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We NEED Bigger Ice!

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To all those who complain about lack of scoring and excitement in today's game, I say the answer is the bigger, European ice. This league once again blew it when all those new arenas opened in the last 10-15 years, and none had the big ice sheet. The new Wings arena should have adopted it, and over the years as new arenas are built, the whole league should.

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I disagree.

It would be way too hard to convert to bigger ice, and you can't have the league playing on different sized surfaces during the same season, then whichever way the stats are skewed towards would be unfair.

Buffalo had a non-regulation rink for many years, yes here in the modern era, and nobody seemed to care too much.

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I disagree.

It would be way too hard to convert to bigger ice, and you can't have the league playing on different sized surfaces during the same season, then whichever way the stats are skewed towards would be unfair.

Agreed, this is my biggest issue with baseball. As cool as it is to see all the different style parks, to have the exact same hit be a homerun in one park, but a fly out in another park is ridiculous. It would just as ridiculous in hockey.

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But wasn't it only a foot or two?

4 feet, actually.

But, I forgot that Chicago was the biggest offender with a rink that was 12 feet shorter in the old Chicago Stadium. Boston Garden was also 9 feet short and 2 feet narrower as well. This didn't change until the mid-90s.

Agreed, this is my biggest issue with baseball. As cool as it is to see all the different style parks, to have the exact same hit be a homerun in one park, but a fly out in another park is ridiculous. It would just as ridiculous in hockey.

And yet this was the case for most of the league's history. Its not like they couldn't handle it.

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4 feet, actually.

But, I forgot that Chicago was the biggest offender with a rink that was 12 feet shorter in the old Chicago Stadium. Boston Garden was also 9 feet short and 2 feet narrower as well. This didn't change until the mid-90s.

Damn.

The other two are bad...

But still, i don't think they can change to bigger ice now...

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I don't think it has to be European size ice, but I do think a couple feet wider would make a difference.

I can't see it happening because the owners would have to spend money to change their arenas. Remember how long it took some owners to replace the seamless glass that was injuring their players?

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Nope. I like small NA ice. Creates a tighter checking game and weeds out players who only flourish when not under defensive pressure.

I don't know if bigger ice actually translates to more scoring or not (I'm skeptical) but I do believe smaller ice is harder to play on, which contributes to the NHL being the toughest league to play in. And that I like.

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I don't think it has to be European size ice, but I do think a couple feet wider would make a difference.

I can't see it happening because the owners would have to spend money to change their arenas. Remember how long it took some owners to replace the seamless glass that was injuring their players?

As I was making an argument for them not being able to change it, I started thinking about how big players are getting and I kind of thought the same thing....

But this would have to be something that came out of the owners pockets, I could see something like this causing problems during a CBA discussion, which we don't need more of.

Nope. I like small NA ice. Creates a tighter checking game and weeds out players who only flourish when not under defensive pressure.

I don't know if bigger ice actually translates to more scoring or not (I'm skeptical) but I do believe smaller ice is harder to play on, which contributes to the NHL being the toughest league to play in. And that I like.

If they want more scoring, I could see them making the goal a bit larger, or shrinking goalie pads even more before making the ice bigger.

Remodeling all the arenas seems wayyy too cost/time intensive.

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As I was making an argument for them not being able to change it, I started thinking about how big players are getting and I kind of thought the same thing....

But this would have to be something that came out of the owners pockets, I could see something like this causing problems during a CBA discussion, which we don't need more of.

If they want more scoring, I could see them making the goal a bit larger, or shrinking goalie pads even more before making the ice bigger.

Remodeling all the arenas seems wayyy too cost/time intensive.

Yeah, remodeling the entire leagues rinks is completely unrealistic

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Agreed, this is my biggest issue with baseball. As cool as it is to see all the different style parks, to have the exact same hit be a homerun in one park, but a fly out in another park is ridiculous. It would just as ridiculous in hockey.

I disagree.

It would be way too hard to convert to bigger ice, and you can't have the league playing on different sized surfaces during the same season, then whichever way the stats are skewed towards would be unfair.

Quite a few sports have upper and lower limits on regulation pitches. A football (soccer) pitch can vary in length by 30 yards, and width by 50! It actually is beneficial for teams to alter the dimensions of their playing surface to suit their play (Arsenal typically always favoured a narrower pitch to suit their short passing game). Rugby teams can change their in-goal area as well (same as a football end zone) - a deeper in-goal area lends itself more to a kicking game where a team can get the ball in behind a defence without it bouncing out of bounds.

Heck, in cricket you can actually change the boundary to a different shape, which obviously changes the distances. It all depends on what the home team wants.

Imagine, with our top-notch goal-scoring from the blue line, if we could have slightly shorter ice for all home games. Just bringing that blue line a little closer to net. Could make a lot of difference playing 41 games on that. It's not much different from the 'lively boards' at the Joe. Teams should be allowed to have their own idiosyncrasies which benefit them at home. But as has been said, would need to come in when teams build new arenas, which the majority won't/can't do.

Edit: On the baseball point, there's nothing wrong with the same hit being a homer and an out in two different stadiums - you play to your strengths. Different stadiums lend themselves to different styles of play - the way I imagine it, a larger outfield would benefit teams who get base hits and steals; smaller outfields suit sluggers.

Edited by Wing Across The Pond

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Quite a few sports have upper and lower limits on regulation pitches. A football (soccer) pitch can vary in length by 30 yards, and width by 50! It actually is beneficial for teams to alter the dimensions of their playing surface to suit their play (Arsenal typically always favoured a narrower pitch to suit their short passing game). Rugby teams can change their in-goal area as well (same as a football end zone) - a deeper in-goal area lends itself more to a kicking game where a team can get the ball in behind a defence without it bouncing out of bounds.

Heck, in cricket you can actually change the boundary to a different shape, which obviously changes the distances. It all depends on what the home team wants.

Imagine, with our top-notch goal-scoring from the blue line, if we could have slightly shorter ice for all home games. Just bringing that blue line a little closer to net. Could make a lot of difference playing 41 games on that. It's not much different from the 'lively boards' at the Joe. Teams should be allowed to have their own idiosyncrasies which benefit them at home. But as has been said, would need to come in when teams build new arenas, which the majority won't/can't do.

Edit: On the baseball point, there's nothing wrong with the same hit being a homer and an out in two different stadiums - you play to your strengths. Different stadiums lend themselves to different styles of play - the way I imagine it, a larger outfield would benefit teams who get base hits and steals; smaller outfields suit sluggers.

I imagine there's a scenario where it eventually could come to something like this, the home team changes it up to their preference, but I don't see it happening without a major fight in the CBA. Which this sport does not need.

And most of our players need space.

Moving in the blue line would make it easier to check them and close gaps.

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This would be such a mistake, and just like with shootouts people would be really excited at first, only to realize that the big ice surface will only take away what makes hockey exciting. It slows the game down considerably. Goals is not what makes hockey exciting it is the intensity and the scoring chances.

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Everything I've seen and heard (first person) is that the larger ice surface actually slows down the game and doesn't not increase scoring (actually decreases it). Now, this is not based on detailed analytics, but if you have to use such a measure, than any impact really wouldn't be worthwhile anyway. I'd suspect, with hearing from many different sources, all saying the same thing, scoring would decrease with a larger ice surface.

In terms of different size ice surfaces in different rinks, I don't see how that would be a problem though. Sure, the current rulebook includes the measurements, but they'd just have to make changes there. If the league ever wanted to change the sizes, it would have to be phased in anyway, where you end up having differences rink to rink for a period of time. Shouldn't be a big deal since it has been an extremely small portion of the NHL's history where all the rinks have been the same size. I'm guessing you wouldn't have to go back many years before you start seeing differences.

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