Clear Tops to Hockey Nets?

I was hoping some video would surface from the NHL’s R&D camp, and lo and behold, a handful of clips have been published, showcasing some of the changes the NHL was toying around with. Re-arranged faceoff dots, hybrid icing calls, life-guard style referees, and even clear nets all made an appearance.

The NHL infamously botched a decent amount of goal calls last season, partially because of obstructed camera angles, leaving the goal judges unable to correctly observe the position of the puck – this was one of the changes implemented to remedy this, evidently:

It’s an interesting concept (although I would like to see a couple shots hit that top shelf to see how it bounces), but it doesn’t address the biggest problem with traffic goals – being able to see the puck underneath all of the players. A digital rendering, or ‘chip’ inside the puck would be able to reveal the location of the puck, regardless of who’s on top of it. I doubt this will ever see an NHL game, just because it doesn’t solve the root problem of the problematic garbage goal.

The League was also testing alternate positioning for their on-ice officials. The three-ref system has drawn a decent amount of criticism, and the NHL tested the idea of placing an official in a perch just above the plexiglass above the penalty box.

“I think there is good and bad to it,” he said. “It’s good in regard that when (Lewis) isdown at the net I can see what is going on behind him. Say we have a scrum at the net and the D-men come in, I can always communicate with him. I can watch the changes on the bench so if we have a too-many-men-on-the-ice situation, I can see that. But you don’t feel the game. You don’t feel when the intensity starts to rise and that was the tough part about it.”

He also said he didn’t think he had a better look at the game from his elevated post, and he did not see the far end of the ice well.

“Certain angles you could see better, like, say, along the boards. But I would say definitely you could not see better as being on the ice,” Ferguson said.

However, Ferguson was able to make five penalty calls, and he said after one period he was able to find his bearings and establish a mode of communication with Lewis.

“I could know he was there; he was communicating with me the entire time throughout the game,” Lewis said. “Not even just on penalties, but situations like a player coming out of the box or something going on in front of the net. He just let me know what was going on.”

“You’re more like a fan, but you had to react to it and once you started to react it came a lot easier,” said Ferguson. “Then Dave and I got our communication down. If something happened, he would say, ‘Put your hand up,’ and then he’d react to it and call it. It worked out pretty well.” {NHL.com}

Yeah, that’s not gonna fly. The perch official was even complaining about how the sight lines weren’t totally right, and the separation from the game on the ice level kills the ‘intensity’. Not something we should expect from the NHL anytime soon. All that being said, there were some great new rules I’d like to see implemented. The R&D used bluelines that were twice the size of regulation bluelines in the NHL, and this seems like an absolute no-brainer to me. It would preserve the much coveted ‘flow’ of the game, by greatly reducing offside calls. I definitely wouldn’t mind if the League threw that rule into this upcoming season.

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