Offside Under Review

It's late, you're tired, you get home just in time to crash on the couch and turn on the game. All you want to do is crack a cold one, relax and...the cable's out.

You manage to put down your beer, get up and call the cable company. You go through the initial hassle of answering the many, many, prompts only to continue waiting....Eventually, you get through to a person, who then proceeds to ask more questions, some of which you may have already answered...You again explain your situation, trying your best to remain calm, and they tell you they'll look into it. They may even get a colleague or two on the problem to try and solve the issue. It feels like time has stopped, maybe even at some point moved backwards, and you're right where you started. Meanwhile they review the circumstances, gathered around, looking over their notes and, well, "perhaps we'd better get our supervisor on the phone..."

This is the NHL's offside review...

First off, I don't entirely mind the idea. Really. The game is incredibly fast, referees are human (for now) meaning they may miss the odd, very, VERY close call. Fans, for the most part, understood that and didn't seemed all that bothered (as long as it went their way) until they blew a really obvious call. See, years back Matt Duchene scored a goal when he was as about as offside as a frat boy at a kegger and all hell broke loose. People started to whine that we need to 'get it right' and thus the idea of offside review eventually came to life. Now, I'm all for getting it right, generally, but if a skate blade is hovering over the blueline, or a player is in the zone by a third of an inch, honestly, I don't care. And I don't blame the linesmen for missing these.

The NHL has done plenty to try and increase scoring: no line changes after an icing, delay of game for flipping the puck out, smaller goalie equipment, etc. so you'd think they'd try to help that anyway possible. Calling goals off on a review, sometimes minutes after the goal has been scored, seems well, counter productive to that agenda. Personally I think they should just have the blueline set up akin to the goal line in football and as long as the players skate is 'breaking the plain' then it's good. Not to say I want to see NHLers trying some half-assed figure skating move at the blueline to try and stretch it out, but you get the idea. It would speed things up and eliminate what has become one of the most annoying things in hockey since the glowing puck.

The idea of instituting a penalty for delay of game for an unsuccessful challenge is brilliant, at least in my humble opinion. Not only will it speed the game up, it will also lead to more offensive chances should a team get a power play out of it...provided of course that team isn't the Avalanche. Previously the punishment was that you lost your timeout, and granted each team only has 1 per game (in regulation), but this seemed about as effective a scare tactic as the linesman saying 'I told you so'. It'll have coaches thinking twice and guys on the ice will, theoretically, be able to be more focused on the play. It eases the burden on officials as well and is just better for everyone involved, including those of us watching. It still gives coaches the option to challenge and 'get it right'. You'd just better be damn sure the linesman got it wrong.