It was fun ...
A good idea, in theory ...
A solid attempt at getting rid of the kiss-your-sister tie and ensuring a clear-cut winner in each and every regular season National Hockey League game ...
But the time has come to bid farewell to the shootout.
This has nothing to do with last night's hosejob on Mike Smith and the Tampa Bay Lightning, where Colorado's Milan Hejduk was awarded a shootout goal that led to an Avalanche victory when the officials determined that Smith had thrown his stick. At worst, Smith dropped his stick only
after he had made the save on Hejduk ... but, again, this has nothing to do with last night.
In fact, this is a complete about face for yours truly, as I was a huge advocate for the shootout when it was first introduced.
My argument then was simple: People who maybe only casually watched hockey (and, more than likely,
never got excited about what they were watching) would rush to the TV to see a random shootout between Team A and Team B. Nearly every fan in an arena where a shootout was taking place rose to their feet and would remain standing until the game was decided. (For the most part, that can still be said.)
It was new.
It was exciting.
It was fun.
But it was, and is, nothing more than a gimmick.
Worse yet, it's a terrible way to decide a hockey game.
Now I said earlier that my thoughts on this issue have nothing to do with last night's controversial Colorado/Tampa Bay outcome and they don't but it is primarily because of my time spent with the Lightning this season that I have come to this conclusion.
The Lightning have participated in shootouts seven times this season and have won just once. I'm not about to argue that the shootout is a major reason for Lightning woes this year as, clearly, they have far larger issues at hand. In fact, even if they were 7-0 in their shootouts this season, those six extra points would still leave them six points out of eighth place in the Eastern Conference, so that's not at all where I'm going with this.
It's far bigger than that.
My argument, as Average Joe Fan, used to be a very simple one.
"Ties suck," I would say, neglecting my father's age-old sentiments that there were, indeed, good ties and bad ties. I would argue, having surveyed at the time only a small group of old college teammates and one family friend who was a journeyman in minor pro hockey and a longtime American Hockey League official, that these guys were professionals and that, to decide these games, they should suck it up and play playoff-style, potentially endless overtimes, until someone earned the 'W' the old-fashioned way by scoring a legitimate goal.
"To hell with travel excuses!" I would think to my irrational self, reminding those in the conversation once again that
"Ties suck!"
Clearly, endless OTs in the regular season would never work.
I get that. (Now.)
Admittedly, to fix this "problem" of ties, which were somehow deemed utterly intolerable somewhere along the way, I only thought to extend the overtime as long as it needed to go. But then talk of the shootout began to grow and, hell, if it would eliminate that pesky tie, I was all for it.
And they got me.
They got me good.
Like I've already stated, the "getting me" lasted for a good while. I was pimping for the shootout left, center and right, at first, pulling my wife and friends and moms and dads and neighbors and dogs and cats and bums in front of the television to watch a Calgary/Phoenix shootout at 1:00 am, EST on a Tuesday claiming,
"You have to see this. It's great!"
But it was never great.
It
was fun. I'll allow that. And sometimes fun can easily mask itself as great, especially if you put yourself in a position to be duped as I did. I was so ready to kiss my sister "The Tie" goodbye for good that I think I would have welcomed a faceoff competition after a 5-minute overtime in its stead.
And I
was duped.
As I mentioned earlier, I never gave this much thought until this season - my first this close to an NHL team - where I've seen both sides of a shootout decision. The loser, more often than not the Lightning in these situations of late: pissed off, angry, cheated, unsatisfied, empty. And the winner: unsatisfied, admittedly lucky, almost embarrassed at times.
This is not a way to decide any hockey game but there is one notable example that, I think, proves my point better than any other.
Team A is down 3-0 to Team B after two periods. Team B fights back, clutching and clawing their way back into it with a couple of goals, stymying any further efforts from Team A and ties the game with 10 seconds left, sending it to overtime. The overtime, as is the case more often than not, settles nothing. Team B manages a goal more than their adversaries in the shootout and takes the extra point, "winning" the game.
But did they truly win it?
Really?
And, even so, is Team A satisfied with the point?
In my experience this year, neither Team A nor Team B is thrilled with such a result. It's as if, well, they tied!
So, what to do then?
There are many possibilities - none of which are the potentially endless overtimes, as my naive, younger self would have liked - including a four-minute three-on-three overtime period after the four-on-four and so on and so forth but, to me, it's much more simple than that.
To me, to correct a mistake, all you need to do is look back before the mistake was made and see if any sort of adjustment was really necessary.
To me, you go right back to where you came from.
You do what I'm doing, you finally silence your younger self and you admit that there's nothing wrong with a tie. You admit that my dad (or yours) was right and that there
are such things as good ties and bad ties. In the aforementioned example, obviously, that's a good tie for Team A and a bad tie for Team B. Team A, not thrilled, goes home relieved and Team B, not pleased at all, has to deal with the fact that they gave away fifty percent of the points at stake that night.
You go ahead and you kiss that sister of yours every now and then and you realize that it's not the worst thing that has ever happened.
Of course, you won't be phoning your buddies to tell them all about smooching your sibling just like the winning team won't be jumping for joy in the locker room after a tie (good
or bad).
But you're not going to get this,
"Eh ..." feeling that comes from either winning or losing in a shootout.
You'll get true satisfaction, true disappointment and, one way or another, a true result to a 65-minute hockey game.
Don't think it will ever change? It might not but people
are talking.
Important people are talking. If I added up the amount of Stanley Cups won by the types of people I've heard talking - and have talked with - about getting rid of this
"Effin' shootout" just this year ... well, I'm certainly not a math guy but that adds up to a lot of Cups and a lot of well-respected opinions. The conversation will continue and - give it some time - eventually, decision makers will have to listen.
You earn a point with a tie.
You earn two points with a win.
But you have to
earn those points.
And when it all comes down to a gimmick - a 50/50 shot, really - there's no
earning of anything involved.
Come on over, sis, and give ol' JJ a smooch.
After all, a kiss
is a kiss and a point
is a point ...
And there
are such things as good ties and bad ties.
But
every shootout is a bad shootout.
And the time has come to dump it for good.
[email protected] 
Join the Discussion:
»