The Shootout in the National Hockey League

The shootout was introduced into competitive play in the NHL during the 05/06 season, the season after the lockout. It was designed to break ties, after regulation and a five minute overtime, in an exciting way. The shootout is no doubt exciting, and has been a part of the All-Star game for years, but is it appropriate to introduce in a game? This is a question that has baffled many followers and the higher ups of hockey, and provided for some controversy.

Like I said before the shootout is a very exciting, edge of your seat, type of entertainment. It was introduced into the game not only to break ties, but bring in a new wave of fans that were not there before the lockout. Everyone loves to see a one on one with the skater and the goalie. It is no doubt very exciting. However many people feel that it should not be included into every day games. Now a days a hockey game works like this. Three periods of 20 minutes each are played to decide a winner and loser. If the teams are tied after the 60 minutes of play the teams go into what is called overtime. In overtime 5 minutes is added to the clock and the teams play with only 4 players each. If after this extra 5 minutes there still is not a winner the game goes into a shootout. In the shootout each team has 3 shooters to break the tie. If after these three shooters go there still isn't a winner more and more shooters take aim until a winner is decided. This bothers a lot of people for two main reasons.

The first reason is that a lot of Hockey fans that have followed the game for many years feel that it deviates from old time hockey. This deviation should not be included in the game according to these people. They feel that the game should be left as it is. The only problem with their ideas is that now everything is based off of money, and if the old hockey isn't bringing in the dough, something needs to be changed. A second reason people do not like the shootout is that they believe that the shootout should not be worth a point in the standings. For example as soon as the game goes to overtime each team is guaranteed a point. In overtime or in a shootout the winning team gets an extra point, as winning a game is always equal to two points no matter how it is attained. People argue over this issue that winning a game in a shootout is not worth as much as winning a game in overtime. These are the typical people that would like to see overtime changed in some way, but not the way the NHL has currently changed it with the shootout. A lot of these people believe that the amount of time in actual overtime play should be increased to give the teams more of a chance to win the game.

The shootout is not only causing controversy in the regular season, but also in the playoffs. Now a lot of you hockey fans just read that and thought something was wrong. You were right, there is no shootout in the playoffs. In the playoffs an unlimited amount of sudden death periods are added until a winner is crowned. Many people argue that this should be changed, and the shootout should be used in the playoffs. Now this would obviously shorten some of the games, that sometimes manage to go 6 or 7 periods, but that is what the playoffs are all about. The playoffs are all about battling and going beyond your limits to achieve a win. If a shootout is instituted into the playoffs this battling nature would be lost, and we also would have more controversy over the best team. One team may be better at shootouts then another and therefore win more games because of this. I think that adding a shootout in playoffs is downright ridiculous, and don't believe that anything like this will ever be added or changed.

The shootout in the NHL has caused a lot of positive and negative feedback. The positive feedback includes the new wave of fans who love the excitement that is achieved from a shootout. The negative feedback is coming from all of the people that love old hockey, and never want hockey to change in any way. I personally am one of the people that never want hockey to change, but I do enjoy watching a shootout every once in a while. My feelings towards regular season overtime is that it should be increased in time or even changed to be like the playoffs with sudden death extra periods. When it comes to the playoffs, I don't think anything should be changed, as playoff hockey is the most exciting hockey to watch.