Rule Changes: Pros or Cons?

[One4TheWings 11]

I'm going to pop out of lurk mode to ask for the most knowledgeable fans in hockey for some help.

I have to write a cause and effect paper about any topic I want. I decided to do cause and effect of the new rule changes in the NHL.

Original ideas I had were:

Goals Per Game Average a few years prior to the rules change and then today.

Not sure how I would prove that cutting down on clutch and grab hockey has allowed our flashier players to break out (Datsyuk & Zetterburg). Do you have any ideas? Maybe an increase in hooking & interference calls?

Do you guys have a good website I could go to look at statistics or something that would lend to this topic?

What about any links to good articles regarding these changes. NHL.com is pretty bare and obviously the content that is there is slanted.

If you were trying to explain the pros and the cons... the cause (new rules change) and the effect... What topics would you look at? GPG? GAA? Intereference/Hooking calls?

Appreciate this guys and gals...

[betterREDthandead 58]

I would narrow it down to one rules change or maybe two related ones. After all, there really was no change regarding interference, just a re-emphasis on enforcing what's already there. The changes are things like the tag-up offsides, shootouts, and the trapezoid.....the crackdown on clutching and grabbing is not a change, but it gets lumped in there anyway. "The rules changes" is just too broad for a good cause and effect paper - too many variables.

If I were you I'd pick something like the tag-up offsides plus the no-changes-after-you-ice-the-puck rule, and then see if it had any effect on overall game length. Hypothesis could be that those changes noticably shortened the games. Might be a tedious process of going through all the box scores on ESPN or TSN from two years prior to the lockout all the way up to now to compare game times.

[One4TheWings 11]

I would narrow it down to one rules change or maybe two related ones. After all, there really was no change regarding interference, just a re-emphasis on enforcing what's already there. The changes are things like the tag-up offsides, shootouts, and the trapezoid.....the crackdown on clutching and grabbing is not a change, but it gets lumped in there anyway. "The rules changes" is just too broad for a good cause and effect paper - too many variables.

If I were you I'd pick something like the tag-up offsides plus the no-changes-after-you-ice-the-puck rule, and then see if it had any effect on overall game length. Hypothesis could be that those changes noticably shortened the games. Might be a tedious process of going through all the box scores on ESPN or TSN from two years prior to the lockout all the way up to now to compare game times.

That is great advice betterRed! Perhaps I will narrow the focus of the paper. It's a really short paper only 750-1250 words and the topic doesn't matter only that we're able to emphasis that we understand the concept between cause and effect writing. I guess I could narrow it down even further to emphasize how the rule changes have effected the Wings in terms of shooutouts, icing, etc. It's too bad there are statistics for quality scoring chances. I really would like to do something regarding the removal of the 2 line pass.

The shorter games would be easier to prove than anything.

Is the NHL.com and ESPN.com box scores the best place to go for getting the game lengths? Or is there a website that makes it easy to pull up stats like that?