Neue Tore in der NHL?

[Uvira]

NHL execs consider bigger nets
Tue, 29 Mar 2005 18:38:39 EST

[size=16px]NHL general managers will look at two models for bigger nets developed by the league when they get together next week in Detroit. [/size]


The purpose of the two-day summit, slated for April 8-9, is to examine ideas that could possibly improve the NHL's on-ice product.

NHL senior vice-president Colin Campbell told The Hockey News the league has asked GMs to look at the two prototypes, although no decision has been made to use them when hockey eventually returns after the lockout.

Current NHL regulations stipulate that nets must measure six feet wide by four feet high. Campbell revealed one of the models sports bars that curve out at the sides, thus making the goal larger. The other is two inches bigger in height and width.

The belief is that introducing larger nets will help increase scoring and open up the game a bit.

Other ideas the GMs will examine are using shootouts to break ties in the regular season and shrinking the size of goalie pads.

"When we were talking about making changes to goalie equipment in the past few years, I had two respected coaches – Roger Neilson and Jacques Demers – say to me, 'Why don't you just make the nets bigger?'" Campbell told The Hockey News.

"Basketball has its three-point play which rewards teams for taking risks on offence. We don't have that. Do you take a long shot late in a game when you know the odds of scoring are very low? No. Instead you drop back and play defence. We need to find a way to reward teams for taking chances on offence to encourage coaches to coach a more offensive style."

With no hockey being played due to the lockout, Campbell said it is incumbent upon the NHL to use the time constructively and look at ways that could help improve the game.

"It is as simple as asking, 'Is it a viable alternative and will it enhance the game?'" Campbell said. "It doesn't necessarily mean there will automatically be more goals, but wouldn't it be better for the game if there was the opportunity to score more goals?

"Hockey purists may say no, and I was in that group six months ago. But I now think we need to at least consider ways to increase scoring chances."

Campbell said the nets could be used in the East Coast Hockey League before its regular season ends on April 9.

:shock:

Dazu Theodore

Following reports that the National Hockey League was considering bigger nets, Montreal Canadiens goaltender Jose Theodore didn't hold back on his opinion.

"Excuse my French, but this is bull----," Theodore told The Montreal Gazette from Stockholm, where he tended net for Djurgarden in the Swedish Elite League this season.

"This is junk, and I hope it's not serious," Theodore said. "The idea of a bigger net is crap. I was drafted as a goalie who has spent his life, since I was 7, learning to play the angles. And now, all of a sudden, they're thinking of doing this?"

On Tuesday, The Hockey News website reported that the league developed two prototypes for bigger nets. It was later learned by TSN that three new designs were under scrutiny. NHL senior vice-president Colin Campbell told The Hockey News website that the league will peresent the ideas to GMs at their upcoming meetings in Detroit.

"Basketball has its three-point play which rewards teams for taking risks on offense," said Campbell. "We don't have that. Do you take a long shot late in a game when you know the odds of scoring are very low? No. Instead you drop back and play defense. We need to find a way to reward teams for taking chances on offense to encourage coaches to coach a more offensive style."

"Colin is really wrong," said Theodore. "I respect the guy, but this is not smart.

"This would change the entire game. It's ridiculous, even stupid. It's wasting energy, and it's not looking at the right places to improve the game."

The league has been looking at ways to increase scoring and excitement for some time. Other changes already being considered include smaller goaltending equipment and the use of shootouts the break ties.

"Changing our equipment is crap, too," said Theodore. "About 10 years ago, when the pads were really wide, the NHL moved to make everything smaller. The next year, the goals-against averages were still low.

"Goalies are just getting really good technically, and guys are playing better defensively within a system."

In an interview with NHL Network on Tuesday, league vice president and chief legal counsel Bill Daly said he did not know which of the many proposed changes would be ratified, but he did note that change was certainly coming.

"The list of issues we are going to discuss is very broad," Daly said. "The list of issues that ultimately get resolved through a consensus of first the managers and then the board, is probably going to be a lesser list. It would be tough for me to speculate what the changes might be at this point in time."

[Modano]

rofl, was is das denn

[Nightmare]

Erst mal sollten die sich Gedanken drüber machen, überhaupt wieder zu spielen

[Kamikautze]

Sowas von lächerlich @NHL :roll:

[fgtim]

Der Blödsinn kommt mir doch ausm Fußball verdammt bekannt vor

Komischerweise gab es diese Diskussion ebenfalls während des Sommerlochs :roll: Scheiße muss denen langweilig sein!!!
Mein Vorschlag den Sport in den USA wieder beliebter zu machen wäre..........spielen!!!!!!

[Uvira]

The Case for Red Nets
By Grayson Fertig
May 17, 2005




Grayson Fertig is a former collegiate hockey player who has invented a net with red meshing that he believes would have a positive impact on goal-scoring without changing the way hockey is played. Here, in his own words, is his case for the 8i goal:

In September 1999, the International Table Tennis Federation changed the size of the official ping pong ball from 38 millimeters in diameter to 40 millimeters. Racket covering advancements, enhancing spin and power, made the game so fast that points were commonly being decided in just two or three strokes. Spectators could neither see the ball nor have time to appreciate the strategy and athleticism of the players. The 40 millimeter ball enhances the game while also appealing to the fans’ pleasure.

In 1969, Major League Baseball responded to declining batting averages by lowering the height of the pitcher’s mound from 15 inches to 10; by the end of the 1970 season the league average had risen from a pre-adjustment mark of .237 to .254.

Fifteen years ago, Tom Purtzer led the PGA Tour in driving distance. Today his 279.6 average would have him tied for 120th place. Even the traditional Augusta National Golf Club has lengthened holes, planted trees and added rough to keep advancements in the game from driving the Masters to obsolescence.

Thirty years ago, hockey writer Stan Fischler wrote in his book, Slashing, “The slap shot came along and totally destroyed the game.” Change in sports, as it is in life, is inevitable and today peewees are taking slap shots unaware of a time when the shot was not a part of the game.

Someday, too, there will be peewees who never had the chance to score a goal on the outdated goals with red posts and white netting. It is a simple idea based on fundamental knowledge of color vision, the phenomenon of color, and how the brain processes that information. The 8i Goal is a standard goal with respect to size and shape, but rather than the traditional color system, its netting is red while the posts are gray.

Red is the most dominant and dynamic of all colors in the color spectrum, therefore it is the visually optimal target. Theory is one thing and application is another. The concept was evaluated by Natalia Rodriguez, M.D., an ophthalmologist at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. Dr. Rodriguez’s stance on the goal’s viability is, “In order to perform laser and microsurgery I am required to know everything there is to know about the eye and vision. I absolutely agree with the concept of the 8i Goal and am certain it will increase the ability to see the target areas and thus increase performance.”

The fundamental difference between this concept and most of the other ideas being considered by the NHL is the 8i Goal directly impacts each one of the 2,000 or so shots that a team will take during the season, while ideas such as removing the red line, increasing power plays, imposing an obstruction crackdown, moving the goal line, etc., are focused on simply increasing the number of shots being taken.

A shot on goal is a single event and unfortunately the “more shots equal more goals” assertion is the application of flawed understanding of probability. Much like roulette, a wheel that lands on black six times still has equal chances of landing on black or red the seventh time. Harvard University professor, Steven Pinker, explains this in his book, How the Mind Works, “Many probability theorists conclude that the probability of a single event cannot be computed…The statements that I am more likely to lose a fight against Mike Tyson than to win one, or that I am to be abducted by aliens tonight are not meaningless. But they are not mathematical statements that are true or false.”

Theoretically, Brett Hull could be given one extra shot per game from the top of the circles and while he could score on that extra shot the potential also exists for him to break his stick, hit the post, let a defender make a play, shoot wide, injure himself, etc.

One must also consider the potential for a goalie to handle more shots without necessarily yielding more goals. J-S Giguere didn’t even blink when the competition in the 2003 playoffs increased his workload by five saves per night. The Conn Smythe winner soaked up pucks dropping his goals against from 2.33 to 1.62. While an idea such as removing the red line may be able to create more shots, it will not increase the players’ ability to see the scoring places on those chances as the 8i Goal will do.

Due to the way the eye’s retina focuses red and the brain’s subsequent interpretation of that information, it is impossible for today’s player to successfully locate the currently colored target/net with a high degree of consistency. The lens of the eye, sometimes called the crystalline lens, has as its major function the fine adjustment in focusing. The lens is necessary to fix objects at different distances from the eye; those adjustments are known as accommodation. Accommodation is the process of bringing the image of an external field to a sharp focus in the fovea of the retina. In co-ordination with the iris, the wavelength sensitive lens flexes or remains flat according to the stimulation it receives. Colors with shorter wavelengths are focused slightly in front of the retina and colors with longer wavelengths are focused slightly behind. To see red more clearly the lens of the eye automatically adjusts by growing more convex through minute muscle control which pulls the image forward, making it appear nearer, larger, and more visible. Currently, when a player skating down the wing is looking for a place to shoot the puck, the part of the scene that is the most visually dominant is the posts. Red for all of its attributes must be used to mark the actual target so that that same player coming down the wing is being overwhelmed by the netting.

Gray goal posts will not only not dominate and not come forward in the player’s visual field, as they do in their current form as red, but they will also be less luminous. This is an important adjustment considering the seemingly large volume belonging to red luminous goal posts that delude the shooter into perceiving less net volume in the areas just around the posts, which are the places where the puck needs to go, especially in today’s game where goaltenders are shrinking the net by their own sheer size and skill. In addition, the less-luminous gray posts will not divert the shooters attention in situations such as a “one-timer” or any other split-second shot where the shooter only momentarily focuses the target thus allowing him in those “quick-release” situations to focus only the target red netting.

Another way to make the case for red as the best choice for the target is to take into account other instances in which red is used and how those usages have trained our attention to the color. Color expert, Faber Birren, reports in his book Color, Form, and Space that, “In air-sea rescue work the Navy has demonstrated the superiority of red-orange over yellow, white or any other color. Because of its extreme visual impact (richness or chromaticity) it will persist in forcing itself upon human vision and consciousness where other colors, though highly visible, may go unnoticed.” This report supports the fact that red-orange (a merge of the two longest wavelengths) is the relied upon color in situations requiring attention and due to the usage of red in such situations, humans are conditioned to the color, i.e. stop signs, fire trucks, warning labels. Therefore it makes sense that a player looking to quickly shoot the puck will have a more immediate reaction to and will more quickly focus a red target.

Beyond heightened responses to red caused by conditioning, researchers have found that humans have an innate connection to red. It has been found that exposure to red activates the Pituitary gland which produces a chemical message that is sent to the adrenal medulla, which then releases the hormone epinephrine. Epinephrine is the hormone that causes increased rate for breathing, blood pressure and heartbeat.

In hockey, maybe more so than other sports because of the speeds at which the game is played, the things that seem to be minutiae make all the difference. If a player is willing to sharpen his skates between periods or change sticks for a defensive zone face-off or keep his feet outside the blueline on a power play to gain an extra foot to maneuver, then it is not beyond reason to advocate a change to the color system of the ice hockey goal.

Eugene Delacroix, the great French artist whose masterful use of color was influential in the development of the Impressionism and Post-impressionism movements, said, “The elements of color theory have been neither analyzed nor taught in our schools of art, because in France it is considered superfluous to study the laws of color, according to the saying, ‘Draftsmen may be made, but colorists are born.’ Secrets of color theory? Why call those principles secrets which all artists must know and all should have been taught?”

Goal-scorers, just like colorists, are not simply born out of odd alignment of the stars, they must be nurtured and trained through years of development. And the rink on which they perform must have goals that are colored to maximize their ability to see the scoring spaces. Delacroix attended to color as no other artist had done before him and by doing so he altered the direction of art thereafter, just as the path of ice hockey will be unequivocally influenced by the NHL’s bold consideration of the impact of color.

[Uvira]

[size=21px]NHL needs a radical new look[/size]

Cleve Dheensaw
Times Colonist

Sunday, June 12, 2005

1 | 2 | NEXT >>

It was an electric night at the end of an inelegant winless run. The Victoria Salmon Kings stopped their epic ECHL futility streak last season at 20 games with a hockey purist's worst nightmare -- the shootout. Yet no fans grew horns or turned radioactive from witnessing it. Instead, Bear Mountain Arena pulsated with excitement with fans hanging on every shot of the shootout.

Also at Bear Mountain, and other Island rinks, we have watched BCHL junior players make two-line passes without whistles sounding and slowing the game to the pace of the Colwood Crawl. We've also seen it in the Winter Olympics. The sun rose the next day and Sooke did not fall into the ocean as the result of two-line passes at Salt Lake City in 2002.

It's not so much the purist-feared long bomb you see in the BCHL but that shorter pass from just under the blue line to just over the centre red line that keeps play flowing without constant whistles and which rewards forward-thinking teams.

The NHL will likely get shootouts, less obstruction and, mercifully, smaller goalie pads when the league returns from its self-inflicted hiatus. But the league, as stodgy and conservative as ever, will probably back off on two major changes that truly need to be made -- wider nets and legalizing two-line passes.

And the NHL will have blown it. It needs to return with a nuclear explosion, not a firecracker, of change. Less obstruction and tag-up offsides are just window dressing if not paired with more substantive change.

If the NHL had the fortitude and foresight to instigate truly meaningful change -- shootouts combined with two-line passes and wider nets -- it would see fans who are again actually entertained by an NHL product that has been allowed to suffocate. That's been because of pressure by lower-tier NHL teams who know they can't compete in the skill aspects and that modern goalies -- including their own -- can rarely be scored upon so games against better opponents can be kept close.

What a revelation if Minnesota and Columbus suddenly had to skate, shoot and stickhandle in a new-look NHL. Wow, what a concept.

The NHL has been far too slow to change while other sports have made changes that profoundly altered their games. The three-point shot revolutionized basketball. Baseball was much different during the dead-ball era. And the DH has deeply affected the way the game is managed in the American League. The introduction of the libero and rally-point scoring, not to mention beach volleyball, has altered that sport forever. In the Western Lacrosse Association, the present-day nets are much wider than you remember from the old WLA days at Memorial Arena.

One-day cricket Tests, sevens rugby and the addition of BMX to the 2008 Olympic cycling program would have been considered heresy by previous generations.

Almost every established sport has manipulated its basic DNA to some degree to make itself more exciting and modern in an age of decreased attention spans and X-Games. Hockey has, too, to a degree in some leagues. It's time for the NHL to catch up.

Wider nets would constitute the greatest change in hockey. But that time has come. The current net was devised for a human being of the early part of the 20th Century. Look at pictures of Victoria Cougars Stanley Cup goaltender Happ Holmes of the 1920s. He looks puny in front of a mountain of twine. Gaze at any hockey goalie now and you can barely see the twine behind him. Not only is the average human larger now but goaltending pads are monstrous and excessive.

Even watching highlights of games from the 1960s and 1970s, you notice how small goaltenders appear compared to today's pad-bulked version. The goalie pads have grown over 40 per cent in size, so cutting them back by the proposed 20 per cent won't do it alone. That move needs to be accompanied by an increase in the size of the net.

For those who argue it isn't fair to old scoring record holders to allow shooters now to have 17 per cent more net to aim at, as is being studied by the NHL, it's easy to counter that old-school shooters probably had at least 17 per cent more net to shoot at than present players because of the smaller size of the goaltenders and the smaller pads they wore. It's the golden oldies who had the advantage.

Bring on shootouts, two-line passes and wider nets. And leave the purists to that junk yard of history that is chock full of those who couldn't adapt, and failed to realize before it was too late, that the only constant in this world is that you evolve or you perish.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2005

[imh]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v317/mongoose29/p1_empty_all.jpg[/img]

[Uvira]

[size=21px]NHL needs a radical new look[/size]

Cleve Dheensaw
Times Colonist

Sunday, June 12, 2005

It was an electric night at the end of an inelegant winless run. The Victoria Salmon Kings stopped their epic ECHL futility streak last season at 20 games with a hockey purist's worst nightmare -- the shootout. Yet no fans grew horns or turned radioactive from witnessing it. Instead, Bear Mountain Arena pulsated with excitement with fans hanging on every shot of the shootout.

Also at Bear Mountain, and other Island rinks, we have watched BCHL junior players make two-line passes without whistles sounding and slowing the game to the pace of the Colwood Crawl. We've also seen it in the Winter Olympics. The sun rose the next day and Sooke did not fall into the ocean as the result of two-line passes at Salt Lake City in 2002.

It's not so much the purist-feared long bomb you see in the BCHL but that shorter pass from just under the blue line to just over the centre red line that keeps play flowing without constant whistles and which rewards forward-thinking teams.

The NHL will likely get shootouts, less obstruction and, mercifully, smaller goalie pads when the league returns from its self-inflicted hiatus. But the league, as stodgy and conservative as ever, will probably back off on two major changes that truly need to be made -- wider nets and legalizing two-line passes.

And the NHL will have blown it. It needs to return with a nuclear explosion, not a firecracker, of change. Less obstruction and tag-up offsides are just window dressing if not paired with more substantive change.

If the NHL had the fortitude and foresight to instigate truly meaningful change -- shootouts combined with two-line passes and wider nets -- it would see fans who are again actually entertained by an NHL product that has been allowed to suffocate. That's been because of pressure by lower-tier NHL teams who know they can't compete in the skill aspects and that modern goalies -- including their own -- can rarely be scored upon so games against better opponents can be kept close.

What a revelation if Minnesota and Columbus suddenly had to skate, shoot and stickhandle in a new-look NHL. Wow, what a concept.

The NHL has been far too slow to change while other sports have made changes that profoundly altered their games. The three-point shot revolutionized basketball. Baseball was much different during the dead-ball era. And the DH has deeply affected the way the game is managed in the American League. The introduction of the libero and rally-point scoring, not to mention beach volleyball, has altered that sport forever. In the Western Lacrosse Association, the present-day nets are much wider than you remember from the old WLA days at Memorial Arena.

One-day cricket Tests, sevens rugby and the addition of BMX to the 2008 Olympic cycling program would have been considered heresy by previous generations.

Almost every established sport has manipulated its basic DNA to some degree to make itself more exciting and modern in an age of decreased attention spans and X-Games. Hockey has, too, to a degree in some leagues. It's time for the NHL to catch up.

Wider nets would constitute the greatest change in hockey. But that time has come. The current net was devised for a human being of the early part of the 20th Century. Look at pictures of Victoria Cougars Stanley Cup goaltender Happ Holmes of the 1920s. He looks puny in front of a mountain of twine. Gaze at any hockey goalie now and you can barely see the twine behind him. Not only is the average human larger now but goaltending pads are monstrous and excessive.

Even watching highlights of games from the 1960s and 1970s, you notice how small goaltenders appear compared to today's pad-bulked version. The goalie pads have grown over 40 per cent in size, so cutting them back by the proposed 20 per cent won't do it alone. That move needs to be accompanied by an increase in the size of the net.

For those who argue it isn't fair to old scoring record holders to allow shooters now to have 17 per cent more net to aim at, as is being studied by the NHL, it's easy to counter that old-school shooters probably had at least 17 per cent more net to shoot at than present players because of the smaller size of the goaltenders and the smaller pads they wore. It's the golden oldies who had the advantage.

Bring on shootouts, two-line passes and wider nets. And leave the purists to that junk yard of history that is chock full of those who couldn't adapt, and failed to realize before it was too late, that the only constant in this world is that you evolve or you perish.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2005