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  J U N I O R S U R V E I L L A N C E - December 28, 2006 The World Junior Tournament has opened up a lot of eyes with their new point system. No longer will there be any tie games. Overtime and shootouts have arrived. But this tournament is taking things a step further, by creating a distinction between a regular victory and an overtime/shootout victory. Under the new system, 3 points are awarded to a team that wins a game in regulation time. A victory secured in overtime or by shootout is good for 2 points. And the team that loses a game in overtime or by shootout is awarded 1 point. The NHL should take a serious look at adopting this system. What it would mean is that teams would have to focus on offence, instead of devising new ways to play trap hockey. Trying to keep the score tight with hopes of scraping out a win in overtime will no longer be an option. As it stands now if a team wins 5 games in regulation time they are awarded 10 points. If another team wins 5 games in overtime/shootout they too are awarded 10 points. Since it’s harder to win in regulation time, there should be a bigger reward for teams that do so. Under the current World Junior point system a team that had 5 wins in regulation time would be awarded 15 points, which would be 5 more than the team that had 5 extra-time victories. Over a long 82 game schedule those regulation time wins would be the difference between first place and second place. They would also be the difference between making the playoffs and sitting on the sidelines watching. Suddenly coaches would be under pressure to go on the offensive and try and secure the win in regulation time. The big winner in this type of setup would be the fans. Instead of watching teams devising ways not to lose, we would instead see teams playing all out to win. Send your story to hockspy@hotmail.com and we will pass them on to our readers in a future installment of Junior Hockey Surveillance. 
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