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Views on referendum need level playing field

John Holyoke used a hackneyed grade-school metaphor to complain about bear referendum proponents opting out of the legislative process: “they took their ball and went home” (BDN: April 10-11). This isn’t a game. In fact, direct democracy is the only option – a last resort – left to activists who object to the cronyism and pandering that define Maine’s wildlife management. The Legislative Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (CIF&W) isn’t the solution for socially unacceptable wildlife practices such as snaring and baiting, it’s the problem.

In 2002, I testified at a CIF&W hearing in support of bills intended to halt the state’s illogical coyote snaring program. It was a sham. Extremist hunters grabbed all the seats in the room, while their lobbyists walked directly to the front and arrogantly engaged in whispered conversations with CIF&W members. While I and other supporters testified, CIF&W members yawned and stretched obviously, stared into space, and engaged in prolonged conversations with each other and their cronies in the audience.

We attempted to work with the legislative process, hoping that CIF&W members would act responsibly when faced with the science and overwhelming public opposition to the program. Instead, they cynically turned a bill intended to end the coyote snaring program into an act perpetuating it.

The recent CIF&W hearing on the bear referendum was not for the public, nor was it an opportunity for meaningful discourse or an informed exchange of ideas. Instead, it was a charade, orchestrated by “sporting” lobbyists to misrepresent the referendum and the science that condemns bear baiting. They planned an afternoon of target practice, and now they’re whining because the targets refused the bait. We’re not taking the “ball” home; we’re taking this issue to a level playing field.

The real public hearing on the bear referendum will be in November, and we won’t need to ask a bunch of politicos for permission to speak.

Susan Cockrell

Holden

ESPN missed assist

Just think how much goodwill ESPN and our local cable company could have earned by allowing a local television station to pick up the feed of UMaine’s games in the Frozen Four. Just how much revenue would they lose? An extremely small amount, I suspect. Especially if one takes into consideration the fees the local station would pay for the privilege, which in turn would be compensated for by local advertising.

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone has cable or a satellite dish, and I can think of nothing better than listening to Dan Hannigan and Larry Mahoney’s audio on WZON while watching the video courtesy of ESPN.

Dave Glidden

Bucksport

Eliminate goalies

A short time ago, the University of Maine men’s hockey team and women’s basketball team were playing games on the same evening. A local radio station planned to broadcast the hockey game first and then join the basketball game in progress. Since the hockey game went into triple overtime, only snippets of the basketball game were aired.

Since I prefer basketball but listened to most of the hockey game in anticipation of hearing basketball, some comparisons came to mind. In my opinion, hockey is inferior to basketball in at least three ways.

First, hockey is too much a game of chance and too little a game of skill. Players take shots knowing full well that they will probably be rejected by the goalie, and that chance is more likely to get them into the net than perfect placement is. One team can outshoot the other drastically and still come up short in the final score. In basketball, chance is a small factor, but generally the team that shoots, rebounds, and handles the ball better wins.

Second, hockey scores don’t properly represent the relative strength of the teams as basketball scores do. If one hockey team beats the other 2-1, no one would assert that the winner is twice as good as the loser. If one team beats the other 1-0, it is certainly not infinitely better, though it has scored infinitely more points. In basketball, if the score is 65-64, it is clear that the teams are pretty even. If it is 65-25, it is clear that one is a lot better than the other.

Finally, in hockey one player has too much influence on the outcome and can totally negate the efforts of the other five players, while in basketball the players have relatively equal importance. A good goalie can reject over 90 percent of the shots taken, so whether the other five players do well or not becomes almost academic. A team with a good goalie and poor supporting players should beat a team with a poor goalie and good supporting players every time (except for the influence of chance noted above).

Years ago, basketball had a jump at center court after every basket. This gave the team with a good center a huge advantage, so the rule was changed. If basketball wanted to be like hockey today, it would have a goalie who would stand under the basket and reject every shot he could. Scores would be 2-1 and 1-0 like those in hockey, and basketball would die a quick death.

I believe there are two reasons that there are many times more basketball teams than hockey teams today. One is that an ice rink is expensive, but more important is that hockey is defective in the ways I’ve mentioned. But there could be a simple cure, which would make hockey drastically more interesting.

All hockey needs to do to become nearly as interesting as basketball is abolish the goalie and have the teams just take the puck out of bounds after each score, as in basketball. There would be instant benefits. The players would realize that scoring was now a function of their superior shooting, and have more incentive to work on their shots. Scores would become representative of the relative strength of the teams – my guess is that they would be something like 26-23 or 37-24, based on the number of shots taken in games now, and if one team had twice as many points, they would be clearly better. Finally, no one player would control the outcome. It would become a game for all the players, not just a goalie with a supporting cast.

Change doesn’t come easily to anyone, and probably not to the world of hockey. I assert, however, that if a few games were played without goalies, it would be readily apparent that the game was improved, and goalies would go the way of the center jump in basketball, forever.

Lawrence E. Merrill

Bangor

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