| January
10, 2005
STATE OF THE GAMEThat’s entertainment: Rules
enforcement allows skill to rule
By Lyle Phair | From 
As the NHL lockout dragged on, college hockey
reached a new level of visibility for those fans looking to get
their “fix” of high-level hockey. Coincidentally, college
hockey picked this season to improve its level of play and make
the game more entertaining and exciting for fans to watch. This
made for an interesting start to the season.
Over the past decade or so, for a variety of reasons,
defense has become much more prominent at all levels of play –
the NHL, college, junior and even in youth hockey. Prior to that
time, the focus was always on having the puck, getting the puck,
creating offense and scoring opportunities. Everybody loves to play
with the puck. Everybody loves to score.
But then somebody coined the phrase, “offense
wins games, defense wins championships.” Coaches then began
shifting the focus to defending and playing without the puck became
much more important. And being in the right place at the right time
to break up a play became more of a focus than being in the right
place at the right time to make a play. Doing that is much easier
than scoring. Really, anybody can do it – it doesn’t
require much skill, just hard work – and it’s much easier
to coach than developing offensive skill.
With the shift to a defensive strategy came less
of a focus on the puck and more of a focus on the opponents without
the puck. Eventually it evolved from good positioning to deny them
a pass, to good positioning to deny them anything at all, and to
do whatever it took within the rules (and more often than not outside
of the rules) to get it done. Solid defense all of a sudden became
less about good positioning and hard work and much more about hooking,
holding, slashing and interference.
As more teams and more players played more on
the edge of the rulebook, the referees simply couldn’t call
it all (or there would have been a penalty on almost every play).
The game slowed down, the offenses dried up. Goal scoring went down,
but more importantly the number of scoring chances decreased. The
result was a game that was not really that entertaining to watch,
unless you’re interested in a combination of soccer and rugby
on ice.
And as typically happens, when a transformation
occurs in the game at the higher levels – professional, college
and junior – the youth level coaches followed suit. At the
youth level, coaches started to teach things that they saw the pros,
college and junior players doing.
When the puck is in the corner and an opposing
player in front of the net, the defender is taught to “take
that player out of the play.” This used to mean denying him
or her the puck, not letting them get a pass. Suddenly, taking them
out of the play meant hooking, holding, cross checking, slashing
or whatever it takes to take them out of the play. What’s
really ironic in all of this is that in that type of strategy, the
defender is so focused on the player in front that he or she forgets
about where the puck is and what is happening with it. I have seen
many situations where a defender was pounding on an opponent in
front of the net, while his partner got beat in the corner and an
opposing puck carrier walked out of the corner untouched for a shot.
And that’s good defense?
I have seen and heard youth coaches tell their
players to slash the stick of an opposing player when they have
the puck and sometimes when they don’t (although I have yet
to figure out what the purpose of that would be). In any event,
slashing is slashing, whether it’s at an opponent’s
leg or stick. The hockey stick is supposed to handle the puck, not
anything else. That’s why there are rules in the book for
slashing, hooking, crosschecking and tripping. They have always
been in the rulebook. That has never changed. It’s how they
have been called (or not called) that has gradually eroded over
the years. And as a result, the game got uglier.
Over the years, there have been attempts at various
levels to clean up the game. Typically what happens is that the
referees are directed to call the game as it is written in the book
and all of the coaches agree that is what is best for the game –
at least until their team loses a game. Then it couldn’t possibly
have been because the other team was better that night, had more
skill or made more plays. It must have been because the referees
called a bad game and their team was in the penalty box all night
or the referees are taking the game away from the players or the
players are no longer deciding the outcome. All of these are becoming
tired, old arguments.
If a team is in the penalty box all night, then
maybe it needs to adjust. Maybe the players are the ones making
the mistakes, not the referees. And are we really letting the players
play and decide the outcome by not calling penalties?
Sure, we are letting the less-skilled players,
who have to rely on hooking, holding and slashing, decide the game.
But how about the players who make the game exciting, the ones who
can beat an opponent one on one (if they are not being tackled)
or catch a pass at full speed and get a shot off (if they are not
being hooked). Those are the players that people come to see play.
Shouldn’t they be the ones who are allowed to decide the outcome
of the game?
This season college hockey has an opportunity
to take center stage and hopefully, with the new emphasis on calling
the rules as they are written in the rulebook, a chance to make
an impact on how the game is played and officiated at all levels.
By focusing on allowing players the right to meet their offensive
and defensive responsibilities without being hooked, held, interfered
with or otherwise impeded, the hope is that the game will open up,
creating more scoring chances and more excitement. For too long
now, the only thing that’s been offensive about the game has
been the style of play.
This article appears in the January issue
of New England Hockey Journal. Click
here to subscribe to the magazine.
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