Quote:
Originally Posted by FanIn80
I'm concerned about the size of the playing surface. It seems to me that with hockey being a "game of inches" a few less feet of room could lead to injuries from players not expecting the boards to be where they are etc.
Like it's one thing when you go from NHL to International, since that's more space to work with... but less space is a different story. Although, I suppose international teams deal with it ok when they come over here to play events on NHL rinks, so maybe it's a non-issue.
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I can't see it being a significant issue.
The rink will be slightly wider than an NHL rink, but shorter by about 3 feet. The difference from 200 feet to 196.85 feet is about 1.6%, which will most-likely be made up by slightly reducing the size of the neutral zone. The size of the offensive/defensive zone should be the same (which is how these differences are usually accounted for).
Watching on tv, it won't even be noticeable.
No player is going to be thinking, "I know my team's goal line is 185 feet behind me, so I should be 4 feet away from the end boards", only to look up and discover they're only 1 foot away from the boards.
It might result in more offside calls because the neutral zone will be reduced by 3 feet, but I doubt most players' spatial awareness is that finely tuned. They'll just look for the blue line.