Ice Hockey: Play-off play-in game - neat title, but an absurd idea

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There is surely nothing more absurd than a play-off play-in game.

Well, unless you count a ‘pick your quarter-final opponents’ novelty factor.

Only ice hockey could combine them into the same  cup competition and think they’d struck on something unique.

The Elite League’s Challenge Cup has been kicked around more often than an empty juice tin rattling around rinkside.

Placed next to all the other trophies, it’s the slightly  scuffed one at the end - a bit like that family relative no-one really likes, but no-one has the heart to ask to leave  the party.

And so,  we get plain daft ideas bubbling to the surface on how to  breathe new life into its stagnant format - ideas which really ought to be laughed out of the room with a hearty snort of derision. 

The play-off play-in is neat title for a truly dumb idea.

It rewards failure.

The two teams which finished bottom of qualifying groups of just three were handed a lifeline -  a bit like the ones contestants get on really cringeworthy game shows to try to save their pennies.  A “go big or go home” card if you like.

The winners went from last place elimination straight into the quarter-finals,and suddenly had a one in eight chance of winning a competition in which they failed to even clear the first hurdle.

The whole idea is beyond preposterous. I remained convinced it was chucked on the table purely as a wind up, but, somehow, became adopted as the format for 2019-20. 

There were much simpler options. Ten teams, two leagues of five leading to semi-finals, , or a straight knockout  cup, but competitions designed by committee always charge down blind alleys and come up with the most convoluted, awkward structures which leave every fan scratching their head and going “eh?”

The Challenge Cup is the curtain-raising tournament for each season . It needs to be  better, shorter and sharper. Is that really so difficult to deliver?

In the old days we had the Autumn Cup - kinda the same event - which was split into groups, had a quick knockout stage, and  the final was done and dusted well before Christmas.

The Challenge Cup gets so far down the line and then goes into hibernation for so long everyone has forgotten about it by the time the final rolls into view. Any excitement among the two sets of fans of a cup final weekend has largely gone amid the focus of the regular season.

We can do better than this. We NEED to do better.

You can’t kid fans that a ‘play-off play-in’ round is  exciting and innovative when it’s not.

You can’t expect players to get their adrenalin pumping for a  game in a tournament they’ve already crashed and burn in.

If the Challenge Cup is to have a future, then let’s draw a line under the daft ideas and create a proper structure for it.

That also means binning the equally weird ‘pick your opponents’ plan for the quarter-finals.

This isn’t a  quiz show, it’s sport.

Put the names in a hat, draw them at random. It’s worked for generations.

Anything else is just meddling for the sake of it and adds no element of excitement whatsoever - however the league may dress it up.




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