The PWHL has achieved loads though it’s solely been in existence for a number of months. It has set data for attendance. It has sealed the cracks in ladies’s hockey that had fashioned. It has given momentum to ladies’s hockey under the worldwide stage, which had been caught in impartial because of splits between teams and leagues.
And now it’s the primary league to select a playoff system that’s completely happy to simply accept slightly spice to it.
So the crew that finishes the common season on the high will get to declare whom they suppose they’re extra prone to beat, which can make any sequence just a bit extra private. It’s straightforward to see the place a third- or fourth-place crew, particularly the third-place crew, carries a big chip on its shoulder by being the one chosen as the better path to the ultimate. Definitely it can rile the followers of no matter crew will get chosen and hold them extra locked in. And definitely extra individuals are extra prone to search out watching a sequence that begins with a story as an alternative of getting to develop one over the primary couple video games. It’s a grudge match earlier than a puck is dropped, which helps a league that hasn’t actually had time to develop natural rivalries but.
That’s not all of the PWHL does that will probably be music to the ears of hockey followers. One, it’s already been working a 3-2-1-0 factors system, which signifies that regulation wins are value greater than OT or shootout wins. Which is one thing that NHL followers have been screaming for in that league for some time now, as a result of wins in 60 minutes earlier than attending to gimmicks to resolve a winner needs to be extra priceless.
The PWHL can be going with the reverse draft order system, which means that the No. 1 choose within the draft will probably be awarded to whichever crew collects probably the most factors after being eradicated from playoff rivalry within the common season. Now, it will work higher when there are greater than six groups, as solely two groups will miss the playoffs. Secondly, PWHL contracts aren’t actually lengthy sufficient to push gamers to offer it their all for draft picks they could not play with. We don’t even know if tanking was going to be an issue on this league, which is unique sufficient in the meanwhile to maintain actually good gamers out as a result of there simply isn’t sufficient house for them.
Nevertheless it additionally could possibly be stated that it’s good to get this in now earlier than growth, and it’s completely different, and there’s nothing improper with a brand new league making an attempt to face out and making an attempt one thing new.
The PWHL already has a core, a giant core, of ladies’s hockey followers. However as a way to be extra profitable, i.e. carry in additional simply normal hockey followers, it’s an excellent ploy to offer them issues that they need out of the leagues they already watch. Hockey followers aren’t all that completely different than different sports activities’ followers in that tanking isn’t one thing anybody likes. The three-point system of the NHL retains fake-parity the theme of the day far an excessive amount of. Giving the crew that’s greatest within the common season one thing to take benefit by making the common season value one thing additional. It’s all value a attempt at worst.
It is a criticism concerning the NWSL, which has a a lot simpler path to promotion/relegation with the USL Tremendous League coming on-line, or a single desk/no playoff system. Or perhaps a extra step-laddered playoff system to make the season extra significant, two issues MLS merely hasn’t supplied soccer followers. NWSL might, however hasn’t but.
The PWHL actually can’t be accused of not being courageous and never catering to tastes of all hockey followers. Fortune favors the courageous.
Making heads or tails of newest CONCACAF silliness
Sticking within the ladies’s sports activities class, probably the most CONCACAF factor occurred within the Ladies’s Gold Cup final evening, which means that at the very least CONCACAF goofiness is aware of no gender. The event has expanded to 12 groups this yr, however nonetheless needs eight groups to maneuver on. With the tourney cut up into three teams of 4, that meant that every one the group winners and all of the second-place groups superior. However solely two of the three third-place groups advance. Argentina completed with 4 factors, so that they’re by way of. However Puerto Rico and Costa Rica each completed with three factors. With a -2 goal-differential. Each having scored two objectives. Each having given up 4 objectives. There was no solution to cut up them aside from a coin flip:
Costa Rica gained the toss. There’s a life lesson in there someplace.
