Excessive reviews adversely affecting sports
The last thing the NHL — or any other professional league — needs right now is more instant replay.
At a time when we don’t necessarily know what a goal is, what’s a ball and a strike, what’s a foul in the NBA or what constitutes a catch in the NFL, the NHL is looking to add more opportunities for video review challenges.
When instant replay was introduced in North American pro sports — to get the calls right, remember — it wasn’t thoroughly thought out or examined. The intent was not to turn games into lengthy breakdowns of milliseconds of inconclusive replays. Games in hockey and goals are now being determined regularly by computer geeks sitting in their offices away from the ice and finding reasons to challenge offside calls.
Instant replay was supposed to rid the game of obvious mistakes. But instead, goaltender interference, determining what exactly is a goal and the picayune nature of the offside regulations have stolen from the game and made it worse, certainly not better.
You need a glossary today to understand what kind of calls can or can’t be challenged in the NFL. Some of the coaches don’t seem to know the rules.
Baseball begins another season shortly, this one with 12 cameras now installed in every stadium for instant replay with the sport investing $50 million on getting calls correct when, at the same time, it’s doing nothing about inconsistent umpires who have trouble accurately calling balls and strikes.
The intent of instant replay has always been fine. It’s what’s happened in the interim that hasn’t been. Now every team in every league has broken down the rules to such minute detail that they’ve made the games worse, the arguments more, with the sports somewhat defeating themselves.
Adding more replay as baseball and hockey won’t the make games better. It will mean we will talk more about technology and less about the players and what they do on the field.
THIS AND THAT
This is the kind of season Auston Matthews has had: He’s going to win the Rocket Richard Award for most goals. He might win the Lady Byng. He should be a strong candidate for the Hart Trophy and the Selke as best defensive forward in the NHL. And heading into Saturday night, he was 13 goals away from 70, all of which still seems rather unbelievable … Can’t remember a season with so many MVP candidates of quality. Nathan Mckinnon remains the favourite, barely, to win the Hart, but if this were debate class and given 15 minutes in school to prepare, I could make a very strong argument for Connor Mcdavid, Nikita Kucherov, David Pastrnak, Matthews, Artemi Panarin, Sebastian Aho, Connor Hellebuyck and Roman Josi. And that’s leaving out Quinn Hughes, Sam Reinhart and Sidney Crosby. The field is that deep this year … William Nylander is closing in on 100 points, which would make him the first Leaf winger in the 107 years of the franchise to hit the century mark. Mitch Marner got to 99 and 97 in recent seasons. As great as Nylander has played, he won’t be a first- or second-team NHL all-star. If the voting is done properly, Kucherov and Pastrnak will be the all-stars.