they'd change the NHL. However, this is the definitive list because it was written by me. Most of them have to do with increasing scoring chances and focusing on skill without ruining the game as it's been played for the last 50 years.

1. Make the goalie pads smaller. I'm sick of people saying that the nets should be bigger. That's horseshit, because it completely changes the game to where you can't compare scoring records to those that came before. Instead, go back to what the goalies wore back in the early 80s, as evidenced by this Bill Ranford photo.

(And get rid of the trapezoid, which is totally useless. It also sounds stupid, making even the best play-by-play guy sound like he's giving a geometry lesson.)

2. Get rid of the shootout. It was an amusing and often enjoyable novelty at first, but now it's turned into a supremely crappy way to end games. Because the point is more important than the spectacle, none of the players take a chance and show off their skill. Now all they do is skate straight in, shoot it right on net, and 90% of the time get stuffed. This is my solution: play a 10 minute OT period 4-on-4, and then 5 minutes 3-on-3. If the fans aren't happy with a tie after that, there's no pleasing them and they should watch arena football instead.

3. Remove fighting. There's no need for it any more. If you want to increase scoring and skill in the league, how about getting rid of the skaters who never shoot the puck? Send all the goons to Russia, I hear they have a league or something over there.

4. Switch the home and away benches. We've mentioned this on the blog before, but this way the defense has a greater distance to change during the 1st and 3rd periods. This works great for us traditionalists, because it will increase scoring without changing the fundamentals of the game, just the strategy regarding shift changes.

5. Change these three rules:
* Remove the nebulous "distinct kicking motion" rule; if the puck hits the offensive player's skate anywhere, with intent or not, it's not a goal.
* Players may only use wooden sticks. Those crappy composite sticks that explode just when someone's about to unleash a slapshot suck.
* Don't give a 2 minute delay of game penalty when the puck is accidentally sent over the glass. Just make the faceoff in the team's zone, and don't allow them to make a personnel change, or talk to one another, or smile.

6. Get rid of Gary Fucking Bettman. Yeah I know, this is a bonus, but it needs to be said constantly.

Let's not forget to mention that the Open Hockey Blog garnered an Honorable Mention in the Gary Bettman Portraits in Heroism contest in the "Best Use of Gary Coleman and an Incredibly Small Towel" category, for his awesome "Two Garys" (Photoshop done by Kris, creepy premise by me).