* No more ties – shootouts!

Ick. If you can’t decide the game using the rules that define the game, then settle for a tie.

Oh, you don’t like ties? Well, the whole point of sports is that you don’t always get what you want.

The greatest hockey game ever played ended as a 3-3 tie between the Soviet Red Army and the Montreal Canadians on New Year’s Eve 1975. Don’t tell me there’s something wrong with ties.

* Two-line passes – should keep things faster going from defense to offense

They give lazy forwards who won’t backcheck a break and they eliminate the sustained pressure one team can exert in the other team’s end.

Breakaways are exciting. Breakaways that happen every two minutes are boring.

* Restrictions on goalies – bigger five-hole, less out-of-net play

Why not just put up a sheet of plywood like when we were kids? Being a goalie isn’t just about stopping the puck – a good goalie is (or was) a third defenseman, playing the puck, setting up breaks, etc.

Sure, if the goalie wanders out of his crease, he is going to get nailed. Welcome to hockey.

Or, I guess, hockey as it used to be.

Soon enough I guess we’ll have a ‘no goaltending’ rule. Just like in basketball.

* Bigger offensive zone – biggest change here is shrinking the neutral zone, and moving the nets closer to the boards to reduce camping

The greatest player in the world, Wayne Gretzky, showed us what can be done from behind the net. He reminded us that hockey isn’t simply a one-dimensional game where you skate at goalies and take slapshots a la The Mighty Ducks.

The point here is that this change reduced the complexity of the gamed, eliminates the nuance that an offensive strategy can 9and should have). What we’ll see is the defense taking shots from the point, the forwards trying for rebounds.

Oh yeah. Just like basketball. Ex*yawn*citing.

* Changes to icing – preventing dumping

They should have adopted the no-touch rule, to same players from injuries. Instead they created the no-change rule, keeping exhausted players on the ice.

Dumb.

* Instigator rule – bigger penalty for being an ass at the end of a game. good move

The only thing that keeps people in the building near the end of a 5-1 game is the hope that the teams will settle some scores and try to make a statement for next time.

Now, at the end of a 10-2 game, there will be nothing but a boring 5 minutes of meaningless play. *yawn*

* Officiating – zero tolerance, and stuff to keep play moving fast

‘Zero tolerance’ has killed more games than it has saved. Good referees know when to put away the whistle. Set a tone early and make your calls consistently.

* Unsportsmanlike conduct – the Anti-Bertuzzi clause

Sure.

* Competition committee – good to see Iggie and Shanahan representing the players

They should put Don Cherry on the committee.

I hate his politics, but when he starts talking hockey he and I are in the same camp.

Hockey isn’t a game of shooting and scoring. People who represent it that way misunderstand the game.

Hockey is a tough, gritty sport where physical presence is as important as skill. It should be hard to play, hard to score, and to win you pay a price.

Grit and emotion are as important as speed and skill.

People are trying to sanitize hockey, to turn it into some sort of Disney-esque basketball version of itself. But hockey didn’t need sanitizing.

Because scoring is sometimes difficult in hockey – because, for example, teams can play the trap and stymie even skilled teams – it requires a more sensitive eye for detail. Good defense matters as much as good offense. You don’t have the instant gratification of goals to know how your team’s playing.

With the high-scoring all-shoot all-the-time version of hockey, this element is lost. Shoot and score. Shoot and score. *yawn* It needs to be HARD to score, hard to get into position for a shot, hard to break the trap.

I guess the best days of hockey are behind us.

* shootouts – the whole point of sports is to determine win/loss, and ties don’t do that. besides, shootouts can be insanely exciting (or, stunningly lame, depending on how they get played).

* 2-line passes – sure, forwards can get lazy, and defensemen might actually have to show up, but I’m sick of a great play getting whistled down because a pass started 2 feet too close to the player’s net. Really breaks up the game.

* goalie restrictions – with the size of the pads, they’re essentially sheets of plywood to begin with. bring back the old time pads – better yet, give them phone books and duct tape…

* offensive zone – completely agree with you – I personally like the behind-the-net play. Granted, there hasn’t been a #99 for a few years to really take advantage of it…

* icing – agreed

* Instigator rule – if the only thing keeping you in your seat at the end of a 5-1 game is the chance of some senseless headbashing, go to a boxing match. I’d rather the chance of a comeback, or at least the attempt at one, keep me there.

* officiating – if the refs were consistent, I’d agree 100%, but some refs are reliable, some are total flakes. The flakes need more rules to keep things going.

* competition committee – having Don Cherry on this WOULD have been awesome! Then, we could have the “no russians” rule, or the “no sissies” rule