Rob's Rants

I used to take the Olympics very seriously. Especially the Winter Olympics. I’m old enough to have watched the US hockey team beat the USSR to make it to the gold medal game. Since my father was Hungarian, I was brought up to hate Russians, so the victory was probably double-great for my family.

In college and for a couple years after I was a ski instructor, and I lived and breathed skiing. I have been a sponsor of the US Ski Team for a long time, but now I officially give up. Adding snowboarding was bad enough — a bunch of loose-panted slackers doing “tricks” doesn’t exactly honor the memory of Franz Klammer or Stein Eriksen or even Bill Johnson or the Maher brothers. But fine, it’s a new sport, so let them screw around.

Now, however, they’ve added a skiing sport that is simply a fucking joke. I’m talking of course of Ski Cross, which debuted not in the 2010 Olympics as people have been reporting, but as the punchline in the 1984 C-grade ski movie “Hot Dog, The Movie.” Only there it was known as the “Chinese Downhill.” Don’t believe me? Compare the Chinese Downhill below with the New York Times video of Ski Cross.

When the International Olympic Committee starts taking suggestions for sports from a cheezy movie who’s most memorable quote is “What-a ‘za fucka’ is a Chinese Downhill,” they’ve clearly jumped the shark. So they can kiss my ass. And “not on zis side, not on zis side, but right in zee middle.”

I’m sure we’re only a couple of years away from a Triple Lindy in the summer Olympic diving competition.

In the 2005-2006 season the National Hockey League introduced the shootout as a way of ending regular season games tied at the end of regulation play.

And it’s ruining the game.

During the 2005-2006 season the NHL was recovering from the player lockout and a jaded fan base that wasn’t coming back to the arenas. So among other changes to the rules, the NHL instituted the shootout hoping that the “excitement” of the one-on-one competition would bring fans back to the game. Many fans however, believe that they made the change as they were shopping for a TV partner knowing that the shootout would help add excitement while putting a definite time bound on the end of the game. It didn’t help and the NHL ended up with Versus as a TV partner.

At any rate, the shootout is a travesty. At it’s best, hockey is a team sport, not an individual competition. To decide a game played for 65 minutes by two teams with an individual competition is simply disgusting. And a one-on-one faux-breakaway is ridiculous. A real breakaway might be exciting, but not an artificial one where a guy standing at center ice skates towards the goalie down a specially zambonied “runway” to take a single shot on a prepared goalie who need only make one save with no concern for the rebound.

A real breakaway is exciting because it happens so rarely. And because it’s unpredictable – will the defense catch up? Will the offense pick up a rebound and score? Or, as so often happens, will the breaking team over-commit and will the defending team break back the other way? During a real breakaway, the team aspect of hockey is important, because the goalie can’t concentrate 100% on the breaking player. He must remain aware of other trailing players and the possibilities of a pass. This is what gives a real fan heart palpitations. Not a bogus breakaway with no chance of something going wrong. Hell, a good odd-man rush is more exciting.

In fact, the NHL has recently tried to increase the goal scoring in hopes of adding excitement. But the shootout isn’t even providing scoring. According to the NHL’s own stats, the percentage of shootout attempts resulting in a goal averages between 31.5% and 33.7% since the 2005-2006 season. One out of three attempts resulting in a goal is hardly exciting in my book.

Nope, the shootout is a sham. It’s an insult to the game. And I hate it.

If the NHL is serious about continuing this perversion of the game, then here’s a suggestion to at least add some excitement to this mess and change up the skills required.

Hold a mini skills competition to break a tie.

Seriously. If the game remains tied at the end of the current five minute overtime, the referee should hold a little ceremony where he rolls a single die or spins a wheel to pick the skill to decide the game (or maybe the captains can play rock, paper, scissors to decide – it’s already a farce, why not go all out). The results of the draw pick one of the standard skills from the All-Star Superskills competition, or perhaps dictate sudden death overtime until a winner is chosen. Here are the options:

1. One-on-one shootout.
2. Shooting accuracy.
3. Fastest skater.
4. Hardest shot.
5. Relay race.
6. Sudden-death overtime.

At least it would allow different players from the teams to participate depending on the skill chosen.

Or, they could go back to an overtime period and if that doesn’t solve it – leave it a tie. What the hell is wrong with a tie anyway? The argument against simply having an overtime period is that the teams concluded that competing for the extra point awarded for an overtime win wasn’t worth the risk of letting the other team get the point, so both teams played a defensive game and a tie was rarely broken. But a shootout is a horrible way of fixing that problem. A better suggestion: use the game stats to determine the winner like a decision in boxing. For example, the league could reward the team with the most shots in the game with the extra point. At least that would encourage teams to play a more offensive game during regulation.

But please NHL, please get rid of the shootout.