Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

Isles GM Garth Snow suggested an interesting new playoff format at the meetings.

The GMs formed eight-man groups Tuesday. The groups have come up with some zany ideas in years past.

BOCA RATON Fla. - If the topic of headshots in hockey is beginning to give you a headache, stand away from those gel caps.

The news on that front was scarce on Day 2 of the National Hockey League general managers meetings, with the GMs breaking off into "break-out" groups in their annual exercise in discussing some of hockey's most inane ideas.

The eight GMs in charge of further whittling down a proposed rule on hits to the head - Lou Lamoriello, Paul Holmgren, Doug Wilson, Brian Burke, Jim Rutherford, Joe Nieuwendyk, Darcy Regier and Ken Holland - have forged the framework of a rule to be laid out in front of all 30 GMs on the final day of this gathering Wednesday.

The addition to the NHL's rulebook will include the obvious: the shoulder striking the head of an unsuspecting player, and may even stipulate certain areas of the ice in which the contact must occur. The hitter may have to approach from within a decided "field of vision" of the victim.

It's an important issue, but not the only issue these GMs discuss when they come together for golf and fishing in places like The Breakers in Palm Beach, Naples, Spanish Bay or Pebble Beach. The less important things however, are far more interesting than another day spent discussing headshots.

For instance, how about the New York Islanders "Play In Round" where only the top seven teams in each Conference at the end of the regular season would make the playoffs. Places eight through 15 would play a single-elimination playoff round, it would take about a week, and whoever emerges goes into the real playoffs as the No. 8 seed?

"I'm a non-traditionalist in a lot of ways," GM Garth Snow said.

No kidding. His team is going to miss the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons this spring.

Should NHL coaches have "challenge flags" like their NFL brethren? Should All-Star Game rosters be selected by two captains - say, Sid Crosby and Henrik Sedin - who would "draft" their Conference teammates?

"What is charging?" was another topic of discussion Tuesday. And, we ask, how would anyone know? Do referees ever call it anymore?

They're worried here about the lack of scoring in overtime periods, so they discussed Holland's idea of playing four minutes of four-on-four, followed by four more minutes of three-on-three before settling games with a shootout.

Alas, most or all of these ideas will hit a cutting-room floor that is already piled high with seeds of ideas that never germinated into anything more.

We recall a meeting a couple of years ago when it was feared that not enough shots were getting through to goalies. It was Bob Gainey, of all people, who raised the notion of making it illegal for a player to leave his feet to block a shot. The Flamingo Rule, we called it then.

Some GM once concocted this gem: What if teams switched benches every period, so as always to have the bench that is further from its own goal?

"Maybe the potential of a few more mistakes on the ice is a good thing," then-Minnesota GM Doug Risebrough said. He's, um, not a GM anymore.

This is the place where Canucks GM Mike Gillis last year lobbied his colleagues to allow for goalies to wear the captain's C. Of course, his captain is Roberto Luongo.

"The rule dates back to 1949," Gillis pled. And it's still there today.

Also from these meetings came the non-starter that was one-minute penalties in overtime, the concept of allowing any puck that enters the net to stand as a goal - kicked in, punched in, whatever - and a stultifying document labelled "CLARIFICATION OF DISTINCT KICKING MOTION" that some GMs still have not read, years later.

The chewed on that topic for part of a day, and eventually produced a text that included the following revelation: "It is important to remember that a player can use a 'distinct kicking motion' to score a good goal. He can not, however, use a 'distinct kicking motion' to score a goal."

Huh?

In closing, we take you to Las Vegas, March 27-28, 1998, where one of these half-cocked ideas jumped off the table and sprung to life.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman wanted the big American TV contract, and FOX Network owner Rupert Murdoch had complained that American couldn't get their heads around a game that was played in three periods. He wanted synchronized halftime shows on a Saturday - like NFL Sunday.

So the Las Vegas Thunder and Detroit Vipers played two IHL games of four-quarter hockey, - and almost to the man, hated it.

"They're not going to change football or basketball. Why do they want to change hockey?" Thunder goalie Manny Legace asked. "It's more to appeal to the U.S. people. They don't understand hockey."

The league dispatched a bushy-haired V.P. named Brian Burke to oversee the debacle, and he was greeted by a reporter who thought the whole thing was blasphemous.

"With all due respect," Burke said of that line of thinking, "it's just The Flat Earth Society."