THE NHL : Instant Replay Is Inching Toward Reality

The puck flies off the stick as if shot from a cannon.

In the net, the muscles of the goalie tense as he waits for it.

His pads touch as he fends off the puck, but it drops in front of him, beyond his reach and still capable of causing disaster.

As a wave of players descends on him, sticks flashing, the goalie drops to his knees to make a final defense of his territory.

There is a huge pileup in the crease, leaving the officials screened out.

With the goalie prone on the ice, one player manages to reach out with his stick and nudge the puck under the goalie’s arm, barely across the line.

His teammates see it. Some in the sellout crowd see it. A television camera sees it.

But the one man who must see it to count it, the official, does not. Losing sight of the puck, he does his duty and blows the play dead.

The fans boo. The players protest. But there is nowhere to appeal.

Not under the current rules.

But a solution is on the drawing board.

Instant replay, often a source of as much controversy as it settles in the NFL, might be coming to the NHL.

It’s a slow process. The proposal was made several years ago by Rogie Vachon, the Kings’ general manager. It was brought up again last week at the NHL general managers’ meeting in Phoenix.

“We talked about it,” Vachon said. “But no decision has been made yet on whether it would be all games or just playoff games.

“And we still have to study the cost of the cameras. How many are there going to be? Where are they going to be? How many angles are we going to need? It’s a big project. It’s probably still a year or two away.”

But it should be instituted. For all the complaints about the slowness of the process in the NFL, it still provides a safety net when an official blows a call. It still allows the officials the hindsight they sometimes need to do the right thing.

It’s not logical for an NFL official to be denied the opportunity to see a fumble that is clearly visible to a nationwide television audience, and it is equally illogical for a goal-scoring play in hockey, plainly seen on television, not to be equally visible to the people who must rule on it.

Vachon envisions instant replay strictly for the determination of goals. Under his plan, it would be up to the protesting team to ask the officials to look at the replay.

The situation in which an official is screened out hasn’t been discussed. But it could produce a unique rule change.

Under the present setup, an official, when he loses sight of the puck, must whistle a halt to the play.

What alternative does he have if he can’t see what’s going on?

Such a play cost the Calgary Flames a crucial goal against the Kings in the playoffs last season. Consequently, it cost Calgary Coach Terry Crisp his job and the Flames a chance to advance.

But if an official knew that the camera’s eye was seeing what his own could not, perhaps he would follow a different procedure.

Play might be allowed to proceed to its logical conclusion. The official could then go to a monitor and view what he had missed.

If the puck had crossed the line out of his sight, a goal would be awarded.

What could be more fair?

Jimmy Carson has touched a few nerves with his remarks in Sports Illustrated about Edmonton.

Carson spent a brief, unhappy time with the Oilers after he was sent north from the Kings in the Wayne Gretzky trade. The discontented center then was shipped on to the Detroit Red Wings.

Carson calls his time in Edmonton “reverse culture shock.”

Describing his teammates, Carson said, “Most of the Oilers come from small farming towns. They think Edmonton is Paris. Their idea of fun is going to a bar and getting hammered all night.

“That’s not me. How do you give up your values just to be accepted by the team?”

You can imagine how that went over in Edmonton.

On his next trip there, Carson was greeted with a sign that read, “Welcome to Hicksville, Jimmy.”

His former teammates also had their say.

“I never gave Jimmy credit for much,” said Oiler forward Craig MacTavish. “But one thing I thought he had was intelligence. Now, I can’t even give him credit for that.”

Added Mark Messier, “Our little city, with its farm boys from Brantford and St. Albert, has done just fine.”

The state of the Montreal Canadiens, once perennial champions of the NHL, has reached the editorial pages of the Globe and Mail, Canada’s national paper.

“At a time when Canada seems to be lamenting about everything from Meech Lake to the Goods and Services Tax, it’s worth a moment to lament the Montreal Canadiens as well,” writes Ottawa-based James Davidson.

“The team that raised our national game to an art form, for so long the world’s most exciting hockey team--maybe the world’s most exciting sports team, for goodness sake--is playing like a once-great orchestra horribly out of tune.

“The point is not winning or losing--which the Canadiens have been doing in about equal measure this season--but how they play the game. Which is to say with a complete lack of that once-trademark flair.

“Pick a word-- tedious, sluggish, dreary, dismal. Any way you look at it, this bunch of Canadiens is dull, dull, dull.”

All this about a club that has a 25-18-5 record, is second in the Adams Division and still in a fight for the lead.

When it comes to hockey, Canadians--the people, not the team--can be tough, tough, tough.