NHL Playoff Reform: First Past the Goalposts

These NHL playoffs have been overlong and complicated. Seven games? How many series? All for a silver cup that you can't even keep! In the interest of saving ourselves a lot of time, and the players a lot of energy, let's talk playoff reform.

I for one, would like to advocate a first past the post method for the NHL. It has worked magnificently in a diversity of other sports such as horse racing, the grand prix, the backstroke, and polar exploration.

Right now the NHL playoffs pit each team against a powerful adversary who tests their strengths and weaknesses over several gruelling matches, forcing each team to clearly demonstrate their right to victory. The winning teams advance and do it all over again until one team has demonstrated it's momentary superiority over the other contenders. Holy Inefficient Batman!

It's just a freaking sport! Do we really need to create statistical evidence to support an ethos of agreement around who deserved to win this time? Color me, I don't think so. We Won, Get Over It is a long and healthy tradition except in the few places where it is the basis for civil war and/or junta toppling.

I submit two readily apparent approaches to first past the post Hockey playoffs.

The first approach hardly even impacts the present structure. Begin as usual with all the teams pitted against a powerful adversary. Whichever team, in all the games, scores the most goals, is declared the new Stanley cup champion. The obvious objection is, what if two or more teams score the same high number of goals?

First of all, there should be a recount of the goals, if, after that, there is still a tie, the trophy could either be shared, or barring that, a second series of games could be held to determine who scores the most goals again. Of course the second solution is inordinately complex and there is a risk that most Canadians would not be able to understand what is happening. For this reason, I admire Tim Horton's recent proposal that a box of silver donuts replace the aging Stanley Cup trophy. A box of donuts is both easy and fun to share.

However there is a second approach that I far prefer. It offers greater efficiency, reduces the chance of tied matches and perfectly illustrates the matchless beauty of the first past the post system. Again, it hardly impacts the present structure. All the teams begin as usual, but this time its one night of sudden death, wherein the first team to score a goal in any match is immediately declared playoff champs. Talk about intense!

Also, if the team is so good, this should happen only once every four years. Like the Olympics.

To be sure, this is a complicated proposal and I can already hear the slothful ignorami rolling on their couch springs to groan, “the first past the post mechanisms that you propose cannot possibly address the complexity of hockey. Hockey is fundamentally a team struggle against a variety of opposition and the whole point of the struggle is to prove, through a sequence of selective pairings, to fans and to foes, that this time, they are most worthy of our collective adulation and respect, however begrudgingly we allow it to be wrung from us.” Sigh.

Obviously hockey and its silver crown holds a treasured place in the nation's psyche, and it is important to fans that the crown be awarded only after a series of controlled tests have tried the contenders against each other in a variety of measured, one on one pairings, and so assured that only the candidate which is demonstrably most deserving of trans-regional collective respect does take the crown.

And frankly, upon consideration, the sentiment gives me pause and I am forced to wonder, if the average Canadian is capable of following the complexity of NHL hockey stats on an annual basis, perhaps they could be trusted with something more complex than marking a single X on one Olympian night of sudden death. Of course, I am making reference to Tim Horton's recent proposal that we adopt a such a first past the post method for democratically electing a national team to provisionally train and compete in polar exploration, should mass hysteria create the psychological need for such a team, and for such an exploration. It's happened before, folks. Next time, we can be ready.

Until then, share and have fun,

Andre Harden