Improving the Best of Seven

May 22, 2021

There’s never a bad time to resurrect a good idea. No matter how far-fetched.

The NBA and Stanley Cup Playoffs have begun. The Utah Jazz… Phoenix Suns and the Denver Nuggets are the top three times in the stacked NBA West Conference. But no one is picking any of these teams to win a title. Shouldn’t winning the most over a 71-game regular season count for more than home court in a potential Game Seven of a playoff series? Of course, it should. Logic further re-enforced by the fact that the Los Angeles Clippers were losing games on purpose to bad teams to get an edge in the draw.

Meanwhile the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue to be a complete crap shoot. Only eight times in the last 33 years has the President’s Cup winner, given to the team with the best regular season record, won the Stanley Cup. Like basketball… hockey’s regular season just doesn’t count for enough.

Since there’s never a bad time to resurrect a good idea. No matter how farfetched. Increase the value of the home court… ice and field. Best of seven series. The better team gets five home games out of seven. Make it a 2-2-3. And you’re welcome.

Category: Press Box
Tag: Bill Pucko, NBA, NHL, Rochester, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Unfinished Business

Published by Bill Pucko

Bill Pucko has spent over three decades as a broadcast journalist working in television, radio and print. He was the featured sportscaster on Rochester’s YYN and WHEC-TV, awarded the Rochester Press and Radio Club’s Sportscaster of the Year Award three times and inducted onto the Frontier Field Walk of Fame in 2006. Bill is a co-founder of Classy Wolf Media, a television and video production company currently syndicating two weekly sports programs, The High School Sports Beat and The Press Box, on WHAM-TV and FOX Rochester. View all posts by Bill Pucko