Hockey-ism or Legitimate Gripe?: "They need to play a full 60 minutes" and "start games on time"

[x Tame Impala]

I often see these critiques made, both on my team's board and on HF in general. Is it realistic to expect a team to "play a full 60"? Is it even possible? I've been a fan of the game for 18 years now and I'm struggling to think of a time where a team consistently does this. Doesn't matter if it's an elite team or not.

Is it a case of players/teams playing with inconsistent intensity or is it a matter of the NHL being the most competitive hockey in the world and there will always be a discrepancy of a player's/team's effectiveness on a game to game basis?

What really trips me up is you see this in the playoffs too so I'm not sure if it's a legitimate rebuttal to say players, even unconsciously, won't give a full 100% in the regular season. If a team can "look flat" in the playoffs, where the games are objectively the most important then what does that say?

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[WaitingForThatCab]

Games with a 7pm scheduled start time should have a puck drop no later than 7:05pm.

 

[Plastic Joseph]

Games with a 7pm scheduled start time should have a puck drop no later than 7:05pm.

I can understand home openers or Jersey retirements etc taking a bit of time.

But for regular games, they should absolutely drop no more than 5 mins after scheduled like you say

 

[BLNY]

 

[tny760]

i dunno, i think it's a thing that some players/teams come out of the locker room flat and take some reps to adjust to the pace, at home especially. probably overused but i do think it's a thing. it does kind of discount the other team's influence on that situation though

 

[JoVel]

A regular season is 82 games. No one is out there giving a 100% effort throughout every game and every shift. Of if they do, they don't play 82 games.

 

[Mattilaus]

Saying a team didn't play the full 60 minutes is just a shorter way of saying a team started making mental mistakes or started to slow down at an inopportune time, or was slow to start the game, and it cost them.

You are correct in that most teams don't play a full 60 minutes at 100% but the good teams with good fundamentals don't let a lack of energy lose the game for them. These (usually veteran) teams have good fundamentals they can fall back on that helps them ride out the ebbs and flows of a game. The saying doesn't literally mean playing the entire game at 100% efficiency.

 

[DieSendungmitderMaus]

I think the boring answer is that both not starting games well and being inconsistent are gripes that fans express in many sports, so it sure seems like it's harder to do than you'd think listening to fans. I could see early effort being bigger a bigger deal in hockey, as a pretty fast/chaotic sport where any slow start will see you face turmoil in your own zone as opposed to say soccer where it's possible to sit back a bit and feel yourself into the game while focusing on not f***ing up at first.

It's also probably become a cliche/conventional wisdom because cognitive biases will cause an inordinate number of fanbases to swear that their team has a special ability to start slow or fall asleep at specific points during a game. Human brains will find patterns in any kind of random events and when our teams start slow it pisses us off much longer than we enjoy early leads.

So tl;dr there are probably a handful of teams who legitimately struggle with starts/consistency for reasons other than simply not being good enough, but at the end of the season 90% of fanbases will be convinced that their team is one of them.

 

[Machinehead]

The first one is bullshit. The second one is legit.

Nobody is good the whole game. That's a tired trope that doesn't mean anything. It demonstrates of a lack of understanding in regard to how high a level NHL competition is.

They absolutely should start the games on time. Other leagues do. That's a hockey thing.

 

[DJJones]

Uh "start games on time" has nothing to do with the game start time haha

Am I misreading this whole thread

 

[Coffees]

Games with a 7pm scheduled start time should have a puck drop no later than 7:05pm.

Sign the petition then , you guys all complain but no one brings up the petition

 

[JetsFan815]

Games with a 7pm scheduled start time should have a puck drop no later than 7:05pm.

Generally puck drop is 8 mins after the scheduled start time. So I am okay with 7:08 starts and can plan with that in mind, but it is those random nights with 7:20, 7:15, 7:30 starts (usually HNIC) that are annoying as you can't plan in advance and are stuck watching the screen at the risk of missing the start.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Games with a 7pm scheduled start time should have a puck drop no later than 7:05pm.

Not the literal start time, a team being ready to play at the beginning of the game

 

[Seedtype]

Not the literal start time, a team being ready to play at the beginning of the game

Oh... That makes more sense, haha.

 

[Crow]

Jesus, way to call me out pal. /s

It’s an interesting discussion. I still believe the Richardson Blackhawks are in the very bottom of the league when it comes to intensity at the beginning of the game. They are also just generally in the bottom of the league anyway though so tough to say it’s a coaching problem I guess. They do appear to play much better as the game goes on, but that could be because the other team lets off the gas due to having a two goal lead. Really, I’m not sure what to think at this point.