CCHA goes to Shootout

Not WCHA news, but important enough to post none the less, the CCHA has decided to incorporate a 3 man NHL style shootout into their league games this season following OT to decide victors.

This doesn't effect Wisconsin directly since any of the 5 potential games vs the CCHA this season will be at the Kohl Center. Regardless in non-conference games non-CCHA schools have to agree to this setup before hand.

I don't have a link, but I think the WCHA is on record saying they are going w/ what they had last season, which I'm happy enough w/. I personally don't like the shootout for the following reasons.

1) Shootout losses receiving a point and the winner two points change the points handed out per game. I am not remotely in favor of one game being worth 2 and others 3. It works in the NHL (kinda expect that 70% of the teams are above .500 at season's end) where 82 games count toward the standings, in the WCHA there are only 28 games. For example, if St. Cloud would have 4 SOL giving them 4 additional points in the standings for "losing" while Duluth only had 1 SOL, and St. Cloud finished ahead of Duluth in the standings by one point because of receiving points in the "3" point games, this does not seem right. The WCHA standings are too close for this type of occurrance. Also changing regulation and OT wins to 3 points just jacks up the standings.

2) No doubt a shootout is fun to watch, everyone was on their feet for the Colgate one last year, but prehaps the answer is making OT more exciting. Why is it currently only 5 minutes long? I like the 4 on 4 aspect, but lengthening OT to 10 minutes would give teams more time to settle in. 5 minute, you blink and the OT session is over. If OT was longer prehaps the refs wouldn't swallow their whistles either.

3) Speaking of the Colgate game, if the WCHA ever does go to a shootout format, Coach Eaves should learn to roll out skaters who actually give us a chance to win. Sure the game was non-con but we still wanted to win didn't we? Rolling out Kyle Klubertanz instead of say Sean Dolan (or insert any forward here) was a joke, and for how exciting that shootout was, Wisconsin's attempts were horrible.

4) I don't have any issues w/ a game of hockey ending as a tie. If two teams battle it out for 60+ minutes and the score is tied, so be it. I remember when college football had ties. In the early 90's the Badgers (who had sucked for how long before Barry turned things around) tied Ohio State. At the time that was a big deal, then a few seasons later someone got the idea to eliminate them and add the horrible OT format college football has now. While the shootout is better than that joke, if ties have been good enough for all these decades why is it such a big deal now?

I know a lot of people like the shootout and don't like ties. Nubeetle and I have briefly discussed this before, but this is my 2 cents on the subject.