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Five questions: Long-term deals and 'Hudson Bay rules'

December 3, 2009 12:47 PM | Posted by   Guy Carbonneau  

Here's how it works. You submit a question and Guy will provide the answer to five of them every week. It's that simple. That means your question may not make the final list, but there is nothing stopping you from submitting more than one!

Here are today's questions:

1. With the elimination of goal judges, who turns on the red light to signal a goal? - Bill

It’s the same person who did the job before. The only thing is that he’s now sitting upstairs on the press box. The NHL decided in 2007 to give NHL teams the permission to move those goal judges to the sky. One reason is technology. From there they can look at every chance and goals on the video screen right away and make a better decision. The other one is economics. Those few seats behind the net are premium seats that are worth lots of money.

2. Guy, who will the first coach to get the axe this season? - Kris

I really don’t know. A few teams have struggled since the start of the season. But if you look at the list of players they have to put on the ice every night, the problem is more about injuries than bad management or bad coaching. So I think GMs are definitely looking closely at the [losing] situations, but will be a bit more patient because of it. And that means it might take another month or two to see the first coach get axed.

3. I was hoping someone could explain to me where the saying “Hudson Bay Rules” came from. I tried doing an internet search but couldn’t find much about it. My hometown is Hudson Bay, Sask., so when I first heard the phrase I was a bit surprised. I've heard it several times during the Hockey Night in Canada program and always wondered. As far as I understand, the phrase means a rough style of hockey brought on by the officials not calling penalties.

What makes this so interesting is that our town’s hockey style has always been a rough style with a lot of fighting. If the phrase and my hometown are actually linked, I would be surprised since HNIC is the first time I heard the saying. If you can put this to rest for me that would be much appreciated. - Mark

I’ve heard this saying a few times, but I don’t know the real meaning of it. But Jeff Marek, one of the great hockey personalities at the iDesk on Hockey Night in Canada, has this answer:

“It's a good question and nobody really knows where it came from other than speculating that the term is used to describe ref-less hockey games that were played on a pond (hence Hudson Bay, the biggest pond) before rules were put in place and the first record of a game appeared in 1875.”

I use a similar reference when I explain to people how I got better at making and catching passes. When I was a kid in Sept-Iles, Que., I used to skate outside on a lake two or three times a week. The rule was that if you made a bad pass to a teammate and he wasn’t able to catch it, you were the one who had to go get it a few hundred yards away. I got better really quickly.

4. How do you defend against a player like Ovechkin. He seems to be able to do everything? - Wayne

Well it’s definitely not an easy task. I think we have to give credit to the NHL. When they decided to change the rules about hooking and holding, it gave the skilled and stronger players a chance to express themselves on the ice without having anybody on their back. And when you have a player like Ovechkin, who has both of those qualities, it makes the job of the defender that much harder to do.

As a coach I would put my two best defencemen on the ice and keep one forward high in the neutral zone in order to take away his speed and if possible deny him the possession of the puck.

5. There is a lot of controversy about long-term contracts these days. Are they a good idea? Would you sign a player to a multi-year contract? - Aarick

With the new CBA and especially with the salary cap, it’s just that much tougher to be able to keep all your players together for a long period of time. One way is to use long-term contracts to spread the wealth over a stretch of time. I would look at a few things before I gave a player that contract:

a. His age. I don’t like the kind of contracts that extend a player career into his early 40s.
b. Does he personify your hockey club and the brand of hockey your team wants to play?
c. Who is left on the roster who will be a free agent in the next few years? You don’t want to be sitting there in a few years with two or three of your best young players and not be able to pay them, because all your money is tied up in long-term deals.

Have a question for Guy? Comment below or send an email to: CBCHockeyOnline@cbc.ca

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