There doesn’t seem to be a wealth of letters pouring into the paper about sports columns, but when I read Shaun Bean’s column (“To the victor go the spoils” March 15”) I jumped to write a letter faster than Bill Guerin makes a lap around the rink.
It made my day to read a column that mentioned the likes of Toe Blake and Krzysztof Oliwa, but I disagree with Bean’s suggestion the NHL moves to a shootout for overtime. Wayne Gretzky always said there is a good reason assists garner one point the same way goals do — the person setting up the goal is just as important, if not more, as the person who touches the puck right before it crosses the goal line. In other words, goal scorers are not the only important part of the game. NHL overtimes shootouts would make the NHL one big commercial by emphasizing only one aspect of the game. Why end a hard-fought, balanced game of good offense, defense and goaltending by utilizing three shooters and a solitary goaltender? There is no real reason to effect the rankings of a team by emphasizing the skill of a few guys on its roster. The regular season has no need to eliminate draws — that’s for the playoffs.
Bean also mentions Forsberg’s super exciting penalty shot. It isn’t only because of the “mano a mano” action of a penalty shot that makes it so exciting; we also dig penalty shots partially because of their rarity. Shootouts may be fun when we can create a Gretzky-Lemieux-Kariya hybrid on Play Station, but fortunately their goals don’t have an adverse effect on the final standings. It’s not time for the NHL to turn into this virtual playground. Shootouts are not the answer.
Brooke Feinberg COM ’02
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