If it ain’t broke, don’t break it

By Angelo Stambene

When “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” starts playing during the winter, I get confused. Sure, Christmas and the New Year are great times of the year, but the most wonderful? I think not. Mid-April is the best time of the year, because that’s when the NHL playoffs start. But with its incessant tampering of the game, the NHL has ruined playoff seeding.

Last year the NHL moved away from the one seed facing the eighth, second facing the seventh and so on. Now we’re left with a convoluted format where a division winner faces a “wild card” which puts an emphasis on conference matchups.

Why? I bellowed when I found out that the format had been changed. NHL rivalries are born in the playoffs, where the pressure mounts and the stakes are never higher. Now, because the league loves to fix things that aren’t broken, fans of the game won’t as often get to see an eight seed knock off a one seed like the Kings did in 2012. We don’t get to see the Kings go on to topple each of the highest seeded teams in the playoffs, and come out with a Stanley Cup.

It was a change just for change’s sake, and for some reason the NHL just can’t stop tinkering with game, its format, rules, hitting, face offs, fighting, it’s exhausting to try and keep up. It’s understandable that NHL wants the kind of money that the NFL and MLB command, but if the league was able to quit messing with, and canceling games, maybe it’d be taken seriously.

The NHL isn’t professional football or baseball, and shouldn’t strive to be. Hockey is a unique sport where “wild cards” used to be called “dark horses,” with both terms attempting to accomplish the same thing. It makes no sense to bring MLB and NFL jargon into a sport that has nothing in common with them, other than a trophy being played for.

I feel like channeling my inner Nick Cage during “Con Air”, and telling the league to put the playoffs back in the box.

Fans can’t always fear slight changes

By Kate Shefte

I love this niche sport, and the fact that it will always probably be a little too rough and complicated for the average American sports fan. Change for the sake of change is obviously stupid — and it still irks me to no end, for fairness and purely aesthetic reasons, that the conferences have uneven numbers — but some of the more recent changes have been good. You’ve gotta shake it up every once in a while to keep it interesting for old and new fans alike.

If an NHL division has five deserving teams to send to the playoffs, send them. It’s looking like the stacked Central Division might do just that.

Remember the days of the South(l)east Division sending whatever team was the least horrible that year with an automatic third seed to, often times, get swept by the sixth seed, which was usually superior and carried more points? With the new divisions and playoff format, teams that deserve to go to the playoffs go, with the seeding they’ve earned.

Let’s be honest — the wild-card format is not all that different. David (No. 8) still gets to take on Goliath (No. 1) sometimes. When you get to the bottom of the standings, divisions have always gone right out the window. But it has produced two sets of exciting final weeks so far.

The wild-card format encourages free-for-all finishes, everyone clawing for that last, precious spot. Even just the mention of “wild card” could boost interest in a ratings-challenged sport. Watching the Penguins fall from their graceful perch atop the Metropolitan Division, to now being forced to mingle with — gasp! — the undignified wild card hopefuls has been great fun.

And when have more conference matchups ever been a bad thing? More rivalries will be born, more legendary series played.

Yes, the new playoff standings are a little more complicated, but worth it. Every time the NHL does something you don’t agree with, remember the glow puck of the mid-90s and count your blessings.

The Stanley Cup is carried to a table at the World Arena by Mike Bolt, the Keeper of the Cup. For over 2 hours, hockey fans in Colorado Springs got an opportunity to get close to the Stanley Cup and have their photo taken with the legendary trophy. The Stanley Cup was at the World Arena on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. (The Gazette/Jerilee Bennett)