Jamie Nye: It’s long past due to review video review

Opinion

The time is now for every league in every sport to review video review.

The disruption to the uniqueness of a live sporting event has become too much for this sports fan.

I’m not saying get rid of all reviews, but we need to go all the way back to where this began and should have stopped: Reviewing scoring plays.

In football, that is touchdowns. In hockey, that is goals. In basketball, there isn’t even a need for it.

But now, we review everything — penalties, offside, high sticks, illegal hits, fouls, goals, turnovers, completions. The list grows by the season.

On Friday night, we sat and waited and waited and waited for the NHL to figure out if the puck glanced off the raised stick of a Los Angeles King seconds before the Kings scored the overtime winner against the Edmonton Oilers.

Back in the day, that goal is scored. The rink goes nuts, the Oilers are seen complaining about something and we all go home. Then we turn on the highlight shows and they show the angle where maybe that puck hit the high stick and Oilers fans are irate and the rest of us say, “Oh, well, it happens to every team at some point or the other,” and move on with our lives.

Now, video review doesn’t allow us to take part in the drama of live sports and the human nature of the game where players make mistakes every shift in the eyes of their coaches and acknowledge that refs will miss a call every once in a while.

No.

We have to sit and watch and wait to have the official say, “There is no conclusive evidence on the play.”

Or, as they might as well exclaim to the crowd over the public address system, “We just wasted your time.”

And wasted time is the last thing live sports need right now. Baseball is seeing tremendous upticks in interest and excitement after it brought in the pitch clock because people don’t want to — or no longer have the patience to — sit through three-hour-plus (sometimes four-hour) baseball games.

The Canadian Football League continues to brag about the reduction in the length of its games. You have to wonder if it’s so important for these leagues to have a product that takes less time to view, why are these leagues insistent to have video review slow them down even more?

Oh, I can hear you loud and clear with the defence of video review.

Games can’t be decided on mistakes by officials.

My response: Why?

Psst. Sorry to break it to you, but games are decided by the humans playing in the game making mistakes all the time! Just ask Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who slashed the Kings’ stick in overtime that led to the power-play overtime winner.

That’s why it’s time to compromise. I know, that’s a foreign concept in today’s world as there seems to be little compromise or common sense left.

But let’s give it a try.

The only thing that should be left to review going forward are scoring plays. Period. End of sentence.

And I don’t consider the high stick or the offside as a scoring play. I mean did the puck cross the line, did the puck hit a high stick on the way into the net, did it get kicked in, did it get thrown in or did it go in through the netting? Review away.

For football, we should only review if the player crossed the goal line, caught the ball or fumbled the ball before the goal line. Review the play that resulted in the score being made.

Because let’s be honest, there are going to be fans who complain about the call whether it’s reviewed or not, as we found out on Friday night.