Article "The Beautiful Game" By Igor Larionov

[TheRussianRocket.]

 

[Kragar]

On 3/4/2015 at 5:03 PM, terrible.dee said:

No,

 

The neutral zone trap was born in Sweden on olympic sized rinks.

 

Calling hockey like other sports interfears with the flow of the game, floating point officiating had always been a unique and integral part of this sport.

 

A ref SHOULD be able to call a game differently in the third then he does in the first, I believe the micro-managing, one-size-fits-all philosophy is directly opposed to what makes hockey unique and entertaining. The game is over officiated, I totally agree with cracking down on neutral zone obstruction as they did post 05' lockout, but hockey has never been called like other sports, why does everyone want this standardized officiating?

 

Maybe some are to young to remember how great it was when the ref could get a feel for a game and call it organically. The overall entertainment value was far superior. Drama was allowed to unfold rather then be cut off at the pass.

I"m late to the party here (was on vacation when this was being discussed), but I had a concern with the bolded.  I get what you mean, and to a small degree I agree with you.  My issue was how things ran, in the 90's IIRC, where teams like Dallas would damn near tackle everything in sight to keep their one-goal lead to the end.  It was frustrating how they would get away with this, when there was a better chance of them being called earlier in the game.  Basically, too many real penalties were let go late-game, for fear of calling a border-line one, and "having the ref impact the outcome".  All this accomplished was supporting the better teams, as on average they would more likely have a lead to defend.

 

OP, +1, this was a great read.

 

Another reason I would like to add to the many other valid ones for why we don't have this level of quality as much any more, is expansion.  When there are too many teams with less money to spend on talent, defensive strategies are required for them to be competitive.  Less teams concentrates the talent pool, and those borderline players are in a lesser league.  But of course, money is more important than quality of play, in the eyes of those that matter, so look forward to more gimmicks before we see real change.