Shoot to Thrill

In 2005, the National Hockey League adopted the shootout to settle ties in regular season games. The shootout is used if the game remains tied after five minutes of overtime.

Ten years later, the shootout is one of the most significant and controversial rule changes in all of sports. Some maintain that the shootout erases a sixty-five-minute emotional rollercoaster between two teams—and that it’s wrong for games to be decided based on a one-on-one battle between a shooter and a goalie. Others argue that shootouts provide edge-of-your seat excitement as two supremely skilled players go head-to-head for all the marbles.

Shoot to Thrill blends history, stats, and personal perspectives from players, coaches, officials, and broadcasters. Mark Rosenman and Howie Karpin explore how players and coaches prepare for shootouts, what they think of them, and how shootouts have helped shape hockey history over the past decade—including the shootout in the last game of the 2010 season that sent the Philadelphia Flyers into the playoffs and on to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Some rule changes are instituted without anyone’s noticing. Others shake the game to its very foundations. Like the designated-hitter rule in baseball, hockey's shootout has left no fan impartial to it. This is the book for them.

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