RULES MADE TO BE TWEAKED?: Here are one person's ideas to enhance the sport of hockey

Hockey remains the best of all spectator sports, at least in terms of being there in person. It will probably never translate very well to television, but that does not change the fact that it is a great game to watch.

Great, but not perfect.

One reason the National Football League has been so successful is its ability to adapt, to adjust its rules to fit the changing science of the game. Hockey should follow suit. Here are some suggestions:

• A puck cleared cleanly off the glass and into the crowd from the defensive zone should result in a delay of game penalty. Hockey is meant to be played along the ice, not in the air. Not being able to use the glass without risking a minor will force defending players to make passes, to skate the puck out of danger. That should lead more turnovers and more scoring chances — more chaos, which coaches hate and fans love; and fewer faceoffs, which fans hate.

• If icing is to be allowed on penalty kills, then make it a less attractive option. From the time the puck crosses the attacking team’s goal line until the time it comes back over that line, don’t take those seconds off the penalty clock. There is some tweaking that needs to be done — the last two minutes of a period, et cetera — but the technology is there to do it.

• Allow skaters to customize their helmets. Uniforms are necessarily the same, but helmets won’t change being able to identify friend or foe. Fans should see a helmet and be able to identify that skater instantly.

• The attacking team in overtime cannot voluntarily take the puck back over the red line. It is a faceoff in its own end if it does. Basketball does this. There is too much down time in overtime now as teams reorganize. What we need more of is offensive bedlam. The Sharks played the first-ever overtime under the current format, on Oct. 11, 2014, in Binghamton.

That was before teams realized they could slow it down, and it was 6:34 of nonstop two-on-one breaks before Matt Taormima scored for Worcester.

• How about this? Teams don’t get a penalized player back after allowing a power-play goal. What other sport does that? In football, if you are called for holding on second down, you don’t lose the yardage but then are allowed to go back to it being first down.

• For penalty shots and shootouts, the opposing team should be allowed to have a chaser who starts at the blue line behind the shooter when the whistle blows to begin. These “take the long way home” breakaways don’t come close to duplicating game conditions.

• Regarding technology … end video replays. Officials are imperfect, but they are also impartial, and that’s all that matters. The calls even out in the long run, except that you only remember the ones that go against you. It’s not much as much fun for fans to celebrate a goal two minutes after the play happens.

• Drop the puck, linesmen. Go online some time and watch film or video of games from years ago. The linesmen got the hell in, dropped the puck, then got the hell out of the faceoff circles. Watching players get waived away from the dot is infinitely boring and frustrating.

• For matching major penalties, go four-on-four for the duration. Pro hockey did that for many years, and it made for wide-open play.

• Statistical matters? Players are not given pluses or minuses when they are on the ice for empty-net goals. Also, goalies don’t have 8 seconds, or whatever, deducted from their playing time when they leave the net for delayed penalties. Being pulled in other situations, yes. But not for delayed penalties. That’s nitpicky.

• The best hockey of all is pond hockey played on black ice, but we rarely get black ice in nature. So, let’s try it artificially. Paint the ice black and make the pucks white.

• Goaltenders cannot freeze the puck unless it comes to them in the air. If it’s on the ice, play it in some manner. More scoring, fewer faceoffs, and maybe fewer butterfly goalies, so more goals. Also, does anyone know why they are called butterfly goalies and not moth goalies?

• Turn down the sound, please. There is absolutely no need of the decibel levels found in most arenas. The only rationale for it is that many fans don’t hear very well; however, they don’t hear very well because they’ve gone to so many hockey games.

Now if we can do something about viruses, the hockey world will be perfect.

—Contact Bill Ballou at sports@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillBallouTG.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: RULES MADE TO BE TWEAKED? Here are one person's ideas to enhance the sport of hockey