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From: citrin@ucbvax.ARPA (Wayne Citrin)
Newsgroups: net.sport.hockey
Subject: Re: Re: NHL rule change
Message-ID: <8314@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 19-Jun-85 14:52:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8314
Posted: Wed Jun 19 14:52:07 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Jun-85 10:05:54 EDT
References: <1576@dciem.UUCP> <8235@ucbvax.ARPA> <552@alberta.UUCP>
Reply-To: citrin@ucbvax.UUCP (Wayne Citrin)
Distribution: net
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 27

I don't think Terry understood what I was trying to say in my article,
so I'll explain it further.

1)  It seems to me that it is easier to provoke offsetting minors than it is 
    to draw a penalty.

2)  The advantage that good skating teams have on the 4-on-4 is almost as
    great as the advantage they have on the power play.

3)  If a team decides that it can gain the advantage more easily by provoking
    coincidental minors than by drawing a penalty (or if they attempt to draw
    a penalty with the knowledge that they are at no risk because they can
    do almost as well on a 4-on-4) then they will at times deliberately
    commit an infraction to gain the advantage.  

4)  This seems to me to be a flaw in the rules.  Penalties exist to prevent
    a team from doing certain things, not to encourage them to do those
    things.  The new rule removes the encouragement by removing the advantage
    that good-skating teams would gain by deliberately breaking the rules.

I think that this is a fairly compelling argument.  It's not an attack on the 
Oilers, who found a flaw in the rules and used it to their advantage (as did
the Canadiens, who used to spend a great deal of time practicing the 4-on-4).
It's just an attempt to plug a hole in the rules of hockey.  

Wayne Citrin
(ucbvax!citrin)