What's Your Most Controversial Hockey Opinion?

[member 300185]

You must be new to hockey then because the NHL would NEVER do anything to favour Canada or its teams lol

New to hockey huh? I am 56 and have been a leaf fan for 53 years. And if you don't think its cheating, go check the numbers for yourself. Its not like I am making something up. You explain how the Habs got 19 games, 1/4 of their season playing tired teams and then come tell me again about how its not cheating. That number is way to big to be a coincidence.

You must be new to sports all together if you dont think professional sports doesn't cheat. That or you are very young. The Chicago Black sox say hello.

 

[Benedict Kovalchuk]

I don't think it's that controversial, but you seem to get smashed for voicing it - I think Ovechkin should be ranked higher all time than Crosby.

I don't disagree but I think the real issue here is that Crosby constantly has accomplishments that he might have/could have/should have done treated as if he actually did them. Nobody else gets an obscene benefit of the doubt like that, not even guys like Lemieux. A guy on his team, Malkin, would have an even more stellar reputation if he got that consideration, but he doesn't.

 

[Benedict Kovalchuk]

Gary Betman single handledy ruined the islanders cup run last year by giving the lame excuse that the team needed to play the second round home games at the Barclyas becuase the Coliseum wasnt conducive to national broadcast.

We weren't going to win the cup last year due to a mix of post-season inexperience and a lack of firepower up front. That said it was an arbitrary decision that definitely did sap the team of some of its momentum.

 

[OmazingGrace]

Leafs is not the correct way to spell Leaf plural

 

[LuckyBoeser]

Mine is that for the most part analytics are for nerds who've never played hockey. The vast majority of podcasts, twitter people, bloggers etc who preach about analytics above all else have never played hockey in their life

For the most part people that devalue or hate analytics either don't understand what they mean or are too stubborn since it goes against their beliefs. They fear that their favourite teams/players are not as good as they make it out to be.

 

[Benedict Kovalchuk]

Mine is that for the most part analytics are for nerds who've never played hockey. The vast majority of podcasts, twitter people, bloggers etc who preach about analytics above all else have never played hockey in their life

Largely agree. There is some value to them but there seems to be a strong undercurrent of just trying to bring order to something inherently chaotic, despite that undercutting their understanding of it to an extent. Like others have said here, this years Leafs team is a good case study.

 

[GOilers88]

Fighting and fighters do not deter anything.

That's cause it's just a part of the game, whether people like it or not. Fighting IS a part of hockey and it always will be.

 

[LeapOnOver]

I have a controversial rule change that seems like a no-brainer to me, but of course will never come to fruition. A game cannot end when a team losing by 1 goal has a man advantage. In basketball, if you foul a guy at the buzzer he gets foul shots. In football, if you interfere with a passer with time on the clock, they get the yardage. Why, in Hockey, do we allow the opposing team the ability to commit egregious penalties in the final seconds of a game with no repercussions? So many times I see games end with the losing team getting held, cross checked and all kinds of obvious penalties occurring, yet who cares because there are two seconds left on the clock.

Change the RULE! If the team that has the lead by one goal is penalized then the team behind should get the advantage of trying to score on that full PP.

 

[Dr Quincy]

That's cause it's just a part of the game, whether people like it or not. Fighting IS a part of hockey and it always will be.

Nevermind.... the point of this thread isn't to argue about a controversial statement.
If you want to debate it somewhere else that's fine.

 

[Hockeyholic]

The NHL has no idea how to handle the CTE crisis in professional sports. This is judging by Bettman's comments.

 

[JoemAvs]

Tanking actually works if you do it correctly (you obviously also need some luck in the lottery and with nailing your picks) and is probably the best way to build a winning team...

 

[wetcoast]

Where to begin...I'll take the first 3 that come to mind.

1) Mario is miscast as part of the big 4, his offense was elite but his ESGF/ESGA shows that his impact wasn't nearly as great as the legend about him.

2) Playoff seeding should be 1-16, 2-15, 3-14 ect.. to even out travel for all teams and promote the idea that the 2 best teams in the NHL can actually come from the same conference.

3) Install the floating blueline like in ball hockey.

When a team gains the blueline, the line for offsides floats back to the center red line (which in essence become the blue line) thus providing more time and space for the skill in hockey to shine through.

I lied there will be a fourth one

4) Reduce the size of the goalie equipment more in line with historical sizes while keeping safety. The equipment still is too large and is there to prevent goals more than preventing injuries.

Heck I'll even add a 5th one

5) All goals should count, other than high stick ones, if a player kicks it in it should still count, heck he can even direct it in with his hand if he wants but still no closing the hand around the puck.

 

[heysmilinstrange]

I don't think Matt Cooke purposely sliced Erik Karlsson's Achilles, though I do think he's a dirty player.

 

[Cats2TheCup]

Concussions didn’t exist when Bobby Orr and Gordie Howe played, because helmets cause concussions.

 

[IceNeophyte]

If referees would call the dirty crap, there would be no further need for scrums. If a team goes Kings/Ducks. And starts a scrum after they were victimized by a clean hit, the clean hit shouldn't be penalized to even the sheet.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Dubas not Babcock should be fired.

 

[RageQuit77]

Forget "women's NHL". Go straight to the mixed team format with minimum 2 persons per sex per line-on-ice, while the team quota would be minimum 40% of either sex, including coaching staff.

People of different sexes reproduce and spread humanity here together, why not some quality hockey too. That way we could have a decent, culturally, socially, genetically, and environmentally adapted breed of hockey players sometime around NHL's 500th anniversary, due drastically increased likelihood of reproductive marriages between top level hockey parents and centuries long selective interbreeding/pedigree. Note that in this concept, to ensure enough wide genepool and healthy generations of future hockey players, we must use maximal available variety of human genes, thus maximal utilization of global human genepool is must when introducing new studs and dames to the game. Maximal genetic admixture ensure best results even after 500 years of NHL. After all its a question and the project of milleniums.

Future tech will ensure also use of good genes of the best of past hockey player generations, by careful opening of graves, dutifully taken DNA-samples, and cloning. A clone series of same age player would then train as a junior units against other clone series of other legendary players to determine who are better. Also, individuals of same clone series would put under intense infight situations with slight variations in their coaching methods to determine best training regime applied to same genetical clones...

:p

 

[Cats2TheCup]

Performance enhancing drugs should be encouraged.

 

[tarheelhockey]

4 on 4 regulation is the future of hockey. It may take another 30 years and a few lockouts to get there, but we WILL get there and 5 on 5 hockey will look dopey by comparison.

 

[GOilers88]

Nevermind.... the point of this thread isn't to argue about a controversial statement.
If you want to debate it somewhere else that's fine.

Wasn't meant to be argumentative,moreso my observational opinion on why I think your controversial opinion shouldnt really be controversial, but it is anyways.

Cheers.

 

[Incognito]

Marc-Andre Fleury had the athleticism and physical tools to become the greatest goaltender of all-time.

 

[moropanov]

Mine's that i dont value Ovechkin overall as a good hockey player. Good shooter yea he has had and will get crazy amount of goals because theyr team's stragedy is to get him goals, but really outside of shooting nothing special. My opinion is that if Ovechkin would be replaced by some other player Capitals wouldnt be effectively negatively at all lets say atm player like Tomas Tatar or somethink like that Capitals would be about same level team. Tatar ofc wouldnt get as much goals they would play differently, but removing Ovy wouldnt negatively affect Capitals at all they would just play different style.

 

[Devonator]

I think the game has to be opened up....either make the ice surface larger like the Europeans or change to 4 on 4.....also I miss the days of fighting....bring more of that back as well....also perhaps whittle the league down..in these times of less then great economies, I think we should move back to 26 teams....move Florida to a more feasible market....

 

[Pucker Factor 10]

I think they should bring back the glowing puck.

 

[CartographerNo611]

You don’t win championships with 4 lines of pure skill with the average age of 21.