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LETTITOR

 

 

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The shootout is here to stay, get used to it

     

Garth McLennan
Editor in Chiet

henever the Vancouver Canucks
partake in a shootout to decide
a hockey game, the talking

heads in this city, be they of the radio or
newspaper variety, come out to deride the
skills contest as an affront to traditionalist
hockey and an abhorrent way to decide a
game.

“A glorified skills contest” they
call it. “An individual way to end the
ultimate team game” they say. Well, those

_ assessments of the shootout may be correct;

after all, the shootout is, by its nature, an
individualistic way to end a game in one —
very specific area (breakaways), so the
argument of the anti-shootout contingent
can be seen.

But you know what? The shootout has
been here for years now, and it isn’t going
anywhere. Say what you will about it, but
the fact of the matter is that it’s a highly
entertaining way to finish off games that
would have previously not gone decided
at all. Prior to the lockout, games that
remained tied after the standard five minute
overtime period finished as exactly that:
Hed. .

Since the lockout, the NHL has made
a very concentrated effort to boost the
entertainment value of the game to appeal
to a wider base of people, and the shootout
is a big part of that. Win or lose, you get
to see a payoff to your investment now.
Whether you put in the time to watch on
T.V. or shelled out the money to attend the
game, there is now a climax to the story.

Take the recent Canucks game against

the Columbus Blue Jackets, an otherwise
awful and dreadfully boring contest that
had about as much entertainment value

as a late-night infomercial, which ended _ .
with a wildly fun and exciting eight-round
shootout. Without the “glorified skills
contest” to decide that game, it would
have been mighty hard to justify that to the
paying customers.

And the argument about how the
shootout skews the bottom end teams
getting into the playoffs is a poor one.
Every year there seems to be a team who
winds up qualifying for the post-season on
the strength of their shootout record, at the
expense of a squad with more regulation
wins. This season it’s the Los Angeles
Kings filling that role. Sure, I could see
teams and their fans being bitter when
something like that occurs, but this is
the sixth season the NHL has utilized the
shootout. If after six years your franchise
can’t adjust to the shootout and hasn’t
figured out yet that it’s a highly valuable
way to accrue points, well, then I’m sorry,
but they probably deserve to miss the
playoffs.

The shootout is an equal way to end
games for everyone. If a team misses
the playoffs behind another team with a
sterling shootout record, well, they have all
summer to improve that area of their game.

 

 

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