My Two Cents on Hockey Standings

I've always admired the bartender who would bide his time until the right moment to enter the discussion at the bar and shut the whole thing down.

He would stand in the corner, either making the motions of rubbing a poorly rinsed glass or bent over the bar, pencil in hand, marking seemingly random things on the agate pages of the sports section. Then, after having heard enough, he would set the rag or pencil down on the bar and cooly render his verdict. When the man or woman who makes your drink makes a call, you listen and you accept it. Or you find another place to drink.

Enter Nate Silver of the FiveThirtyEight blog. (Hmm, that is about the time I move on from the afternoon drinking practice of a beer and a glass of water to an evening regimen of Jack and water. Maybe this is why I am fascinated with the blog. Could be. By the way, the best beer for an afternoon is No. 7 on this list. By the way, Minneapolis City Pages is always a fun read.)

Silver comes over from his corner and shuts down the conversation about urging the NHL to award 3 points for a regulation victory to solve what some see as a problem with standings point system.

But I have something more radical in mind. Here’s the idea: You keep playing hockey until someone wins. You know, like in the NBA and Major League Baseball and pretty much every other sport but soccer — and like the NHL itself during the playoffs.

I slam down my hand on the bar as an amen in support of Silver, wondering why we give points for anything other than a victory. Tradition? Tradition is the enemy of progress and hockey needs to move forward on this now. Silver offers what I consider to be a very good start.

Now I know some good people, and some Canadians, who would take issue with the idea of changing the very fabric of the game by removing a point for what they call "a well-played tie."

I don't like ties (get ready for the rimshot). I don't even wear them.

So please do not bring up the three-point plan in the Lounge. I would argue, instead, that we do away with overtime. If you don't win in regulation, then you both lose. Only victories count when it comes to figuring a winning percentage. Losses and ties go in the same box of unwanted stuff that you wish you didn't have and cannot get rid of until spring cleaning.

But that would shake the traditionalists to the core, so I offer a modified plan by allowing for overtime. But if you do not win there, you then still lose.

We must be strong about this because there are plenty of backsliders and points-panhandlers among those who coach or who have coached the game still out there. We will hear how the points system is wrong and then, on Sportsnet's "Hockey Central at Noon," Doug MacLean, a former coach and now a cranky if not well-meaning analyst on the show, will say, "with six minutes left in the game, you have to tighten up and play for the point and get to overtime." From there, as he said Wednesday afternoon, one can consider playing a more offensive-minded game to go for a second point. What is unsaid is that, you don't exactly have to go all-out for a goal in overtime, thanks to that point you banked after three periods.

Until that kind of thinking changes, no new point system will keep a coach from playing for a safe result when the game matters: in the first 60 minutes. Last night -- highlights above -- no shootouts or OT. Maybe somebody likes my ruling in the Lounge.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a pencil and an agate page to get back to in the corner of the bar.