Enhance your experience: The Green Line

Across the SB Nation blogging network today, you're going to see most hockey sites come up with different ways to 'enhance the experience' of hockey. Some are talking NHL hockey, some hockey in general, some... are probably going pretty far out. It's all part of a campaign SBN is doing in partnership with Samsung.

Let's be honest with each other for a second.  You know what's bullcrap?  Not knowing if a goal has been scored or not.  This is the 21st century, and yet we still have to put up with annoying video reviews where we wait through agonizing television replays as announcers debate whether or not they can see the puck.  And what's maddening is that you know the same exact conversation is going on in the so-called "war room" in Toronto.

"Uh, I don't know.  Can you see it there?"

"No.  Let's try another angle.  How about that?"

"Nah."

"What do you want to do?"

"I dunno.  Coin Flip?"

Yep... bullcrap.  Luckily, there's an easy solution: Put a quarter-inch green line in the goal.

You're probably thinking, "That's great, Mark, but what's a green line going to do?"

However, this wouldn't be just any green line.  It's an RF-chip embedded line.  Pair it with an RF-chip embedded puck, and you're well on your way to having a foolproof system for declaring goals.

The best part of this is that it works in conjunction with existing NHL rules.  All the league needs to do is put the line exactly the diameter of a puck behind the existing goal line.  The thought behind that distance is simple -- in order for a goal to count, it has to completely cross the goal line.  With a simple radio wave, any time the puck has broken the plane of the green line, you know beyond any shadow of a doubt that a goal has been scored.  The puck touches the green line, and the red line goes on.  No guesswork.

In Ottawa, we've already seen a disallowed goal because officials couldn't see the puck underneath bodies, and I'm willing to bet every NHL team will experience the same scenario at least once this year.  It's only a matter of time before one of those goals is one that decides a game this year, and that's an easy black eye for the NHL to avoid.

We already know that the puck can be modified thanks to Fox's broadcasts in the 90's.  But instead of trying to cartoonize the game, the league should be using technology to enhance it. 

The rules of the game state that if the puck crosses the goal line, then a goal has been scored.  It's time to start counting those goals with technology and not eyes.