10 easy steps to getting it right this time!!!!!!!

[eye]

Thanks, but no thanks.. I'd rather see a 1-0 game with great goaltending and chances than a 10-8 game. The ADD generation really needs to get some help. One change is all thats needed. Get rid of the trap.

You need to have played the game at a reasonably high level to understand the trap and the hundreds of variations of the trap. There is no way to mandate getting rid of the trap. There is no rule that can eliminate it but most of the suggestions I started this thread with will help make the trap less successful, hence, virtual elimination of the trap. The trap can take place in any area of the ice and the arrival of Euros in North America brought increased skill to the league but also the knowledge of how to angle off and trap. The only way to rid the game of the trap is to reward other more entertaining strategies that will open up the game and create scoring chances.

Calling the rule book will only go so far. You can trap without breaking the rules. Teams in the 60's and before also trapped. It was called a 1-2-2 with the wingers locking and the Centers forcing the play to the outside and D standing up in the middle. The left wing lock is a form of trap and there is no way to mandate against it. You need to tweak a few rules and implement a couple of non-radical game improving ideas.

I think the rule suggestions I listed are the best I have heard and read about and can and will improve the game drastically if used.

 

[Steve L*]

Thanks, but no thanks.. I'd rather see a 1-0 game with great goaltending and chances than a 10-8 game. The ADD generation really needs to get some help. One change is all thats needed. Get rid of the trap.

And that will solve the problem that the shooter has nothing to aim at with the bloaters in net?

 

[mr gib]

Sorta like an offsides penalty in reverse? I think something like that could work. You'd want to really test it out to see what sort of effect it had, of course.

You don't need to hook, hold, or obstruct to trap. Blocking passing lanes is enough. The guy attacking the puck carrier doesn't have to break any rules... he can just be a forechecker like in any other system. Calling the rules more tightly will make it harder for some players to play a trap, but it won't make the trap impossible to set up.

you're right - that came from hitchcock - the ice divided into three ovals in the middle - keep blocking them up - the play has to come up the side - then the third forward shifts over and there's no where for the puck to go but dumped in or back - dunno if anything can be done to stop it other than very quick transitions - which is another strategy -

 

[me2]

good question - i've thought about it a lot - lacrosse and b ball the game moves a bit faster so an easy change of posession can be facilitated - my idea was you have to have two forcheckers in the zone the whole time the defense has the puck - once the puck comes out over the blue line the two guys are free to leave the zone - pick up their men - as for what happens if you don't - i dunno - its too radical to call a penalty and in hockey you don't have those fast changes like soccer too - you know like a zone in b ball - they just blow the whistle and give the other team the ball - that wouldn't work in hockey -

sorry that is kinda scattered - if anyone have anymore ideas concerning banning the trap and what penalty a team would get for using it - post something -

Get rid of the blue lines all together. Just use the centre line, any player who was on side when the puck crossed line (or returned back on side) may play the puck. Can't trap the neutral zone when there isn't one.

Not entirely sure I like the idea, but it would work.

 

[hubofhockey]

most important change of all

It's the PK, as much as the neutral zone, that is sucking the marrow out of the game.
Back in the '70s and into the '80s, when a team went on the PP, it might not score, but it usually landed 5-6 good scoring chances.
Now? Every team has these 5-10 weasels that can do little more than chase down pucks on the PK and fire 'em 200 feet. Now there's hockey.

It's either: 1. Limit roster size and get rid of these weasels. or 2. Make major modificiations in how teams can work the PK.

To wit:

1. Call icing the same, all the way thru the game. If a team shoots it 150 feet down the ice, even on PK --that's ICING.
2. When iciing is whistled in PK situations, the defending (man-short) team is NOT allowed to change players at the break. They change ON FLY ONLY.
3. A second icing violation in man-short situations should be another two-minute minor -- for delay of game, or failure to engage (like boxing).

If they make this change, and enforce the obstruction (leading to more penalties that actually will lead to more power-play goals), the game we knew and loved will come back. They also have to take goalie equip off steroids.

Bigger net is a farce. They can stretch the neutral zone, perhaps by squeezing blue lines tighter/closer to faceoff circles, and pulling out red line (not convinced, but it could work).

But the PP should be about the most exciting part of the game. At least it used to be. Now, it's usuALLY as uneventful as the rest of the 60 minutes. Any of you actually remember the tension and excitement when a penalty was called--the anticipation of a goal, or heavy action around the net? Today? Rarely seen. Fix the PP/PK, and many good things will follow.,

kpd/hoh

 

[Lanny MacDonald*]

Every team has these 5-10 weasels that can do little more than chase down pucks on the PK and fire 'em 200 feet. Now there's hockey.

It's either: 1. Limit roster size and get rid of these weasels.

kpd/hoh

I'm all for that as well, except that I think the game is about to go through a paradigm shift of sorts. With the introduction of the shootout it is going to be to coaches advantage to have a couple guys on the bench who have the puck skills to win a game. These guys have been the highly skilled forwards who couldn't find their defensive zone using a road map and a GPS locator, and as a result found themselves in the minors for their careers. These guys will now become important to the game and a useful tool in winning games in the shootout. A new classification of "role player" is born. Coaches will now have to make a choice as to whether they want an extra line of "weasels", or if they want an extra line of "puck hogs". With the likely increase in powerplays and the shootout playing a larger portion of the game in the future I think you'll see more and more coaches adding a couple of extra "defensively challenged" players to the lineup just to play on the PP and to use in the shootout. That will eliminate a couple of weasels and bring about other changes to the game because of the composition of the teams. Defensive awareness all around may suffer a bit in the near future.