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Just say no to endless OT
It's going to happen. Every year about this time two playoff teams with hot goaltenders and cold scorers get locked in a marathon that lasts three or four overtimes, and it makes me want to go out and beat NHL commissioner Gary Bettman's dog. Stop the madness, join the rest of the sports world, and mandate a tiebreaking format. For god's sake, let the fans and the players go to bed. Look, I like overtime hockey as much as the next guy, but I've covered a couple of games that have lasted past 1:30 in the morning, and, trust me, after the first 40 minutes of OT it's an exercise in stupidity. The players are exhausted, the referees have left the building, and the ice is deteriorating faster than the play. Blocking and tackling is allowed. Half the fans have gone home, presumably because they have lives, and the other half are too weak to move, since the concession stands have been closed since midway through the third period.
But the most important reason to modify the overtime format? Television hates it, and the NHL needs every penny of TV income it can get. Network programmers, mindful of the dismal ratings the NHL draws, don't want to risk having a Sunday afternoon game extend into prime time. They want to know just how long a playoff game lasts. So do I. Tuesday night my eight-year-old son and I were watching Game 4 of the Flyers-Sabres series. It was a good game, tied 3-3 after regulation. But with Dominik Hasek and Roman Cechmanek in goal, I feared the worst. Despite having already invested three hours in the contest, we went to bed. When Buffalo scored in the seventh minute of the first overtime to take a 3-1 series lead, I was sawing logs. This potential problem is dumb and easily fixed. Thirty minutes of sudden-death overtime is enough to appease both fans and network executives. The first 10 minutes should be played 5-on-5 (not counting the goalies). The second 10 minutes should be played 4-on-4, as is now done in regular-season overtimes. The third 10 minutes? 3-on-3. I'm old enough to remember the six-team NHL, when 3-on-3 hockey was fairly routine because teams had to play shorthanded after fighting majors, and it was thrilling. Imagine watching Colorado's Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg and Rob Blake facing Detroit's Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov and Nicklas Lidstrom in OT. The plays they'd create would make your head spin. If the game was still tied at the end of the 3-on-3 session, a shootout would decide the outcome. Five shooters for each team would alternately take penalty shots on the opposing goalie, as is now done in the Olympics. If the score was still tied after all five had gone, a sudden-death shootout would decide the game. Traditionalists hate the whole notion of a shootout, but I remember watching Canada and Sweden vie for the gold medal using the shootout in the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, and it generated as much drama as I've ever seen in a hockey game. Which at the end of the day should be what overtime's about: drama. But when the end of the day is actually the beginning of the next, drama's the last thing on the minds of fans. They all are dreaming of going to sleep. Sports Illustrated senior writer E.M. Swift is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.
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