HOCKEY RUINED BY TOO MANY BLOCKED SHOTS (by anyone other than the goalie)

The annual Washington Capitals playoff disappointment has drawn the accustomed debate over how, and how much the team and/or their front office ought to be shaken up.


One recurrent complaint is that the team’s freewheeling, aggressive offensive style of play, which is rather effective in the regular season, fails in the playoffs because the opposing defenses play harder.



Rather than accept this compatibility problem, it’s possible to take a more aggressive strategy. The Capitals should push to have the National Hockey rules modified, or clarified, to address the tactics other teams are using on defense. Theses tactics include sprawling in front of shooters to block the shot.



The risk vs. potential payout ratio for this behavior is too high for defenders during most regular season contests. But with so much at stake in the Stanley Cup playoffs, it’s like you’ve got multiple goalies out there.  Imagine if during the Major league Baseball Playoffs and World Series, the position players all started pitching from various locations--it would be pure chaos.  Extreme defense trumps a good offense.


That’s an angle the Capitals--and anybody who really appreciates the aesthetics of good sport--could take in arguing their point. Surely the official rules of hockey forbid teams from having more than one goaltender on the ice at anytime. These players who are using their bodies as human shields are de facto part-time goalies.


Do soccer rules permit any player other than the goalkeeper to use their hands to deflect shots on-goal? Of course not! It’s time for hockey officials to review the rulebook and take some appropriate action. A player who goes to the ground of his own accord so as to block a potential shot on goal ought to be penalized.

Goaltending should be for goaltenders only. Sliding proponents might say that we shouldn’t restrict the movement of a player and that it’s not fair to do so since it punishes those who are good at it. My reply is that someone being good at cheating doesn’t excuse it. If a soccer player trips up the one with the ball it’s a foul--no question.

If laying down to block shots is OK, someone ought to bring out a pair of Sumo wrestlers. Together they should be able to effectively seal a 4’ x 6’ hockey net--one is the goalie, the other a defenseman. You could skate 4-on-5 and never lose.
They'd have to change the rules!

PONDering Tiger Woods' Performance at Water Hazard

People arguing about Tiger Woods’ misadventure on the 15th hole Friday at the US Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia, ought to get straight about how many strokes Woods was actually penalized.



His first stroke bounced off the flagstick into the water.



His second stroke was a phantom one allowing Tiger to effectively pick the ball up and place it on dry land. Sine the ball is generally lost in the water hazard, the player simply drops a fresh ball approximately where on the coast the original ball went into the water or at some other designated spot. This is often referred to as a penalty stroke but it actually is a courtesy enabling the golfer to stay dry.



His third stroke was the one he hit from the shoreline onto the green.



His fourth stroke was the putt he drilled into the hole.



Now it gets interesting.



His fifth stroke was assessed to him for the amount (one stroke) he was estimated to have benefited from his misdeed---which was dropping the ball slightly beyond the range designated. Tiger himself has said that his placing the ball thusly enabled him to chip the ball within relatively easy one-putt distance. So he had saved himself one stroke by cheating--that needed to be taken away.



That leaves the imaginary sixth stroke as the one-shot penalty--for turning in a false report, i.e a card on which he does not penalize himself 1 stroke for dropping the ball in the wrong place.


Tiger turned in a card with a 4 on the 15th hole. If the Masters officials had approached Tiger before he turned in his card and he had corrected it--to a 5, he would have spared himself the penalty for turning in a bad card, but would still have been penalized for committing the drop infraction in the first place. And so by making Woods’ score a 6, he is being punished for overlooking his offense.


Masreers officials may characterize the assessment of strokes somewhat differently, but the above analysis is probably a decent analysis of the thinking that weent into their decision.