Camp Shanny 2011

The NHL is holding it's "Research, Development and Orientation Camp", otherwise known as "Camp Shanny" in honor of NHL Senior Vice President of Player Safety and Hockey Operations Brendan Shanahan, today and tomorrow to test potential rules changes, with the goal being to gather as much information as it can before any rules changes are proposed.

Each of the two days have been divided into two sessions to test various proposals. Wednesday morning includes trying no-touch icing, no line changes for teams committing an offside, faceoff variations, no icing allowed by teams playing shorthanded and overtime and shootout variations.

The afternoon session deals with such things as faceoff location after an offside, delayed penalty variations, line changes, removing the trapezoid, allowing hand passes in all zones and more shootout variations.

Thursday's morning session tests hybrid icing, more offsides and faceoff variations, serving the entire length of a minor penalty, Brian Burke's "bear hug" concept and more overtime and shootout variations.

The afternoon session promises to be fun, as the players will try out new ideas to be incorporated into the annual All-Stars Skills competition.

Some of these proposals we are in favor of, some we don't care too much for and one that really gets us wound up in a bad way.

If there's one rule in the NHL that we cannot stand is the allowing of the hand pass in the defensive zone.

To us, hockey has always been a game of speed and flow, with high tempo games featuring end-to-end rushes making for the best games. Personally, we’ve been very pleased with the brand of hockey played since the return of the NHL following the lockout and the rule changes adopted at that time, the majority of which were designed, as commissioner Gary Bettman prefers to say, “to increase scoring chances.”

But one arcane rule somehow survived the revamping of the game at the time of the Shanahan Summit - the rule which allows any team to make a hand-pass in it’s own defensive zone.

The first issue we have with allowing the defensive hand-pass is that it helps the defense decrease scoring chances. The second issue is that it’s legal at one end of the ice but not the other. If it’s deemed illegal on 2/3rds of the playing surface, why allow it on the rest?

The main problems we have with the defensive hand-pass is that it is the worst looking play in all of hockey. It’s an aesthetic nightmare to watch. Awkward at best, and ugly at it’s most common, the hand-pass is also contrary to the most basic, elemental point of the grand game of hockey, to advance the puck toward the other team’s goal with one’s stick.

We once brought this up with commissioner Bettman himself during his weekly radio show, The NHL Hour with commissioner Gary Bettman (12/11/08), and he stated “you’re absolutely right” and said it was something that had been discussed and probably would be on the agenda at the spring (2009) general manager’s meeting when they discussed rule changes. He went on to say it was not the first time this had been discussed as a suggested rule change and “that it was not as skilled a play as we like to see our game played” and “an excellent point.” and Co-host Bill Clement agreed. Obviously the rule was not overturned at that meeting or any subsequent ones.

Now the NHL is testing allowing it in all zones!

The reason the hand-pass was originally allowed in the defensive zone was due to teams on the penalty kill deliberately making hand-passes to get a whistle which would allow them to get a cheap line change and likely the thinking behind keeping the rule in place.

This caving in to deliberate rule breaking was where the league erred in the first place, as the solution then, as it is now, would be to call any hand-pass by a team while shorthanded in their defensive zone a delay of game penalty. Under our proposal, the offending team would also be required to keep all of it’s remaining players on the ice at the time of the penalty, removing any incentive to attempt the hand-pass to get a line change.

With a team already down a man, an additional man in the box under this proposal would lead to the desired “increased scoring chances” on the subsequent two-man advantage, which should please the league and it’s fans.

The defensive hand-pass doesn’t happen with great frequency, but when it does, it’s the visual equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard and we really feel it’s a good idea to remove the worst looking play in hockey in order to maintain the integrity of one of the game’s most basic elements, advancing the puck with the stick, and stop capitulating to the deliberate rule breakers.

As Bill Clement said, “It’s an ugly play. Get rid of it.”

For the life of us, we cannot imagine why the NHL would consider allowing expanded use of the hand pass when it's so contrary to the basic fundamentals of the game and fear what the game would look like if the players were to take full advantage of the ability to shove, bat, toss or throw the puck at will.