After the Chicago Blackhawks tied their series against the St. Louis Blues with a third game decided by overtime, the NHL has announced they are going to save fans of both teams the trouble, and just start Game 5 in overtime.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who made the final decision, told media sources, “Listen, when the Hawks and Blues face off in the playoffs, we know how it’s going to go. 75% of the time, one team will have the lead before coughing it up with minutes or seconds left to go, be it a power play on a [Brent] Seabrook penalty or an advantageous short-ranged shot from Bryan Bickell. But at the end of the day, fans are waiting around for three hours to get the same result they’d see from watching five minutes of an overtime game. We figured we’d cut out the middleman and save them the trouble.”
With three of the four games in the series played so far lasting nearly three hours, including two weeknight games that didn’t end until after 11PM central time, this move has been lauded by economists throughout the Midwest, who say that if we stop kidding ourselves and avoid watching the three full periods of hockey before playoff overtime, thousands of Chicago and St. Louis employees will be exponentially more content and focused on work with the extra three hours of sleep this decision will afford them.
Fans who have found themselves especially emotionally fatigued from this series are advised to ignore it until Game 7, which will be decided after four periods of overtime.
