OT - what's up with 4 on 4 olympic hockey overtime?

It's obviously because Sidney Crosby plays better 4 on 4 hockey because Sid the Legend is Sid the Great and Sidney Crosby pulled a Sidney Crosby and now every hockey game you watch Sidney Crosby will be the topic of Sidney Crosby.

*disclaimer - I don't blame Crosby for his extreme media circle jerk...but he's still a douche

What is the point of 4 on 4 OT in the NHL regular season? Whatever your answer is for that, it would most likely be the reason for 4 on 4 in the olympics.

The belief is that in 4 on 4 there is a lot more ice for the offense to move thus a goal is highly probable of occurring, thus no shootout.

As for the Olympics, the games were played at General Motors Place or the home to the Vancouver Canucks. The ice is smaller than what they play on in Europe or Internationally, International play is 210 feet long with boards 13 feet from the goal line and in the NHL the ice is 200 feet and the goal line is 11 feet from the boards, so i am assuming that rather than throwing 5 on 5 for OT they decided to only use the NHL's 4 on 4 policy.

IMO, i would rather see the hockey at the Olympics played on the International length, but since the world economy sucks ass right now i understand the rational behind it. I also heard that since most of the players in the Olympics play in the NHL it provides a much higher level of play, with the NHL ice, than with the International ice.

I know Gary Bettman has little, if anything, to do with Olypmic hockey rules, but I hate him almost as much as I hated 4 on 4 in the Olympics. I think the rule is to limit the odds of letting a shootout decide the game, but the idea behind it is full of hypocrisy. Let's use the shootout as a last resort because it's not indicative of the game of hockey, but play 4 on 4 because it is?

It's impossible to know the outcome of a 5 on 5 OT, but the 4 on 4 absolutely killed us. Not to take anything away from Ron Wilson, I think he would have played this scheme regardless, but the Slovaks exposed Canada late in there game and we followed suit with two forecheckers and sometimes even the third forward below the dots during regulation. When it came to OT where we couldn't play two men deep, we lost our game and resorted to throwing weak wrist shots on Luongo from the top of the circles with nobody crashing the net. I can't see how our coaching staff thought this was going to win us the game. You can argue it was bad coaching, and it probably was, but I understand why we didn't have anything given the little practice we had as a team, even 5 on 5. Olympic style OT is going to benefit some teams and not others, just like shootouts. I don't see any harm playing 5 on 5 OT, why change the rules?

I don't know the actual reason, but I would think that part of it is that it might be more likely that a team would score when it's 4v4 than 5v5, and that the game wouldn't end up in a shootout (since that's what would have happened if the OT was scoreless). Watching World Cup and other international soccer over the years, I know how much of a let-down that can be after a hard fought game.

With the gold medal game in hockey being the last thing that occurs before the closing ceremony, they couldn't have a situation like NHL playoff hockey, where the ending of the game is really in question - they need to have a "drop dead" time when it will finish, so all the VIPs can get to the closing.

Based on that, I figure that the 4v4 is a compromise.

surprised to hear them say that it was going to 4 on 4 for 20 mins if the game went to OT... i agree that it should be 5 on 5 medal round and the gold and bronze medal games... but the IIHF has always been wierd about their rules... they didn't even adopt the icing rule until this year, and they are still using the old style of crease and whats with the visor rule??? there are a couple of rules that i do like: automatic icing, blows to the head and players in the crease... but as it was said above, the 4 on 4 OT is probably done to increase the chances of the game ending in OT and not in a shootout... as a canadian fan it sucked big time to watch the '94 team lose the gold and the '98 team miss the chance of making it to the gold medal game because of shootouts... shootouts are all fine and dandy for regular season hockey but not playoff hockey and that should be a rule across the world not only in the NHL...

I actually thought that 4 on 4 the U.S. team would benefit during the overtime period more than Team Canada. With the way Miller was playing, the only way he was beaten was by having several bodies in front of him screening him so he couldn't see the puck. With only two skaters in the offensive zone, there was less chance this would happen. Miller was outstanding throughout the tournament and especially during the Gold Medal game. Rick Nash and Miller were the two best players on the ice in this game.

4 on 4 is a way to try and expedite the end of the game without having to resort to a shoot-out.

Among other things:

-Skilled players have more room to maneuver. Faster, shiftier players won't get bottled up as much with that extra defender missing. NHL players are extremely good at taking up space on the ice, so this change is significant. This was a huge factor in the amount of surprise Crosby exacted on Miller in the gold medal game.

In fact, one reason that teams stay 5 on 5 for matching penalties is because of one Wayne Gretzky, who was so adept at using the 4 on 4 space that it was effectively a power play for his team in the instances of matching penalties.

Offense is forced to balance with defense. Probably the major reason for going 4 on 4 is it all but eliminates the use of a neutral zone trap in overtime. With all the passing lanes that get opened up, it is virtually impossible to clog up the neutral zone and rely on hopes that your offense will eventually throw something in.

-Players get tired out more quickly. When you have to move faster and farther to achieve the same objective, the weaker players are going to get tired more quickly. Obviously when players get tired, they make mistakes and goals go in. Granted sometimes they pull a Chris Perry @ MSU in 2003, in which case so much the better?

The notion that the 4 on 4 play is somehow a complete departure from the norm is silly. Hockey teams regularly practice 4 on 4 play in scrimmage play because it helps work on player/puck flow, and because it doesn't tire people out as quickly in practice. Unless you count the 4th and sometimes 5th lines, teams don't have practice squads, so 5 on 5 is sometimes impractical.

Finally, about the referees... it is a well known fact that you basically have to pull a gun on somebody to get a penalty in an important OT game. This is how it has been for a very long time, and isn't new to the 4 on 4 situation. During the regular season in the NHL you might see some consistency with regulation, but you'll notice that in the playoffs that will go out the window for the most part. Nobody wants to get saddled with the burden of making a chintsy call, so they let virtually everything go.

...and yes, shoot-outs suck as a means of deciding an important game.

We also have to keep in mind that the gold medal hockey game is often on the last day of competition. They want to have it all decided before the closing ceremonies. They couldn't afford to have multiple overtime periods, no matter how awesome that would be.