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Rules? What rules? How Roger Nielson forced the NHL to evolve its regulations

By: Connor Stephenson, SFU Student In the NHL, the only rule is . . . there are no rules. Well, not exactly, but occasionally in the rulebooks of professional sports, there are loopholes that allow coaches and players to deploy some oddly entertaining tactics. Some coaches and players that are more creatively inclined even rely on these loophole-exploiting strategies to consistently give their teams a competitive advantage.  The most famous of these is former Vancouver Canucks coach Roger Nielson, who conceptualized  brilliantly strategic plays explicitly based on his knowledge of the rules and their blindspots and inadequacies.  Nielson had an…

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