Roger Lajoie operates Triumph Sports Communications, a leader in providing editorial, broadcast and public relations services.

Roger's weekly sports column "The Rog's Rant" is now available here every Monday.

The Rog's Rant

Overtime playoff hockey must never be taken away

The National Hockey League made a pile of changes after the 2004 lock-out, and most of them have worked out quite well.

I like most of the rule changes, I think the game is a lot better and as always, the first round of the NHL playoffs is my favorite time of the sporting year.

And before I make my main point let me say this – I love the shootout in the regular season, one of the more radical changes that was made. It’s exciting, the fans love it and over the course of an 82-game season, it made for some great drama.

But despite that, there is one change the NHL must never, never, never make – and that is to eliminate sudden death overtime in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Shootouts are fine to break up the monotony of the long regular season and to throw the fans a bit if a bone. But when it comes to finishing off a playoff season or series, there is nothing that is more exciting to watch then overtime hockey.

It could be over in a few seconds with one shot, or it could take all night and four or five or even six periods of overtime hockey. But either way I love to watch overtime in the NHL playoffs and if you ask the players, they love the challenge of playing overtime playoff hockey as well.

The late great film director Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense on the giant screen, had a great theory of what drama was all about.

If you put a bomb under somebody’s chair in a movie and it goes off unexpectedly, you have several seconds of unbelievable suspense and terror. But if you put the bomb there, and tell the viewer it’s there, you can create hours of unbelievable suspense and terror with the anticipation of that bomb going off. He reasoned the tension of PERHAPS the bomb going off was thicker than the bomb actually going off (which is why in so many of his movies he let viewers know who the killer was early in the movie instead of making them guess).

Think about it. It’s the anticipation that creates the tension – and as great as shootout are, they are over in a few minutes.

How quickly does an overtime end? Maybe in five seconds, or maybe in five hours. How perfect is that?

And of course, there’s the matter of integrity of the game. Critics of the shootout point out that it’s only one dimension of the game as opposed to a real game, and that is a valid point.

It’s one thing when a shootout costs you a regular season point, but quite another when it costs you your season in the seventh game of a playoff series (and yes Leaf fans, I know they lost a playoff spot in a shootout but they had 82 chances to get that extra needed point and lots of pervious shootouts too).

I really enjoy the shootouts in the regular season, they are fun to watch and provide great drama – and they have eliminated ties from hockey. But overtime playoff hockey, where any one shift or shot can end the game – now that’s great drama!

The shootout is the bomb going off unexpectedly in a movie. The playoff overtime is the tension waiting to see if it goes off after you know it’s planted there.

I love Alfred Hitchcock movies for the same reason I love overtime hockey – the prolonged suspense in both is amazing.

Shootouts in the regular season can stay. But shootouts to decide a Stanley Cup playoff game?
Never.

Comments on The Rant of April 8 on The Final 4:

“I went to a Sweet 16 game this year for the first time and it really was a spectacle. If only we celebrated our amateur athletes in Canada the way they do in the States.” – Gino in Toronto

“Absolutely disgraceful that we can’t even get our Final 4 basketball tournament on TV in Canada.” – Chris in Kitchener

Email your comments to therog@rogerlajoie.com

Other Rog's Rants & Reader Comments

To read Roger's previous Rants, please visit the Rant Archives section of the website.