The Ratings Game
By Greg Anzelc

Could Adopting Rules From Higher Rated Sports
Get The NHL Back On Track?

In light of the recent announcement that the NHL and the players have agreed on a salary cap system, there is some positive energy in the air and maybe even reason to believe that the NHL will once again be back on the ice this winter. But in addition to solving the labor agreement, the league is considering many rule changes to create excitement and make the game more appealing to a broader audience. Proposals include changing the size of goalie equipment, the size of the goal, two-line passes, and touch icing.

It’s no secret that NHL TV ratings are abysmal, and we’ve watched as the numbers for "the greatest game on earth" have been surpassed in recent years by telecasts of seven guys sitting around a poker table, cars making left turns for hundreds of miles and even a sport where a ball is rolled at pins by ‘athletes’ with figures roughly the same as the pins at which they are rolling the ball.

Perhaps hockey can learn something from these other sports, all of which have at some point in time beat out hockey in the ratings, and can adopt a few of their rules.

Here are our suggestions:

Tennis: The sport has been down, generally speaking, with the absence of big name stars and rivalries yet the TV numbers continue to outshine hockey. Our suggestion is to adapt the ball boy position into hockey (perhaps using Kramer from Seinfeld as he was the ball boy at the US Open). It works like this: the ‘puck boy’ will sit on the redline with the scorekeeper, and each time a team goes into a neutral zone trap and play gets bogged down, the ‘puck boy’ will run across the center redline, pick up the puck and send it into one of the attacking zones, perhaps even creating a shot on goal.

NBA: Traffic out front of an NHL net makes it virtually impossible to get to the goal and the confusion makes it look a lot like what MnDOT has done to Highway 394 in recent weeks. The creation of a two point arch, ala the three-point arch in basketball, will allow teams to double their luck if they are able to score from the areas outside of the faceoff dots. This may force teams to better guard the perimeter and actually open up a lane so players can get to the net and create a scoring opportunity.

Texas Holdem Poker: The TV ratings for the poker craze don’t simply beat NHL ratings, they are "all in" compared to what hockey’s greatest players are able to attract. Move over Chris Chelios, here comes Chris Moneymaker. And apparently money is the motivating factor in the NHL, so much so that it may take stacks of dough to motivate guys to play the game they love. So let’s tie earnings into what the players wager on each game. Imagine the effort from the first line if they have $20,000 on the line. Then if they are up by two goals entering the third and the opposing line goes "all in", well I don’t think you would see too many fans heading for the exits halfway though the period.

MLB: Professional baseball has had its own fare share of ups and downs, but they continue to thrive as America’s pastime. Hockey could benefit most from the game of baseball by adapting a version of the ‘walk’. In baseball things get pretty boring when a pitcher can’t throw a strike, but the reward is that the other team benefits by getting a base runner. So in hockey when a team goes into the trap (the equivalent of a pitcher not finding the dish) and slows the game to a pace that makes exiting from the parking ramp after the game seem fast and exciting, we propose that the team being trapped gets to add a player to the ice.

Bowling: According to those in the know, the "oiling pattern" applied to a given lane has a great impact on how the ball behaves during its journey down the lane. So to further eliminate the neutral zone play, we propose an "oil pattern" in the areas between the blue lines to make the ice more slick and impact the behavior of the puck making it a less desirable area to use. We also propose using bowling shirts as the design templates for NHL jerseys.

Horse Racing: Serving mint juleps to all fans entering the building is the easy answer, but we believe eliminating coaches in favor of jockeys is the best solution. Rather than screaming instructions from the bench, the ‘jockey/coaches’ can ride along on the backs of the players and coach right from the ice. If a player isn’t skating hard, out comes the whip!

NFL: This is easy. The most exciting play in football is the long bomb, and the equivalent in the NHL is not allowed because of the red line. Not only do we eliminate the red line, but also institute an extra point opportunity that gives a team a ‘penalty shot’ after each goal they score for a chance at another half point. For a chance at a full point (the two point conversion in football), a one-on-one ‘penalty shot’ takes place with the defending team putting their best defenseman on the ice to try and stop the attempt.

NBA: We hate to give the ‘inflatable round ball folks’ too much credit, but we must return to the NBA because the fouls at the end of the game, as much as they are annoying, keeps the game honest. Hockey is the only sport that doesn’t enforce the rules, which if called as they are written, would allow the skill players to shine. The lack of rules enforcement benefits the less skilled by allowing them to hinder the stars by clutching, grabbing, and holding (didn’t we hear those same words during the Michael Jackson trial?). The league needs to enforce these rules to create a faster, more skilled game. But if they won’t, let’s adopt the foul policy from basketball where, after a certain threshold, each time a player commits a foul, or penalty, the other team could be sent to the center face off dot for a free breakaway on the opposing goaltender. Now talk about excitement seeing 10 penalty shots a game!

In a related note, we must return to the NBA for a third and last idea (we’ve got our first ‘hat trick’). We also believe more stars should be sitting in rink side seats, starting with Jack in L.A., and Janet Jackson when she comes to
Minneapolis/St. Paul.

PGA Tour: The gentlemen’s game blows away hockey ratings, largely due to Tiger, but nonetheless there is something to be learned here. If teams are going to play a boring dump and chase style, we propose allowing players to tee up the puck at the center red line. This would include stopping play to allow the player a practice "swing", a little swagger, lining up the shot on goal, and then riffling a shot. Of course along with a polite "golf clap’ some idiot in the stands would have to yell "you’re the man".

Nascar: If millions of people will sit on the couch on a beautiful summer day watching a car make a left turn all day long, how come you can’t get them to watch a hockey game in the dead of winter? The simple answer is that Nascar appeals to the lowest common denominator; that being most people enjoy speed, and everyone knows how to drive a car, so more people can relate.

So the help to hockey? From Nascar we simply borrow the race theme. We will hold intermission races featuring logo-clad Zamboni’s with emerging star drivers outfitted in the garb all the way down to the over-sponsored driver suites. The fastest resurfacer will earn their team power play time to start the next period equal to that of their winning lap time.

Reality TV: As sad of a commentary that this is on society, the ‘reality’ is, watching the plight of fellow American’s embarrass themselves on TV is the highest rated form of entertainment on the tube. To solve the issue of goalie equipment being too large, we propose retrofitting goalies in equipment from the early years, including no helmets. We also propose installing cameras and mic’s to catch the reality of the changes. Imagine the sight of goalies soiling them selves as a 110 m.p.h. slap shot approaches. How about a camera cam on the end of the goalies stick as it enters the crotch of an opposing player as he attempts to clear traffic in front of the net.


As far fetched as this all may seem, for better or worse this is the direction society is moving. The NHL must do one of two things: adapt these rule changes that appeal to a broader audience, or go back to a game that enforces the rules that allow for their skill players to shine, goals to be scored and fans to cheer.