Hockey Survivor Island

Who Will Get Voted Off?

There's a unbelievable amount of talent the Canadian Olympic Team has to chose from as they put their Gold Medal defending squad together and sadly there's going to be a lot of Canadian world-class players that will not make it to the ultimate "Show" this year. A lot of very tough decisions will have to be made shortly by team officials, who will stay?... who will go?

Don Cherry suggested recently that Canada could send three men's hockey teams to the Olympics and come home with three medals.

He's not far off (yes, I agreed with Grapes and Hell has indeed frozen over).

From the looks of the list of 81 players put together by Hockey Canada, which in fact would comprise three teams and 12 spares, the real difficulty will come when Wayne Gretzky and company have to whittle this star-studded lineup down to just 23 names.

Yeah, I tend to agree with Grapes too. Unfortunately they can't send more than one squad so the pressure really is on Gretzky to put a winner together. It'll be interesting to see if his loyalty to Yzerman and Lemieux wins out over the choosing of younger talent in their prime. Survivor Island indeed.


Shootout Solution

Nothing has caused more discussion and disagreement amongst hockey fans than the new shootout rule. Some really have their panties all in a wad over this... some really like it, some don't and some might surprise you.

Although it is highly popular among American hockey fans, a lot of Canadians still don't like it.

Strangely enough though, a highly unscientific survey -- a series of chats with the players themselves -- would indicate that the players enjoy it.

The goalies? Reviews are mixed. They tend to say that they like the shootouts when they win, but for the most part, they accept it as a form of entertainment that is necessary to help the game recapture its fan base.

Most criticism from fans seems to center around the argument that the game shouldn't be decided by a skill competition. I tend to agree so here's my idea instead of shootouts.

Shootout Powerplays
Visiting team goes first on a 2 min. 5 on 3 powerplay. If they score then the home team gets their 2min. shot and they have to score in order to keep the rounds going otherwise it's... goodnight, everybody drive safely home. If visiting team doesn't score in their attempt then home team can end the game by scoring with their chance. A short handed score automatically ends game in scorers favor otherwise they go back and forth until a victor emerges. Kind of like what they do in college football.

Anybody else got any bright ideas?