Ruling In Favor Of Fans
By Joe Bendel

In hockey arenas across the country, fans were spotted with their mouths wide open. They were not mesmerized by the play.

They were yawning.

Goal-scoring in the NHL was at its lowest in 50 years. Shootouts were few and far between. And hockey was all the worse for it.

Rule changes could be in place as soon as next season in an effort to heighten excitement for fans, with the league considering reducing the size of goalies' leg pads, forbidding goalies from handling the puck behind the goal line and easing up on strict off-sides rulings.

The potential changes might not appeal to every player, coach or general manager, but let's be frank: These changes won't be put into place for those gentlemen.

Fans are first and foremost on the NHL's mind these days, which should come as no surprise to anyone who pays attention to the wide world of sports. For years, governing bodies on the professional and collegiate levels have tweaked rules to add a spark for the folks who fill up the seats.

College basketball introduced the 3-point shot in 1986-87. College football adopted overtime in 1996. The NFL created the "chuck rule" in 1977. NASCAR changed its points system this past year. The list goes on.

Whether the changes did those organizations any good will always be up for debate, but this much is certain: The intended goal was to make things more fan-friendly.

Pitt basketball coach Jamie Dixon was a senior shooting guard for TCU when the NCAA put the 3-point shot into place 18 years ago. As a shooter, he embraced the change, but said most coaches didn't know how to utilize the 3-point opportunity back then.

"It was so new," Dixon said. "It wasn't a big part of a team's offensive (scheme). It came into play a little bit for me because my strength was shooting, but our team hardly used it. Now, it has to play a role because it's a big part of the game. The number of 3-point attempts went up tremendously after the first year because more people understood it and incorporated it."

Many coaches originally dismissed the shot as a gimmick, including former USC coach George Raveling, who was extremely critical of the change.

"The next thing you know, they'll have a trained seal on the court," Raveling said back then.

Nearly two decades later, Dixon believes the change did college basketball good.

"It added a different component," he said. "And it's made for some interesting games over the years."

When Mel Blount played for the Steelers in the 1970s, the NFL created a rule geared toward curtailing his physical style of play at cornerback. The league instituted the "chuck rule," in which a defender could only hit a wide receiver within five yards of the line of scrimmage. Previously, defenders were permitted to make contact with receivers all the way down the field, until the ball was in the air.

It was another attempt to make the game more fan-friendly by opening things up for offenses, and corners such as Blount had to adjust.

"I thought they were trying to slow us (the Steelers) down, even though it was supposed to add something for the fans," Blount said. "We were dominating the NFL at the time and Paul Brown had complained a lot about jams I used against Isaac Curtis and Kenny Burroughs. I thought it was a real political thing against the Steelers because we were really dominating."

Asked if the NFL went too far to appease fans, Blount stopped short of saying yes.

"No question, it was meant to open things up on offense and give teams the ability to score more points," he said. "I think it was a combination of opening up the offense, but I also think it was directly focused on stopping the Steelers. But one of the interesting twists to that rule is that it eventually worked to our advantage. We won two Super Bowls before it was put into place, and we won two more afterwards. We had Terry Bradshaw, John Stallworth and Lynn Swann eating defenses alive. Our guys figured out how to take advantage of the rule, even if it might have affected us on defense."

The "chuck rule" has been enforced less frequently of late, but NFL officials will watch more closely for illegal contact and defensive holding in the secondary this season.

There were 79 such penalties called last season, compared to 117 in 1994 and 103 in 1998. Once again, the NFL is looking to add more offense for fans.

"There is some sentiment that it's gotten a little bit lenient in the calling of it," said Steelers' coach Bill Cowher, who also added, "The rules tend to go toward the offensive side of the ball to promote more scoring."

Upon hearing Cowher's remarks, offensive-minded St. Louis Rams' coach Mike Martz said, "I would tell Bill Cowher that whether he realizes it or not, he coaches offense, too."

In the world of NASCAR, chairman Brian France made changes to the point-scoring system this year in an effort to increase attendance and TV ratings that usually drop in the fall because of competition from the World Series and the NFL.

Essentially, the new system sets up a 10-race playoff among the top 10 drivers in what's being billed as the "Chase for the Championship." Drivers such as Dale Earnhardt Jr. weren't particularly enamored of the new "playoff" system, but he might want to apply Blount's line of thinking.

"You can complain and be disappointed all you want," the Hall-of-Famer said. "But in the end, it's about the fans. And we can't forget that."

Joe Bendel covers college sports for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.