Change in the high school sports landscape is humorous in a sense. Because of how glacial change can be, the scene at times can be the following: People realize change is necessary. People have ideas for change. But until change comes, people who can institute change kind of stare at one another in the human equivalent of a shrug emoji. That’s how it’s been for a couple decades now with high school hockey. In that community, we know there’s a need for change. But we stare at one another, wondering when — or even if — it will come. Mercifully, though, one major change has arrived to hockey this winter. Perhaps in the process, we’ve been reminded change can happen at all, which is a plus. Seasonally for, well, let’s just say too many years now, if you read this space and are passionate about hockey, you have seen me rant about a few instances in which a matter is dire and requires immediate change. Exploring additional division for other sports, but not hockey, is hypocritical | Opinion One of those rants, at least once a year due to its necessity, was about the structure of the postseason. Time concerns addressed — finally — for Ohio hockey’s frozen four | Opinion The idea that, say, a state championship-contending program with four forward lines, three pairs of defensemen, two or three goaltenders and a brand of hockey on fast-forward as opposed to the lower divisions plays a much lower-division team in the opening round of district or what's now called "regional" play is comical. Not in a laugh-out-loud funny kind of way. The opponent, far too often, has been a Blue Division-level team hovering around 10 skaters, some of whom are first-time hockey players — even first-time skaters. The results? Oof. For all involved. If there's not going to be a Division II for competitive purposes in hockey, then at minimum there was a need to separate Blue and even lower White Division-caliber teams from the mix, let them scrap it out in early rounds and THEN let the victors play the higher-caliber state title contenders. There will still be routs. But at least we're avoiding the avoidable. Finally, it happened. In October, the Ohio High School Athletic Association announced sweeping changes to the regional format in high school hockey through a memo to coaches. OHSAA announces sweeping changes to hockey’s postseason structure Without repeating the whole thing, the bottom line is the top four seeds in each regional will get two byes. The fifth through eighth seeds will get one. This will afford for a better experience for everyone involved. “The changes we are implementing will help make our tournament even better,” OHSAA ice hockey administrator John Kronour wrote in that October memo. Indeed it will. Now let's think about this for a second. What was great about Kronour's memo, at least to me, was its simplicity. Kronour began engaging with the state coaches association immediately upon taking the job. Coaches had suggestions. This was one of them: Make postseason play more competitive within reason. The people who can implement change listened to one another — and actually implemented it. If only that was true in every element of hockey that requires that kind of fresh thinking. Here's a few more, admittedly rehashing some prior points of recent years, but hopeful after this major hurdle was cleared with early-round postseason play: • Fix the league issue once and for all. We're going through another winter with three leagues involving Northeast Ohio teams. The statewide one with University and Gilmour is different and is one thing — that's a good idea and benefit to all participating. But on a local level, having a five-team Great Lakes Hockey League sans US and then the Greater Cleveland High School Hockey League for the rest doesn't make sense anymore. It hasn't for years. At the time the GLHL was introduced a decade ago? Yeah, of course. There was a sizable gulf between the old GCHSHL Red North and everyone else. Then St. Ignatius left. Then St. Edward left. Then Lake Catholic and Holy Name went dormant, the latter returning last season. We're reached a point at which the upper half of the GCHSHL Red is competitive again more consistently with the remaining GLHL squads. And we have public-school overlap, obviously, with Shaker Heights in the GLHL these days. So if all that's true, why not just go back to one league for Greater Cleveland purposes? Smart people who would know have discussed this with me — and I still don't get it. Go back to a united GCHSHL with traditional promotion and relegation when needed and more options to make the Red Division deeper and more viable. That, in turn, makes the White Division and the Blue Division more viable. Rhetorical obviously, but why is this so difficult?! • Don't do outdoor hockey for postseason ever again. We learned that lesson the hard way at then-FirstEnergy Stadium. As a novelty such as during the holidays or some other point in the regular season, by all means. But never — and I mean never — again for meaningful postseason hockey. OK, I was wrong: Never have postseason HS hockey at FirstEnergy Stadium again | Opinion • With the requirement of teams to input scores into MaxPreps now for the sake of the ratings system, and with Shutout.com understandably meeting its larger Greater Cleveland demise during the pandemic, now would be a great time to get back on track with a consistent source for scores, statistics, rosters and standings. GCHSHL president Ryan Kelber, to his credit, has tried to fix his league's end of the issue with a new league site the last couple years for standings, Baron Cup brackets, rosters and more. But it should be easier to track statistics, games and trends in 2024. It always felt like Shutout, and its selfless operators from Cleveland Heights, had us ahead of the game in the 2000s and 2010s. Now it feels like we're back in the 2000s again with this. Yes, it's glacial. But change is achievable. Now that we've made such a smart move of reorganizing the postseason brackets, surely that extent of common sense can also apply to other pressing issues of the moment. Because we've just learned it can.