Sports
January 30, 2008 08:47 PM
Cuddy Shark
By: John Cudmore
One of the brightest moves the caretakers of the Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League have made in recent times is reducing the number of teams attending the playoff party.
Instead of the nearly all-inclusive format — which came to be regarded as a bad joke, waste of nearly six months of regular season time and just plain silly as 32 of 36 teams got in — the guest list is frozen at 24 teams.
That means six teams from each of the four divisions advance, sparing everyone the gory mess of watching seventh, eighth and, yes, even ninth-place teams with points totals barely reaching double digits get walloped by a far superior opponent
Hey, overall parity is a myth in this league.
Kudos to those responsible for not being afraid to hurt some feelings in an effort to add credibility to the league. It's a start. It could be even better.
Imagine how entertaining the regular season could be if the playoff field were reduced to four teams, thereby cutting out a round of playoffs.
Why, teams would actually be inclined to work toward winning records before being worthy of playoff status.
Check out the North Conference. What a race it would be with five teams presently in the running for 30-win seasons, surely a first should that happen.
True, someone deserving would be on the outside looking in, but that's part of the fun. As it stands, five of the six playoff-bound teams are playing for something significant in the standings.
Only the sixth-place Orangeville Crushers are playing for exercise at the moment in a conference where the playoff participants have been set since before Christmas.
It's only an opinion, but shouldn't teams be compelled to at least play winning hockey in order to qualify for the playoffs? At least it makes the regular season meaningful.
Examining the standings and, bearing in mind only two weeks remain in the regular season, just one team with a better than .500 record — either the Couchiching Terriers or Stouffville Spirit — would be left behind. Across the league, however, there is no other fifth place team with a winning record.
As it stands, the top two teams in each conference are awarded byes while the next four battle it out in a best-of-five series.
And while the higher ranked teams are obvious favourites, there is no guarantee of victory in such series. That's a far cry from those predictable, mail-it-in one vs. eight, two vs. seven matchups.
Dismiss the lame argument teams are being denied income from home playoff gates because they are not in the playoffs.
Just ask the defending Royal Bank Cup champion Aurora Tigers how much they lost last season playing before small crowds in the opening round and hopping on a bus to travel to Buffalo for a couple of games.
Easily the league could — and likely will — extend the regular season by four to five games to ensure those playoffs dates are covered off should the playoff field be further reduced to 16 teams.
Now, if only they could do something about the league's overabundance of teams.
Pass the trimmers, please.
• Puck droppings ...
For the first time since 2002, the Aurora Tigers will not finish first in the North Conference's regular season standings.
The Newmarket Hurricanes have finished a regular season with 40 wins or more twice in franchise history.
With 37 wins and five games to play, the Hurricanes have a solid shot at matching the 40-win season which led to an appearance in the 1996 Royal Bank Cup in Saskatchewan.
The then-87s went on to win 43 times in the 1996-97 season only to lose to the Milton Merchants in the league final.
Whether the current squad manages the feat, it is assured a berth in the Dudley Hewitt Cup as the host and is one step from a return to the RBC.
• Skills set wanes
The NHL All Star Game skills contest seems to have run its course.
But let's say the night-before-the-big-game does live another year, the breakaway competition landed with a great thud.
Based in theory on the NBA's over-hyped dunking competition, the stick tricks segment failed somewhere in the translation phase.
Maybe it has something to do with degree of difficulty and that hockey actually is a high-skill activity.
Never have been able to figure out the appeal of the dunking competition, actually.
But, as bad as the hockey players looked attempting tricks with a puck and stick, how about sticking a real, live defender between the dunking NBA star and the hoop and see what happens?