Author: Craig
Bio: Engineers stuff for money. Steelers fan =) . Penguins fan =( . Apparently likes creative writing structures.
Two words: Goalie cam. As a hockey goalie myself, I have had the privilege of watching the world’s fastest game from the only location on the rink where you can truly see plays developing (both offensively and defensively). I want to share that joy with the sports community. (1) Setting up a camera directly on the goalies mask would create a whole new world for both current hockey fanatics and those new to the game. And imagine how awesome a Zhedo Chara slap shot that strikes the mask cam would look!
Make watching baseball on the TV less of a chore. Let’s be honest – baseball games are terribly boring. The teams even realize how boring they are by employing such gimmicks as making grown men race around the outfield dressed as sausages just to keep the fans interested/awake (so, (2), get rid of that). But what are we, the fans who did not buy a ticket to the game, supposed to do between innings, between pitches, between anything interesting? Talk to our family? Absurd. So why can’t ball clubs make watching baseball on TV more like being at a game? (3) Have cameras setup around the ballpark so we can feel like we are actually at the game. (4) For one inning, turn the announcers off and let us listen to the crowd. (5) Take us into the dugout for an inning. (6) Show us the wacky gimmicks, the trivia questions, the general mayhem that occurs during the game. Just do anything so I don’t have to surf the internet and listen to music just to be able to tolerate watching a baseball game.
NBA Jam rules. This is an easy one. We’ve all played NBA Jam, and loved all the crazy ways to change up the simple game of putting a ball in the basket. My personal favorite is the 4 (or 5 or 6 or even 9) point shots that show up randomly on the court. The NBA already is full of freaks of nature that can avoid traveling by taking two giant steps from half court and leaping from the 3 point line to dunk. (7) Why not actually challenge them by setting up special locations on the court (far from the basket of course) at certain times that are worth changing numbers of points? Imagine how awesome the end of a not-so-close game could be with a 9-point shot area located at half court.
(8) Eliminate the wave. This may not be a popular request, but nothing irritates me more at a sporting event than the wave. This is America – I’ll stand up and scream when I want to. This obnoxious “traidition” prevents me from watching the very thing I paid an obscenely large price for (unless it’s a Pirates game, in which case I paid $7 for it and a concert afterwards). Ballpark security should strictly ban this practice altogether and let us get back to gorging ourselves with hot dogs while yelling at the umpires about bad calls.
Let the umpires/referees/linesman fight back. The hardest job in all of sports is without a doubt being the man making the calls. Nothing the referees do will ever be considered perfect by the players, coaches, and most often the fans and none will hesitate to let them know their displeasure. But why doesn’t the referee get a chance to fire back? (9) When a hockey goalie lets in a soft goal, let the linesman laugh in his face. When a baseball coach signals a hit-and-run that backfires into a double play, have the umpire kick dirt at him. And when a 7-foot power forward misses a dunk, let the referee have a controller with funny sound effects that play over the loudspeaker. The final piece of this has to be for the fans. (10) Why not let the refs explain their call? Football has started this with explanations after video review and hockey has followed in their footsteps, but why not allow referees to explain themselves whenever they’d like, even directly to the face of certain fans. Maybe this would shut up some of those obnoxious fans who couldn’t even tell you the hand signal for holding but insist on yelling at the refs to call it each play.
Increase baseball playoffs, decrease baseball regular season. Baseball regular season is as awful as the postseason is exciting. (11) Why not kill 2 birds (Astros and Cardinals, maybe?) with one stone (Rockies?) by shortening the regular season and in place of it adding more teams to the playoffs. Everyone will be happy – players don’t have extra games, owners get the same (or even more for the playoff-bound teams) revenue, and fans get treated to more excitement and less snoring.
Make player salaries more dependent on performance. In all sports, players’ performances seem to have a drastic increase in the final year of their contract. Are they somehow playing harder for the money? While we’d like to think they are always trying their hardest, in most cases, this is not completely true. (12) So why not make every play more exciting by making them financially tied to the players involved, ensuring optimal effort out of everyone.
Change NFL overtime policy. I bet you’re guessing I’d change the “first team to score wins” mantra currently used in NFL overtimes, but I’m not. Instead, I’d like to see another more subtle change: (13) don’t let games end if they are tied after the first overtime. The real reason McNabb didn’t know the rule was he didn’t realize how dumb the NFL is. There are only 16 games in a regular season – why cut it even shorter? In very few instances does the game even get this far, so why not let it continue? American sports fans love ridiculously long games, be it 5 overtime hockey playoff matches where players can barely get their tired legs over the boards on a line change, or an epic tennis match that continues over 3 separate days. Imagine the level of awesomeness that could ensue when America’s most popular sport is allowed to continue uninterrupted.
(14) More player-fan interactions. Sure, franchises try to get their players out to meet the fans in some creative ways (Penguins players delivering season tickets to some lucky fans, for instance), but these situations should increase. One of the biggest reasons we love sports is the connection we feel to our favorite players and teams. The thrill of meeting these heroes of ours would only improve these connections.
(15) Add a salary cap for baseball. It’s tough enough being from Pittsburgh without being ridiculed every time baseball is mentioned just because the Pirates happened to have a record 18 straight losing seasons in a row (that number may not be right, but who even cares anymore?). Add a salary cap, make these overpaid sissies only get paid $200,000 per game where they bat 4 times and make maybe 3 plays in the field, and let some other teams get a chance to win for once.
(16) Eliminate punting in overtime of the NFL. This is another way to improve the overtime in the NFL. The strategy of overtime would completely change, with teams having to decide whether to kick or receive when they know that when fourth down comes around they could potentially give the game away.
(17) Have basketball’s “intentional foul” rule actual prevent intentional fouls. Nothing is worse than watching a team down by 10 with 1 minute left foul excessively hoping to somehow make their way back into the game. This rule is a sham – most of the fouls at the end of the game are obviously done intentionally, so make the damn call and let the game end already.
(18) Eliminate the trapezoid behind hockey nets. What a dumb rule, seriously.
(19) Increase ice rinks to Olympic dimensions. Olympic hockey is awesome, mostly because of the additional space that allows the best players in the world room to do their thing.
(20) Use common sense. Too often these days, games and seasons are decided by asinine rules and penalties that should not have any effect on the game. Golfers are disqualified for forgetting to sign their name on their scorecard. Football players are given obscene 15-yard penalties for kneeling to celebrate a big touchdown. Hockey video replay officials refuse to reward an obvious goal just because they can’t see the puck explicitly cross the goal line even though basic physics requires that the puck be in the net. Let’s use some common sense here and let the players decide the outcomes.