Farewell “dry scrape.” We barely knew thee.
The NHL made it official that the practice will no longer be in place as of Saturday, Nov. 22:
REMINDER: Effective today, the ‘dry scrape’ of the ice surface prior to the start of overtime will be eliminated. pic.twitter.com/lCUy0uGyrd
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) November 22, 2014
In case you can’t see the league’s tweet, the NHL will go back to TV timeout-style procedures between the third period and overtime, generally a two-minute process instead of the five-minute one it’s replacing. Interestingly, shootouts will begin immediately if games don’t end in OT.
Let’s give the league credit: they’re pretty swift about eliminating really minor tweaks that annoy people.
If only GMs and beat writers could complain so loudly about the trapezoid ...