I want to know if I’m the only one troubled by the length of the preseason this year — this year specifically?
In most pre-seasons we complain about the length because most players are conditioned and ready to go and there aren’t many or any adjustments they need to make to their playing style for the upcoming season… Just a few conditioning tests, a few scrimages to get their heads in the game, a few pre-season games and we’re back in action less than a month later.
How is this case different? I thought that was glaringly obvious to every hockey fan out there? The league has been on hiatus for a year and players have played under different systems in different leagues with some not playing at all. There are a plethora of new rules and adjusting playstyles shouldn’t be an entirely in-season thing…
You have an issue of conditioning, you have an issue of the rules, you also have teams implementing new systems (though that shouldn’t earn the teams extra time) … Why did you see only a week of workouts and scrimages before the pre-season games started? The Players should know they need more than a week — for this year and this year alone — to get ready for the start of the season to not only get in shape but grasp what’s new and what are no-nos now. New rules need to be driven home into game play not just for the sake of improving the game but keeping the games from being penalty-fests like early pre-season games had been, where players continued to use illegal styles of play that resulted in a ton of penalty whsitles.
Don’t take this as if I was fine without NHL action the last year and didn’t think it was necessary to get the game back ASAP — but still, how fast is too fast?
