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Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Hockey Goons
Here was my submission:
Another rule change related to this is that the goon has to be able to play hockey. Is that too much to ask? I’m good with the policing aspect, as long as he can actually also play hockey. Does it make sense that you can have someone who plays 5 minutes a game for 60 games (300 minutes on the ice) as well as spending 300 minutes in the box? No, that’s ridiculous. You don’t see goons in the playoffs, and that’s because there are better incentives in the playoffs (you can’t afford to lose a game).
I’d prefer the tough-guy, who can play 10-12 minutes a game (say about 700 minutes of ice time), and get 100-150 minutes in penalties. You still get the physical play, a police-type presence, but with guys who can actually play hockey. So, you can easily build in a rule based on PIM or number of fights based on a player’s ice time. Say for example, that you need at least 60 minutes of ice time for each fight. A player playing 10 minutes a game for 60 games would be able to get into up to 10 fights. If he plays 6 minutes a game for 40 games, then he’d only be allowed to get into 4 fights.
If you don’t like the 60 minutes per fight, change it to 40 or 30, or whatever you think is appropriate. But there has to be some incentive for the player to actually be an NHL-calibre hockey player.
In the comments, someone interpreted that as:
Just to fact that we have to suggest a standard to allow someone to be able to break the rules shows how far people will go to find a way to keep fighting in the game. Giving out fights as “reward” for having enough other skills to survive a few more minutes of ice time is, to me, ludicrous. The reason we have to have these debates is because people know, deep down, that fighting doesn’t bring enough value to the play of the game to exist, but the powers that be are afraid of removing it for fear that business will suffer. I wholly disagree with this point as well of course.
I suppose it is a “reward”. But, players believe that expulsion for fighting will bring unintended but obvious to them consequences. So, before you enact wholesale changes, you need to do it in steps. The first step is to disincentivize (*) teams from guys who only play 5 minutes a game.
(*) Firefox tells me this is not a word.
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