NCAA Committee Regains Senses, Repeals Controversial Change

Last month, we told you about a set of proposed rules changes in college hockey. Coaches in the sport were less than pleased with some of the ideas, and it was clear many of them didn't have the kind of say in the process you would expect coaches in the sport to have.

To a certain extent, it appears the NCAA Ice Hockey Rules Committee listened to the coaches and outraged fans.

The proposal didn't get a full heave-ho, but the committee has made a common-sense move that greatly lessens the potential (and virtually unknown) impact of this change.

Instead of the rule that would prohibit teams from icing the puck while shorthanded taking affect this season, it will be used in exhibition games only during this two-year rule cycle.

“The committee appreciates the membership feedback and values the opinions of coaches and administrators,” Forrest Karr, outgoing chair of the committee and athletic director at Alaska, said in a statement. “Responses indicate that while several coaches like the concept, there are concerns about the potential for unintended consequences.”

After talking to a few hockey people, this isn't the worst idea known to man. On one hand, it makes some sense to tell teams that just got in trouble for breaking a rule that they can't spend two minutes trying to break a different rule.

On the other, as one person told me, coaches have been teaching kids to ice the puck while shorthanded for years. A kid playing college hockey has spent at least a decade having that concept beaten into their heads. Cutting this rule out now doesn't make a ton of sense, especially when no other North American league does this, and there has been no time to experiment with the rule and see if it even works as desired or intended.

In the end, this rule might get implemented, but it won't happen until the NCAA has more information on how it would work, and they have a chance to see if there are any consequences that come from this that are not desirable and can be avoided.

College Hockey Coaches Want to Fight the Good Fight

Late last week, a series of proposals approved for use in college hockey came to light. The proposals -- set for formal approval in July -- would change rules in college hockey that some say don't need to be changed.

It's not just fans who are upset about the proposed changes, which include teams not being allowed to ice the puck while shorthanded, and an increase in the minimum penalty for contact to the head. Some of the changes are agreeable. Others aren't.

According to WCHA media colleague Brad Elliott Schlossman, coaches are perturbed -- downright angry -- over the icing rule.

“I think it’s just a crime,” Bemidji State coach Tom Serratore said. “I’ve been in college hockey for 18 years and I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. It was almost unanimous for the entire coaching body. How can the committee overturn the entire coaching body? I think it’s sad, the lack of respect that the committee had for the coaching body.

“We didn’t spend any time even talking about it because it was so radical. We just voted 12-0 and moved on.”

Both Serratore and UND coach Dave Hakstol raised several concerns.

One is the safety issue. Since players are not allowed to change after an icing call, a player could be stuck on the ice for two or three minutes straight on a penalty kill.

Another concern is that the icing rule hasn’t been tried on an experimental basis to determine if it works. No North American hockey league uses it.

“It’s quite a shock,” Hakstol said. “I haven’t said much, but I’m going to speak my mind on this. I’m upset about us not having a say in it as a Division I coaching body. On a national basis, we were very strongly against it, if not unanimously against it.

“I’d be in favor of having some language that would allow us to experiment with a couple things in exhibition games. I’d like to be able to make some more educated decisions. But we haven’t tried these rules. They’ve never been tried at a high level. And if this change is made, it’s a two-year commitment.”

The NCAA is in a position to be a guinea pig for other hockey leagues, and that's not something the NCAA is known for doing.

The biggest issue here, to me, is what I brought up in my FanHouse piece.

What is this going to do to officiating?

Some fans have problems with the way games are called when they're late and close. That's not going to get any better when you add a tool to the game that will make power plays more dangerous and make power play goals more commonplace.

Officials will swallow their whistles, using the old addage of letting players decide the outcome of games, especially if power play percentages go up more than the five to ten percent I expect they will rise.

Schlossman heard from Hakstol on the contact to the head rule, too, but Hakstol -- who lost his captain to a concussion on a dirty, illegal, and embarrassingly mishandled hit in November -- didn't say anything notable there. Hakstol is right that we don't need to take hitting out of the game, and we have to be careful to do that.

Frankly, I'm more worried that we won't take the headshots out of the game, because mandating majors be called for those hits won't exactly encourage officials to call the penalty more often.

Monday, Schlossman posted on his blog about an effort to stop at least the icing rule from going into effect.

"We're trying to find out if, before it goes to the oversight committee, there's recourse or if there can be a re-vote based on the merits of the argument that we'd like to put forward," WCHA commish Bruce McLeod said. "Hopefully, we have some recourse."

McLeod said that if it can't be completely reversed, the commissioners are hoping that the icing rule can be changed to an experiment for exhibition games instead of a full-time basis for the next two seasons.

Schlossman reports that the coaches are also displeased about the rule that would allow a team that scores on a delayed penalty to still go on a power play. That rule is so dumb it barely merits mention.

Remember, these rules are put in place for two years if they are passed. It increases the urgency for the coaches to stop the bad ideas from being implemented.

That's a long time to be stuck with someone else's crappy ideas.

NFL Coaches Angered By New Rule That Forces Them to Think

One of the common complaints about NFL football has nothing to do with the quality of the athletes taking part. Everyone agrees NFL players are the best in the business, elite athletes who are conditioned to newer heights seemingly every year. They are obviously at the top of their profession.

However, fans who prefer college football typically cite the cookie-cutter nature of NFL games. The similarity of schemes and philosophies comes up often, as does the relative conservatism of most coaches. It takes big-time grapefruits to make the decisions that drive NFL teams, but yet NFL coaches often seem frozen by the moment and incapable of thinking outside a three-by-seven box.

One of the exceptions to this rule seems to be New Orleans coach Sean Payton. He runs a pretty aggressive ship with the Saints, expecting his guys to be on top of every situation. His offense is not at all conservative, even at times when you could argue it is the right call. He gave defensive coordinator Gregg Williams free reign last year, and Williams used it to develop one of the best blitzing defenses in the league.

It's this swashbuckling, risk-taking reputation that makes many wonder exactly why Payton is so mad about the new overtime rules passed by NFL owners Tuesday. The rules, and the potential strategic decisions they could help lead to, seem right up Payton's alley.

But instead of embracing the new rules, Payton seems content to piss and moan about them, as noted by PFT king Mike Florio, who caught Payton's appearance with Peter King on Sirius NFL Radio.

Payton said he's "not a big fan" of the new rule, complaining that he's "gonna have to spend a half an hour explaining it to my wife or any fan."

For those who want to know the rule, here it is, straight from the NFL.

Starting next season, if a team wins the coin toss and then kicks a field goal, the other team gets the ball. If the game becomes tied again after that next series, play will continue under the current sudden-death rules.

Should the team winning the toss immediately score a touchdown, then the game is over.

There are nuances.

A safety would end the game immediately, because the team that got the ball first had a chance to score and failed. On a safety, they'd have to kick the ball away, meaning there is no way they could win the game. Seems kind of dumb if you don't think about it, but when you actually use your brain and think it over, it makes perfect sense.

If a team recovers an onside kick on the opening kickoff of overtime, then advances the ball and kicks a field goal, the game is over. This seems a bit fishier, but the receiving team had a chance to get the ball and failed. The same result (game over) happens if a team takes the opening kickoff of overtime, goes down the field, kicks a field goal, and then successfully executes an onside kick.

You can imagine the possibilities from a strategic standpoint. Of course, most NFL coaches will look at these rules, decide that nothing is worth the risk, and just kick the ball away, hoping for a defensive stop at some point.

However, there is a minority of coaches in the league, including Payton, who have shown the willingness to take risks with their play-calling. For those coaches, this seems to be a great opportunity to think outside the box and develop different strategies for overtime, rather than just "hope and prayer" for the coin toss.

Instead of embracing that opportunity, Payton decided to bitch about the changes. Yes, it sucks that the owners stuck the coaches in a golf tournament and then ran into a room to vote on the rule without anyone knowing about it first. But that's their right. The coaches didn't get a vote, anyway, and since they knew the vote was coming (scheduled for the next day), they should have made their thoughts known to their bosses ahead of time.

If this was done, they have nothing to complain about. Owners made their minds up, voted as they saw fit, and enacted a rule that makes some degree of sense. Next step is doing it for the regular season, something all sides should be in favor of. After all, if you're going to open up a bunch of strategic possibilities, it makes sense to let coaches try ideas out in regular season games, rather than having them use playoff games as the guinea pig on the rule.

These coaches make millions of dollars per season. Some of them make upwards of $7 million, or as much (if not more) than the most important players on their team. No one is begrudging them, as they work absolutely insane hours and drive themselves batty with film study and game-planning. However, the whining after being told they may have to think more during games is a little silly.

We're not re-inventing the wheel here. We're trying to figure out a better way to decide football games, rather than the "Get three first downs and kick a field goal" way of the past.