Toronto Maple Leafs' Mason Raymond scores on Ottawa Senators' Craig Anderson, left, in the shootout during NHL hockey action in Toronto on October 5, 2013. Mason Raymond caused quite a stir with his spin-o-rama shootout move Saturday night. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mark BlinchMark Blinch/The Canadian Press
If someone was trying to come up with the perfect metaphor for everything that is wrong with the NHL, banning the spin-o-rama from penalty shots and shootouts would be it. Fans leap out of their seats in disbelief when a player pulls off a spin-o-rama goal and then go home and watch it over and over in replays and on YouTube. It's an incredible display of puck-handling and skating skills. People love it. And the league hates it. Why?
No, really. Why?
Only the most talented players can pull off a spin-o-rama. It involves accelerating quickly, then suddenly executing a 360-degree turn, all the while keeping a small black disc in close orbit. The move – something that really only a large planet should be able to do, physics-wise – is a brilliant tactic for avoiding an on-rushing checker, or, when on the attack, creating time and space to make a play. Executed close to the net, it disorients goalies and pulls them out of position.
In some ways, the spin-o-rama is to hockey what dunking is to professional basketball – an ostentatious display of power and skill. The NHL, still dominated by Canadian players and this country's old-timer hockey culture, looks down on flashy moves and displays of emotion that could be interpreted as cockiness. There's a "right way" to play the game.
The right way involves fighting, intimidation and using whatever means necessary to slow down a skilled opponent in a league that craves "parity." Sidney Crosby, the best hockey player in the world, is constantly frustrated by the slashing, cross-checking, late hits and face-washes he is subjected to as the price of his excellence. Other leagues protect their star players; the NHL expects them to endure abuse and diminishment in the name of parity. It's the right way.
So when a heart-stopping, skill-testing move starts to become popular and proves to be an effective way of scoring during a shootout, the league bans it. Punching a player in the face? That's okay. Clogging up the ice with defensive systems that kill the game's flow? By all means. But letting the best be the best?
Sorry. Not in the NHL.