The lying is easy, but the typing requires some real touch, not unlike Tyler Seguin’s dazzling stick work and crackerjack backhand lift for a shootout goal in the Bruins’ 4-3 win yesterday.
Now more than 6 ½ seasons into the New NHL, I’d like to report here this morning that I have been won over, that the game’s line-’em-up-and-let-’em-rip amendment of 2005 has captured my soul and spirit.
Sorry. I still think it’s a chintzy, aberrant way of sending one team home a winner, the other a loser. Mix in the NHL’s contrived 3-point game factor - awarding a point to the alleged loser - and, well, any game that ends with an alleged loser getting a point has a problem. To reward losing is to apply a discount to winning.
But I have changed my opinion of the shootout in and of itself. I like it. (My fingers aren’t crossed here.) I like the exercise of it, the execution, the staging, the strategy, the drama.
The shootout is far better than, say, a home run derby, which I also like. After nine innings, a game tied at Fenway, I could appreciate the teams sending their best batters to the plate to knock balls out of the park. I would enjoy that even before the game. Beats the heck out of infield practice.
I just wouldn’t want three-plus hours of pitching, hitting, and fielding to be set aside wholesale and the game’s outcome to be determined on a ball that clears the Mass. Pike. It’s just not what the game is about.
Bruins coach Claude Julien said yesterday, after his club advanced its shootout record to an impressive 6-1 this season, that he is not all that keen on the shootout, either.
“I’d prefer we don’t have it,’’ said the coach, who is old school enough that he noted, “A hard-fought tie is worth a lot.’’
But if the league wants it (check) and the fans want it (double check), then that’s OK, said the guy who runs the Boston bench.
“Hey, we’re in the entertainment business,’’ said Julien, “and you have to respect that.’’
