atackdog nailed it already, but let me point out how much it sucks that in football, like half of the spectacular, game-changing plays you see are wiped out by penalties. not to say that they aren't deserved, but for the fans it really sucks sometimes. if they had the power (in any sport) to retroactively change scores because of things discovered later, sports would become more of a science experiment and less of something that people would actually want to watch.

not to say this goes on in football, just a thought. the fact that it can happen in golf is really, really stupid.

Yeah, I don't understand why this wasn't changed like, 10 years ago. The idea that you get "penalized" for winning challenges is too dumb to comprehend.

Golf is different to a team sport. As every individual plays the course seperately.

Isn't it sane to have a statute of limitations though? Where do you draw the line?

What if I were rewatching the 1986 Masters footage and noticed in his final round Jack Nicklaus had 100% inarguably committed some violation that nobody had noticed up till now which should have resulted in a 1 stroke penalty, and as such he signed an incorrect score card, and as such should be DQ'ed.

Should we strip the green jacket from him? Should it be awarded to the guy who finished in 2nd?

totally agree

Cool. Maybe it is common — it's not a sport I know much about. Only started thinking about it at all after learning to jump (just a bit) last summer. I know that in pentathlon they draw for horses too, but I think (thought) that in most events they bring their own.


I don't know what to do about basketball, but I think an even clearer way to express how silly the current setup is to realize that many offensive moves are designed primarily to draw a foul, with scoring being little more than a pleasant surprise. But it's not clear what change would make sense. Call only fouls that greatly impede the opportunity to score? We'd wind up with a lot of hurt players from undercutting. Don't award foul shots at all, just give them the ball again? Maybe that, but basketball players are not exactly model citizens so I see the game getting pretty violent. Not an easy problem to solve.

Yeah I'm actually sympathetic to more offensive fouls in basketball.

Part of that though is because I hate playing pick up against the guy who just runs into you and calls a foul every time.

No blood, no foul in amateur games though.

i hate when fights go to the cards after a cut. i know its probably the most fair way but it just goddamn sucks, especially when the cut guy is luckboxing and knows he can get an early W out of it.

Longtime hockey player (still playing oldtimers at 51) and long time referee.

I have one rule suggestion the NHL needs in order to speed up play. When the puck is shot on net and the goalie covers the puck, and the whistle is blown there is a ridiculous amount of effort spent by offensive players to continue their to progress toward the net. This causes the defenecemen to get protective (righfully so) and this is followed by useless and time wasting pushing, shoving and trashtalking.

We all know what is going on here. The offence players do this to try and get the goalie off his game, and/or to try and induce a penatly by one of the defencemen. At lower levels of hockey players do this in attempt to prove (to the coach) that they are driving to the net, and they are willing to mix it up. At the pro level no coach is buying the driving to the net stuff, but they are ok if their forwards can agitate the goalie and defence.


The suggestion I have is that once the whistle is blown, any offensive player who unnecessarily proceeds toward the goal area when the play has clearly been blown dead, with receive a two minute minor penalty for delay of game.

If such a penalty was in place it would be a huge time saver. For those players who might argue that it is hard to stop their momentum, and now they are going to be penalized for playing hard, I don't by it. Players and refs know when you have time to peel off (left or right) or stop, and when you are purposely just crashing the net after the whistle.

I mean look at what we are seeing now. The whistle blows and some forward 15-20 feet away ends up at the goalie (giving him a snow shower) or trying to pry the puck from underneath his pad or equipment. C'mom. You were 20 feet away when the whistle went. Whistles don't get unblown. You have no business near the goalie except to delay the game.

The reason I think this rule would be good is that it would save the time that the senseless post-whistle scrums take.

sure it is

I don't think free-market means what you think it means.

For the NFL challenges the reason they do it that way is they didn't want coaches nitpicking over every single challenge. Not saying it's the right call, but the thinking was to avoid having a coach, say, challenge a dozen different spot of the ball calls in a game when he knows he's right.

Of course, if those calls are inconsequential the coach is likely to leave them alone because of the minuscule chance the refs will blow the replay call and he'll lose a valuable challenge.

actually, i do. and a MNF game with a gazillion people watching that have no investment in the game coudl probably give an accurate opinion. I'm surprised ESPN hasn't incorporated some kind of real time voting yet just for ****s and giggles, without any implication on the actual call on the field.

the nfl really doesn't like it when people make the refs look bad. i think doing that would pretty much guarantee they don't get the mnf contract again when it comes up.

if a player in soccer falls to the ground and medics have to attend him, the player has to stay outside for 2 minutes. This would deter players from feigning injury and acting like dram queens everytime there is a tackle.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I believe if the medics come out the player must go to the sideline and will need the refs permission to re-enter the game.

This is a good idea in theory, but the NHL rulebook already has enough gray areas as it is. Enforcing this would be a joke. How do you define: "unnecessarily proceed" ? What about guys already 10 feet away ? What if the refs blows late ?

There is way too much pushing and shoving near or behind the net after stoppage. Almost every close icing call also ends this way during the playoffs. 2 minutes for delay of game for any pushing, shoving, jersey grabbing after the whistle might solve the case, but then you have the attacking team getting a freeroll since they won't be the ones trying to protect their player/goalie. The current system wastes a lot of time, but I don't really see your new rule improving anything in the NHL.

Auto icing would solve a lot of this, but some fans like the races, so the need to touch the puck stands.

Actually it wouldn't be hard to enforce at all. First, the players will not try and mess with the gray area because any coach who has his player getting a penalty for this is not going to be happy. Most penalties are obstruction (hooking, tripping, holding, etc) or stick infraction penalities. Some of the obstruction penalties are worth taking. Takkeing a penaly for running the net would never be worth taking.

As for the "this would be ahrd to call" arguement, people said the same thing about diving penalties. Sure they are tough to call. But, the objective wasn't to call lots of diving penalties ; the objective was to stop people from diving or embelleshing. It was the fear of drawing a penalty that was in players' heads.

If you call the rule tough in pre-season then people will stop doing it, and when the season starts you call flagrant situations and then things will take care of themselves.

Also, keep in mind the edge this gives the defencemen. If a player charges in after a whistle and the defencemen crosschecks him to the ice, then I would (as ref) call a penalty on the forward and one on the defencemen. So, defenceen gets free shot at forward. How long would it take for the forward to realize that charging the net after the whistle has no upside and lots of downside.

I think this one would work.

I like arctic knight's suggestion. even as someone who has never played hockey and just watches during the stanley cup mostly, I never realized how much his issue tilted me until I read it articulated like he did.

I still think it's a great idea, but that the current ref culture in the NHL makes it almost impossible to enforce: you have refs missing/not calling obvious high sticks, slashing breaking sticks and obstruction plus the incencitive to not let officiating dictate the pace and fate of the game.

Even with the anti-diving rule, you have very obvious dives every game, especially in the playoffs and in close situations. Ref discretion, the grey area and the players knowledge that refs are instructed to let the boys play all play a role in this situation. There's a Nuck game on tonight and Lapierre will probably have one very obvious dive and it won't get called.

i love the word incencitive, especially in the context above

This, and it's also why (along with "it will make the game longer") the challenge system is so ******ed.

If a playoff game lasts at least the length of two (or more) full games, the winner shall get credit for winning that many games.

For example, if a team wins an 27 inning baseball game in the World Series, it counts as three wins. If an NHL team wins a quadruple overtime game, they get two wins. If an NBA team wins a 11+ OT game, they get two wins.

For MLB, a home run derby should replace extra innings, at least in the regular season.