Comments on: Lindros: “the game’s gotten too fast”

By: emperorzero

emperorzero — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 06:57:41 +0000

The answer is to go to Olympic size ice in my opinion; however, god forbid if the wners sacrificed some prime seating. I wonder though if the Penguins would lose more money from the loss of seats or from Crosby missing games.

By: drewsylvania

drewsylvania — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 06:49:01 +0000

I wonder if Eric finds the game too fast because he gets headaches trying to follow them around the ice.

By: 1943mrmojorisin1971

1943mrmojorisin1971 — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:59:47 +0000

The constant rule changes are making the NHL look like that already and if players keep getting hurt more rules will be made about how you can and can’t hit. No more rule changes and a bigger ice surface is the best compromise if it were possible.

By: tjv027

tjv027 — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:22:44 +0000

Soccer on skates. No thanks.

By: lonespeed

lonespeed — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:14:37 +0000

Slowing the speed of the game doesn’t eliminate skating with your head down. Did Eric look up during the interview?

By: philcommander

philcommander — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:18:51 +0000

I think they should do away with the ice altogether…replace it with grass. Instead of skates they could use cleats and instead of red lines and blue lines they could use…goal lines.
Get rid of the puck too…use a brown ball thats an odd oblong shape.
Instead of three periods it could be four quarters…
I think I’m onto something here….

By: lmd8491

lmd8491 — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:10:18 +0000

The size of football fields, basketball courts and hockey rinks were based on people who were smaller and slower. I wonder what the sizes would be if those sports started today?

By: 1943mrmojorisin1971

1943mrmojorisin1971 — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:35:03 +0000

The best solution would be to switch to the same ice they use for IIHF games. It would be the best way to maintain the current speed of the game without continuing to legislate against hits. Bigger ice means more room for skilled players and less collisions. Too bad that will never happen.

By: govtminion

govtminion — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:33:29 +0000

It’s worth pointing out that many of the worst concussions we’ve seen over the past few years had nothing to do with the speed of the game, the red line, or any of that. Marc Savard comes to mind- put forty lines on the ice, and he’d still have suffered his career-ender. I’m willing to bet that the reason it seems like there’s more concussions is that we’re NOTICING now, not that there are MORE of them. Players aren’t hiding them as much, trainers are watching better, and it’s because we know more about the damage and symptoms.

That’s not to say Lindros’ complaints aren’t valid- but I’d be very interested to find out (somehow) whether there really are more concussions now than ten years ago, or if we’re just hearing more about them.

By: warpstonebc

warpstonebc — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:09:53 +0000

I originally hated the removal of the two line pass… I was wrong. The game is much more skillful with stretch passes and nifty skating than it was with the clutch and grab of the dead-puck era neutral zone.

Look, we can’t reinstate the two line pass. Everyone knows this. The game would devolve. There is a serious option to keep the speed and reduce the injuries and that’s to make hits that used to be borderline in the dead-puck era turn into penalties in this era.

You can argue that it makes the game less physical and you might be right. But what other route is there than to minimize the acceptability of contact on vulnerable players at high speed? We can’t expect the league to play this fast and keep hits worthy of Scott Stevens’ shoulder legal in this era. We have to choose one and clearly we’d rather see the scoring stay. The choice should be obvious if you’re not a neanderthal like Milbury, etc.

By: thomaspratt

thomaspratt — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:45:38 +0000

If Lindros truly believes they knew opening up the game would sacrifice player safety, I don’t see why we need to listen to another word.

I’m getting very worried the reactionary NHL will make knee-jerk changes that will compromise the speed and entertainment value of the game. This is an urgent issue, but it requires well-considered changes that won’t take the NHL back to the dark dead puck era

By: donttouchthedirtypenny

donttouchthedirtypenny — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:45:16 +0000

The red line came out to help teams bust the trap. Still teams are trapping today with success, if the red line goes back in we will return to the dead puck era.

By: Stiller43

Stiller43 — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:15:52 +0000

2 line passes must stay! Its bs you cant pass across the red line when youre just behind our own blue line.

I know people can adjust, but it would REALLY slow down the game and have to go more east west…nobody wants that.