Bettman says he’s okay if you want to bring back the rule against forward passes, he doesn’t mind if you want to revert to old-school icing, he just demends you keep it to one rule change; you know, evolution is better than revolution…
What rule are you changing, tweaking, binning or creating.
Any call is reviewable, for any reason in the rulebook. You still go on a penalty if you lose, but you can call anything. The difference is, the decision is made by the on-ice refs in under 2 minutes, without using slow-mo or pausing. If you can’t see it in that time using regular speed, it should stand. Keep the game moving
Oh, and refs are now required to have after-game media availability. If they don’t want that, they’re welcome to retire
In this day and age, where sports are as much about betting as players, any league that DOESN’T put their referees in public display is just asking for manipulation and problems and any smart fan (and owner) should see red flags.
Imagine a league where the refs are subject to public criticism… Doesn’t mean a bad job gets fired, but they should drive more training and classes to get consistency right (nobody should lose their job unless they really can’t cut it).
Anyway, that won’t happen. They don’t care about the fans, they care about the revenue.
Oh, and I’d like some sort of positive reinforcement for sportsmanship. I saw cricket does something like that. So give each ref one standings point per year (as an example) and let them award it when they see something especially good. They know the written and unwritten rules, it’d be cool to let them reward dudes that play the right way. And imagine the crowd and both teams going nuts for some 4th liner getting a Lady Byng Point or whatever.
I like this one