Overnight Thoughts
I was going to put the date in the title, but I couldn’t decide on Apr 11 or Apr 12… anyway…
* Where are player faces? I thought one of the benefits of the shootout was going to be that players were going to remove their helmets and we were going to see what they look like easier. Has any player removed their helmet for the shootout this season?
Google leads me to this bit from Phil Coffey’s mailbag from Jan 27, 2006:
This is not my idea, and maybe you have heard it already. Now with the games on NBC, which treats the fans like school kids with the explanations, the league should have the players remove their helmets during shoot-outs. Kind of brings back the old days for us old-timers.
—Carl Zellner, Waterville, Ohio
Hi Carl. I’ll disagree with you on NBC’s treatment of the fans during the telecasts. I’ve watched both weekends cover-to-cover and was very pleased with the NBC presentation.
If memory serves, the players were presented with the option of not using helmets in a shootout, but declined. After all, there is still an injury risk if a skater was to lose an edge.
While I’ve seen a player or two fall during the shootout this season, have any of them been in any danger of receiving a head injury? I suppose one doesn’t want to chance anything, but with that mentality we might as well use Nerf equipment. Why not make it optional? It shouldn’t lead to the macho-no-visor mentality with the selection of players usually chosen for the shootout. Think of the shootouts that go 10+ players deep and how a player in that position gets to feel getting ready for his shot, and he gets to toss his helmet onto the bench and really have everyone notice him. Hell, think of the hair and the look of the highlight on ESPN - and this is coming from someone with Tie Domi’s do.
* I’m still not a big fan of the shootout, but make it best of 5. When a best of 3 ends after 4 total shots, you feel cheated.
* There were 12 games last night. There are two tonight. May I toss out a chatroom-like OMGWTFLOL at the scheduling? This is the last week of the season and we got 12 games that started from 7-9PM ET and tonight we have one at 7PM and one at 10PM. I don’t mind that there are only two games tonight. But when games per day looks like 12-2-13-1 (and then the weekend, where you expect a heavy Saturday, light Sunday), you just wonder why… well, that’s it, just “why?”.
* Tonight’s one-at-a-time action is very playoff second round-ish. When you have two east series and two west coast series alternating days it’s a great couple of weeks of hockey. There’s hockey to watch all night, they’re all important and we’re all watching it together.
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