Say no to strokes!
I love playing finals, they bring the best out in you. After a long home and away season, your body’s tired but you have to somehow get yourself up for the ‘big’ games. Normally there’s not much separating the top teams so each game is always a tough encounter and sometimes 70 minutes isn’t enough for the 2 teams to get a result.
During the warm up for my final matches, I encountered a couple of games being decided by penalty strokes. There is nothing more heart breaking than losing a premiership on a penalty stroke shootout, a feeling I’ve witnessed a few too many times in my career! A lot of it comes down to luck, does the goalie guess the right way? Does the striker put the ball in the right spot? Don’t get me wrong, whatever sport you play from winning an olympic gold medal down to wining a club premiership you need a little bit of luck, but I sit here and think why do we choose this path to win a game of hockey by such means when there’s a better way.
From speaking to most players they hate the idea of having a game decided on a shootout, I agree. To me whether your playing hockey or football (soccer) you want win or lose the match playing the game. From all the ‘experimental’ rules I’ve played with the best one invented has never been implemented by the governing body. At the end of full time if both teams were locked in a tie, 2 players from both sides would sit out and the match would be become a 9 v 9 with a golden goal deciding the winner. If at the end of the first period of extra time, both sides were still locked in a draw, another 2 players are ‘removed’ and the game becomes a 7 v 7.
On about 10 occassions when playing this rule I have seen the match go to 7 v 7 once, with the game sorted out in the 9 v 9 scenario. By removing players, more space is created and that means more scoring opportunities. Whilst it is exciting to watch, the best part about it is that people are playing hockey instead of just standing there pushing the ball at a stationary keeper. This way of determing a winner is exciting and for the crowd as they are on the edge of their seat and with such an open field, it becomes a battle of fitness and skill execution.
At the end of the day, both sides walk away saying they lost ‘playing’ hockey rather than par-taking in an occassion that provides a quick and easy result. Let’s hope this scenario is implemented sometime in the future as it will make our sport an even better spectacle than it already is.
Say no to strokes!!