Those Bastards Finally Did It!

Kid Various has not been in a position lately to cover the return of NHL hockey and, somehow, he missed the fact that in July the NHL owners signed on to the most sweeping changes in the history of the game including instituting the dreaded shoot out.

Jim at Parkway Rest Stop pointed this out when a Devils game he recently attended resulted in a 3-2 win for New Jersey against the Fishsticks in an overtime shoot out.

They've been talking about this for years, and now those bastards have finally done it.

Shoot outs are not hockey. It's like deciding a basketball game with a free throw competition. A team that wins on a shoot out has not beaten the other team. Unlike sports like basketball, where extending the game clock an additional two minutes would likely produce a different result, when you win a hockey game 4-3, you outplayed the other team.

Now 60 minutes of tough, gruelling hockey means nothing because your goalie let one through the 5 hole.

It's a travesty! What the hell was wrong with ties? Two teams - evenly matched - walk away with a point each. One that they earned. If ties are so bad expand the overtime period, or make them play three on three.

And what about real penalty shots? A penalty shot is one of the most exciting and nerve-racking moments in the game, and correspondingly rare. Deciding games by shoot out diminishes the excitement of the penalty shot.

Jesus just accept the tie already! In case Kid Various is not making himself clear, let him clarify...

Shoot outs are for pussies and soccer players!

But the Kid wanders into redundancy.

Good grief!

(And Kid Various is not thrilled with the elimination of the two-line pass rule either. It doesn't open up the neutral zone that much and now every time defenders get in trouble they'll just chip it up ice.)

P.S. Oh yeah... LET'S GO RANGERS!!!!