The Bloodhound Gang: The Case of the missing shift chart pt.1

anyone as old as me, or older, will probably remember the kid's show 3-2-1 Contact . it was a classic for the kid set. anyone as old as me, or older (or even a bit younger, to be fair) will remember the most famous part of that show : the bloodhound gang. anyone younger than that will only remember the bloodhound gang as a mediocre rock/hiphop band, with such albums as "hooray for boobies," and such hits as "fire water burn" (a track that was 'flames-ified' during the '04 cup run; t-shirts were emblazoned with "phaneuf, phaneuf, phaneuf is on fire"... but i digress....)

it will come to no surprise to anyone who reads this blog with any sort of regularity ---you all knew it was coming. a rant about the decision of the NHL.com folks to remove the shift chart from the options on the game summaries has definitely been in the works. it just so happens that tonight i feel like writing, and have an hour to kill before retrieving my brother from the airport.

i'm going into this rant with very little actual information about the switchover from last year's nhl.com to the 'new and improved' 07/08 version, but i know that there have been some upset people (not the least of whom are the new york rangers, who filed a lawsuit against the NHL, as they weren't thrilled about giving up control of their team site). all i know is that i miss the damn shift chart, and i'm pretty sure it's not grounds for litigation...

i wasn't going to bring it up, but i must begin by pointing out that the shift chart was probably viewed as more important by hockey fans outside the GTA, and i have to presume the guys running nhl.com are mostly leafs fans. every single maple leafs game can be watched on basic cable; each and every hockey night in canada begins with a leafs game (unless ottawa is playing, and then that is shown in their small market), and the other games' televised rights have been snatched up by sportsnet or tsn. and if you decide NOT to stay home to watch the blue and white implode in the 3rd, half the bars in town will be showing it... the bottom line: if you live in the golden horseshoe, you needn't open a shift chart to see who mats spent most of the night feeding passes to.

calgary has 14 games on PPV this year, and one inexplicable total blackout, so on nights there's no coverage i turn to nhl.com to provide me with some information. sure, i can see who scored in the game summary --but i have to check the event summary to see which guy dressed as the backup goalie. the event summary will tell me if lombardi was being loved (18 mins of icetime) or hated (11 mins of icetime), but it won't tell me if he was playing on the 2nd line or the 3rd line. i can gather, from the event summary, if iginla was being double shifted due to TOI... but i can't see when exactly nolan started getting benched to allow him to do so. or if moss disappears mid period, comes back and leaves again, i can know how long he lasted before feeling truly concussed...

oh, and the faceoff chart and the play by play are essentially useless... does anyone actually look at those things ?!?

please please please, nhl.com ? please bring back the shift chart...

(i called this "pt.1" because i do believe i will hear something at some point re: my query to the site in question)