Sports Lounge.

[Dirty n Evil]

Heh, being from Philadelphia there's been a long standing rivalry between Philly and Pittsburgh - so I was rooting for the Cardinals.

Despite both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia both having hockey teams, football teams, and baseball teams... for being in the same state, they're very very different cities. I kind of equate it to being almost like sibling-cities. If you have people from Philly and Pittsburgh talking to one another, they'll squibble and fight over the sports and the attitude of how each town is worse than the other. But you mention New York or New Jersey?

Suddenly, they're in complete agreement about how awful people are from both those places, and how they're nothing like people in Pennsylvania. It's kinda funny.

[thaldin]

While my team of choice is Denver, I live in Seattle...

Is there really a question, as a western Washington resident, why I would want the Steelers to lose? *mutters* stupid ref's....

[Phoenix]

At least they got the challenge right this time.

[JaS]

Why are the Flames losing?

[Asaryu]

I am at work, looking at the live score thingy for a hockey game. They had 3 parts, overtime, and now there's a goddamn shootout. Why is this game so damn desperate to have a winner?! Why can't it just be a tie? it obviously want to be? Why must they torture the game? Why can't they just let it be over?!

Someone, please explain it to me so that I do not give up on a potentially awesome game before I've even had a chance to enjoy watching a match.

[JaS]

If there's no winner no-one can advance. Plus sports are competitive

[midgetshrimp]

Okay. Here it is. In the National Hockey League (NHL), games are played primarily in three periods. However, if there is no winner (aka, it's tied) by the end of three periods, the teams go into a 5 minute, sudden death overtime period. Play goes from 5 skaters and a goalie on each side to four skaters and a goalie, to open up chances for both teams, which makes it more exciting for the viewing audience. If the game remains undecided for this extra time, the teams go into a shootout. The shootout starts as a best two-out-of-three, but will continue as long as needed until one team scores and the other misses. Back in '04-'05, there was a player lockout, which is basically a bunch of the players went on strike. Many of the rules of the league were reformatted in negotiations between the Player's Association and the NHL Commissionaries. The format of overtime as well as the shootout was part of these negotiations. Before then, it was possible to tie after 3 periods and a 5 on 5 overtime. In today's NHL, in the interest of ratings and merchandising, there now must be a winner.

[Dirty n Evil]

What both JaS and Midge said... fans of competitive sports for the most part aren't in favor of ties. They want a clear cut winner or loser to each game. The shootout was implimented in recent years because there was some concern that attempting to extend the overtime period would make the game too long for families that went to games (many of them don't start until 7:30 pm, and a standard game already often runs about two and a half hours so ends about 10 pm). It's an attempt to balance interest in the game to the broadest possible market.

But as a "hockey purist", I'm not in favor of the shootout. Hockey is a team game, and a shootout isn't a team result. But, newer fans to the game seem to enjoy the definitive score or no score aspect of a shootout, so it's staying for the time being.

... no, this has nothing to do with the fact that I'm a goon defenseman who rarely scores. Nuh-uh. <.<

[Bear]

In the end of things... its an issue of greed... A winning team will sell more merchandise, and a player who scores the winning goal be heaped with more praise and fans than a team thats drawn their game.

[Phoenix]

You don't play sports to tie.

[Asaryu]

No...you play them to have fun...right?

[Ithilion]

i think thats the main idea... of course some people think you can have fun only if you win

[Nibler]

Those who work out 9 hours a day, play 5 matches a week, and gets payed billions $$$ a year to play, and more when they win probably think its more fun when they win.
They're called professional athletes/players for a reason, most people think its more fun / more satisfying if they do good at what they do for a living.

[Bear]

What really gets me is how seriously overpaid and overvalued the majority of sports stars are these days. And this is comming from a sports fan who's team has the most expensive valued footballer in the world in it!

Rather then being for the sport, or the fun of the game, its all become about the greed and 'how much can we make off of merchandise and sponsorship' rather then... how can we help the fans support us more?

Seriously.. is anyone worth £1,000,000? Let alone £10... £50 or even £100 million that some star are valued at? All alot of them do is as said, do their serious work for only a few hours a week and walk away with thousands in wages a week. Okay..so theirs the training etc behind the scene... but what about someone in the army for instance? 24/7 in a warzone and lucky to walk away with probably not even 1/100th of what a sports person can earn in a year. Or for that matter a policeman or ambulance serviceman... doing an infinitely more important job then any sports personality, yet getting practically no recognition for it.

[Don Alexander]

Because there is, at the same time, money to be made off of them as well. LOTS of money. Same thing with the most well-known actors and singers.