Again, the "5 ways I'd change the NHL" meme continues to pop up on a random collection of blogs and in the Puck Daddy inbox; and every contribution offers one or two eye-opening innovations that can only spring from the deranged minds of true puckheads.

We've got a few reader and blogger-generated lists this morning. Blogger and hockey coach Mike Housman has a pretty good and specific "5 Ways" collection, but this one really stood out as a no-brainer:

4. Shorten the skills competition in the all-star game and add a celebrity hockey game. I know there are plenty of famous celeb's playing hockey out in LA, so why not use that as a way to help promote the game. The skills competition has been searching for a new hook and can't seem to find anything. The young stars game is not the answer and the "slam dunk" type shoot-out was a big waste of time. Have a lot of coverage and interviews on the bench and mic people up. Not like the weekend can get any worse.

Of course, the problem with that is the deficiency of "celebs" that would either promote the NHL and/or appear on international television playing a game. Check out the list for an upcoming charity game during the Toronto Film Festival: "Tim Robbins, Alan Thicke, director Jason Reitman, D.B. Sweeney and Cameron Bancroft." The only attention-grabber is Reitman, and even Diablo Cody is struggling to keep her "Juno" heat.

Where the hell's our friend Romany Malco? Did "The Love Guru" crush his puck passion?

Coming up: Moving benches, live pep bands, overtime changes and turning to NASCAR's marketing guys for help.

Jeff K from Open Hockey offered his "5 Ways," and it's always interesting to see a low-fi, simple suggestion like this one that just makes too much sense:

4. Switch the home and away benches. We've mentioned this on the blog before, but this way the defense has a greater distance to change during the 1st and 3rd periods. This works great for us traditionalists, because it will increase scoring without changing the fundamentals of the game, just the strategy regarding shift changes.

Huh ... never really thought of that before.

Chris, a hockey and University of Michigan fanatic, is a reader from the NHL Closer days on Deadspin. The entire five over on TFTD is killer awesome; here are two worth snipping out and keeping in your Trapper Keeper:

3. Treat U.S. Hockey Fans like Football or Baseball Fans. Hockey broadcasters on national television games seem to have this feeling that every person watching the game is watching hockey for the first time. Give us strategic breakdowns, show us why a play worked, or why the transition broke down and the like. John Madden proved that you could analyze a football game with tactical and strategic talk and the average fan would follow. The CBC crews do this with a pretty decent frequency, U.S. hockey fans deserve no less. In fact, if you could figure out a way to, every so often, throw a straight Hockey Night in Canada feed to an American audience, it could be a huge win.  American soccer fans will watch the straight English feed of EPL games on Fox Soccer Channel, why not have a straight Canadian feed of an NHL game on Versus?  (Yes, I realize they did this at least a couple of times in the playoffs.  I just think they should do it more often and include the CBC studio shows.)

4. Pep Bands, Yes! Spirit Squads, No! Admittedly, this is a tough sell because you would lose a 50-75 seat block in your arena to it, but one of the best things about college hockey is the minimum of piped in music during stoppages of play. College hockey also has the advantage of a built in fight song and pep band repertoire, but if the Whale can have Brass Bonanza, it can be made to work. The live band wouldn't need to be there for every game, it would be a tough sell, but once or twice a month, bring in the band. By the same token, we must work to eliminate the following scourges: "Game Day Hosts", the one CD of music that is distributed to every NHL team at the start of the season, scoreboard encouragements to "get loud" or "get rowdy", any encouragement to bring sexy back, anything that involves fat guys running on the ice while shirtless, anything involving the words "Cha-Cha Slide" or "Cottoneyed Joe."

This live band idea is a great one for cities that draw 12,000 on a Tuesday against the Panthers. And also for the Panthers.

Reader Steven Metzger suggested publishing his list or "Photoshopping Gary Bettman's head onto a walrus' body." Surprisingly, that's one entry we didn't receive in our Bettman art contest. Pity the poor walrus, whose heroism continues to go unnoticed.

Metzger opined on rink size and realignment (putting teams near the Pacific in the Pacific Division ... what a concept!), but he has a really interesting idea for a complete revamp of OT:

1. Make overtime more like the playoffs - no shootouts. The shootout has overstayed it's welcome. It's become an irritating, unbalanced mess, and while it's still exciting, that's mostly because it's worth so much in the standings. It's no longer anything new, novel, or justifiable, and it's not hockey - because it's not in the playoffs. So, in celebration of playoff-style hockey - and overtime - let's change overtime to the following: 20 minutes, 5-on-5, on a clean sheet of ice.

The first OT in a playoff game is usually the most exciting hockey you'll see all year. Before and after that, it can get pretty boring/un-intense. I'm sure that everyone would prefer to see a full period of playoff-style OT than a shootout, anyways. A game that finishes without a winner is a tie. But, there's something to encourage teams to play hard in that fourth period...

2. Wins are everything and ties are nothing. Well, not nothing, but "most ties" is the first tiebreaker, and "most wins" becomes the primary criterion. That means that if neither team wins a game, it's as if they both lost (well, almost - it could be the difference between a playoff spot and no playoff spot, but let's suffice to say that 4 or 5 ties over the course of a season aren't going to do you any favors). This concept of "go-for-broke" was what the NHL was trying to do with the point system before the lockout - now it would come full-circle, and instead of kissing your sister, it's like kissing a walrus. Or Gary Bettman, same difference.

There would be no "point system," it is win or lose...or lose. And records would look like they did for 80 years before the OTL point came along.

We eagerly await Steve's next column: "Selling mainstream sports fans on a concept where they pay to see a game that has no winners and two losers."

Reader Stephen Guenther wants more penalties called, the elimination of "stupid penalties" like the trapezoid, balancing the schedule and going "five a side" in the shootout. But his first point is, perhaps, his most interesting point:

1. Stop trying to make the game into something that it isn't just so a few more people might watch. Cater to the fans you have. Ultimately, you are going to do more harm to the game by ignoring your diehard fans. Make the games more enjoyable for the few of us who have been fans long before ESPN thought about picking up hockey the first time. I understand growing the game is what will keep it around, and allow more games to be televised. However, I feel it's all about marketing. Hire the head of NASCAR's marketing division, and pay him (or her) to revamp the NHL's marketing structure.

Here's the issue with NHL marketing ideas like this: Our commissioner came from the NBA, so we're naturally allergic to "outsiders" rolling in to sell our sport after 15 years of ineptitude. But look at what a baseball guy like John McDonough has done for the Blackhawks. You need smart people, no matter their background, who can apply basic principles of what sells to this sport. Like, for example: Not being afraid to market violence to kids. Say, how much has this movie made now?

Finally, here's a "10 ways I'd change the NHL" list from Dallas Morning News columnist Tim Cowlishaw back in 1997. Some good suggestions, but by far the best: "Let the skaters in shootouts go without their helmets."

Related: All-Star game, Hockey Fans, Gary Bettman, Commissioner for Life, When Hockey and Hollywood Collide