A few days ago I got to bitching about the NHL’s dumb playoff format and offered up one serious and one almost as dumb way to fix it.
Without meaning to, I’ve just stumbled upon an article that takes part of my dumb idea (just put everybody in the damn playoffs since that’s what you seem to want to do anyway) and actually makes it workable. Behold, the Fuck It Everyone Gets In playoff format!
It involves some one game play-ins and a few two out of threes for a lot of the bottom feeding teams so would take some getting used to, but I’m having trouble poking a single hole in it. The regular season becomes more meaningful, fans and players alike always have some hope, it rewards good teams, there’s at least a bit of that sweet, sweet playoff revenue for everyone, and don’t even try telling me you’re not watching the hell out of the shittiest team in the league going on an improbable march to the finals some year. The season gets slightly longer which isn’t exactly ideal since it doesn’t end until nearly fucking July as it is, but that’s nothing that can’t be solved by either shortening the preseason or shutting up and living with it like we eventually do with everything else.
It makes too much sense for the NHL to enact it, but allow me to be one of the first to wholeheartedly endorse this plan.
