 Overtime Incentives in the National Hockey League (NHL)Stephen Shmanske and
Franklin Lowenthal
Journal of Sports Economics, 2007, vol. 8, issue 4, 435-442 Abstract: The National Hockey League (NHL) in 1999-2000 changed its rules for games that are tied at the end of regulation time. The old rules called for the team to be awarded two points for a win, one for a tie, and zero for a loss. The league felt that play was too conservative during overtime because teams feared losing the one point already earned. The new rules called for a team to retain its one point earned for tying in regulation even if it ultimately lost during the overtime. This change strengthens the importance of a subtle difference in incentives depending on whether one's opponent is from the same conference. Because playoff positions are determined only by intraconference rankings, losing in overtime to an out-of-conference opponent has no negative consequences. Alternatively, losing to an in-conference opponent could affect the ultimate playoff position of the team. The authors use multiple regression analysis of individual games during the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 seasons to examine this subtle difference in incentives. Keywords: economics of sports; NHL; overtime; incentives (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jospec:v:8:y:2007:i:4:p:435-442 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Journal of Sports Economics |
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