Saucy Superficiality Sells in Sports: The Hockey Shoot Out

I'm reading a book called the 'The Thinking Fan's Guide to Baseball' by Leonard Koppett. Two words in the book led me to this post: artificial excitement. A duo that perfectly describes the introduction of the hockey shoot-out. Anyone who knows me, has a clear idea of where I stand on the settling major games with a shoot-out. It's not that I refute progress. I reject progress on false pretenses. But that's another matter altogether.

Here's what the NHL hockey standings look like according to the official NHL website. I chose the Montreal Canadiens* as an example:

13 games 7 wins, 3 losses, 3 OT.

The local newspaper expresses it thusly:

13 games 7 wins, 3 losses, 0 OT, 3 SL.

So which is it? What is Montreal's record? To me, it's 7 wins, 3 losses and 3 ties. But because the NHL came up with the absurd notion of getting an extra point for a shoot out victory it leads to a loss for a team - even though the game ended in a tie. Follow? There's logic there somewhere. If we were to continue with this premise, then Montreal's record is really 7 wins, 6 losses. Since all sorts of free points are given for showing up or being mediocre, the local paper breaks down where those points are coming from. Hence, the 3 shoot out losses category.

Call it the NHL's way of marketing its product. Never the one to be innovative or imaginative, the old boys at the NHL thinks this is a clever way to get fans to love their game.

They may be right.

After the lock out, the NHL needed to recover lost fans - not entirely dissimilar to what baseball went through in 1994. So, the best way is to appeal to the masses. Or, expressed differently, the lowest common denominator. Enter the shoot out concept.

I don't like it. Then again, I'm an advertising execs worst nightmare; you can't appeal to my primal senses that easily. Nor am I that simple to please. It's a showcase in immediate self-gratification for sports fans with no attention span.

Historically, the game of hockey tolerated ties. Now, we can't digest them? Today we're so terrified of being bored that the gimmick is now the trick to gloss over a perceived lack of action.** We no longer are capable of picking up any subtle traits in any sports. The people who are 'bored' are the same ones who think baseball or soccer is boring. We want to trivialize ourselves by being entertained superficially. These people are not sports fans. They are the worst kind of fickle paying customers. They are the ones who send a dish back at a restaurant for no real reason or return items at Wal-Mart because they feel it's their Constitutional or Chartered right to do so.

The lines between sport and entertainment are now one line. Hence, athletes are no longer athletes in the purist sense of the word. They are entertainers now. Just look at the NFL and NBA. At least the NHL has been spared the spectacle of showboating. Just like great writing has given way to the 'creative rant' (Coulter, Dowd and their ilk), sports has given way to the marketing machine.

We don't cater to real, hard core fans anymore because we take them for granted. We pander to the casual and corporate fan because this is where the money is. The old adage "sex sells" seems appropriate in that substance doesn't matter.

I know this has been said many times in several different ways but it does have merit.

Many hockey commentators like to fool themselves into believing that the shoot-out was a visionary idea. In reality, it was a reaction to a malaise that gripped hockey - the lock-out.

Sure, the shoot-out is fun....in a superficial way.

Hey, if people like it....

*Yes, those same Canadiens who pay the outstanding Christopher Higgins $575 000 (for a second years player) and an unproven rookie in Guillaume Lantendresse $875 000. The maximum allowed.

** Hockey slumped in the 1990s the game was not being played in its proper spirit. The excessive reliance on slow paced monsters put a damper on action because the small, speedy and talented players were weeded out of the equation. Mind you, the hook was used perfectly by Gretzky in the 80s. The shoot-out does nothing to enhance the game itself. Rather, it is a tool for marketing and publicists to sell their product. The good news is that the game has been given back to talent. The bad news is that you have to tolerate the generic atmosphere of our arenas. Sure, things get electric but overall something got lost in translation.