2010 Winter Olympics: Should The Shootout Be Abolished?

Written By: Mark "The Hard Hitter" Ritter

Every four years hockey fans from coast-to-coast tune in to the Olympics to watch what many experts term as the greatest hockey ever played.

This year, Russia has assembled arguably the best set of top six forwards in the history of the game. Alex Ovechkin, Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavol Datsyuk, Evgeni Malkin, Alexander Semin, and Maxim Afinogenov are six of the games most intimidating snipers.  The fact they have been assembled on one team is just incredible.

Comparatively, Team Canada is made up of one of the most impressive group of players we have ever witnessed. Sidney Crosby, Chris Pronger, Scott Niedermayer, Martin Brodeur, Ryan Getzlaf, Drew Doughty, Roberto Luongo, and Joe Thornton, to name a few, help make up a virtual all-star caliber roster for Canada; one that, despite its struggle with Switzerland, is sure to dazzle us down the road.

Thursday night saw both these teams in action facing teams that many predicted would be out of the medal hunt in Vancouver. To the surprise of many, both Canada and Russia were forced into a shootout by Switzerland and Slovakia, respectively.

Fortunately for the Canadians, Sidney Crosby came up large, scoring the only goal in the shootout, on Canada’s fourth shot no less. The Russians were not so lucky, unable to get their offensive stars going, Russia lost to Slovakia in the shootout, a tough 2-1 loss that will serve as the tournaments first major upset.

Both games had fans and players alike on pins and needles.  It’s not very often you get to watch this kind of hockey when there is so much at stake, the players knew it and so did the fans.

With that in mind, why the “H-E-double-hockey-sticks” would anyone want to see these games decided by a shootout?

It’s not like the teams were in a hurry to get on a plane, it’s not like the ratings were poor, and it’s not like the teams were playing boring hockey in overtime. An extension of overtime would have been extremely exciting and, in my opinion, is the way to go in these games.

Heck, we wait four years for the Olympic Games to arrive; surely we can wait another 20-60 minutes to decide a winner, especially when you consider the stakes these teams are playing for.

The NHL uses the shootout to decide many regular season games, so much so that it is becoming all too common for games to be decided in this manner. The end result is standings that are very much congested and, while there is finality to the games, fans often leave with a bad taste in their mouths–especially if their team loses!

What the NHL doesn’t do is use the shootout in playoff games, which is both good and confusing all at once. Clearly, using a shootout to decide a playoff game would be ridiculed until the cows came home.  That said, it is interesting that the NHL would allow two sets of standards to be in place for deciding games, regardless of the importance of the match.

How is it an NHL team's playoff fortunes are often decided by how they fare in the shootout, only to see the shootout completely dropped come playoff time? It’s a little confusing for fans of the game and, in my opinion, an admittance that the shootout is, in fact, a farce, nothing more than a gimmick for the fans to indulge their desire for finality on the scoreboard.

With all this in mind, it seems to me using a shootout to decide a game in the Olympics is an act of stupidity. Sure, it’s great when your team wins, but if Russia (or any other team for that matter) was to lose out on a medal due to their lack of success in a shootout it would be a shame and a black mark for Olympic Tournament.

Imagine, having your medal hopes decided by a skills competition? Absurd!

The IIHF and the Olympic Committee need to give their collective heads a shake and get rid of the shootout. There is far too much at stake here and, given the fact the Olympics roll around only every four years, I think we can all agree that we’d rather wait for one of the teams to decide the game the old fashioned way rather than in a skills competition.

Clearly, changes are needed.  The sooner the better…

For more Olympic and NHl coverage please visit my hcokey website at:

http://theslapshot.com/

Until next time,

Peace!