Some time in the nineties, some (all?) European football (that is, soccer) leagues decided to award teams with three points in the standings for a win instead of two. Draws would still be worth one point.
The thinking was that if the ratio of points/win to points/draw was increased, teams would be motivated to play a more offensive game to seek out the winning goal. I’ve only recently become a soccer fan, so I never really saw pre-three points games.
A similar change is being proposed for the NHL. So, I put this question to the soccer fans in my readership: what effect, if any, did going to three-point victories have on soccer?
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Before the 3-point rule was introduced a team could win the league by playing good at home and defensively away. This is where the “win your home games and you win the league” menality came from. This effectively meant away teams would play for a draw and the games became pretty boring. So with the three points for a game, a team who draws a game is punished.
The opposite happened in formula one last season. When Michael Schumacer won way more races than anyone else but only barely won the championship.
The 3 point wins definitely opened up the attacking side a lot more. Right now in the English Premier League you have Arsenal and Man U in the top two and Man U have been pretty patchy this season and Arsenal are undefeated. But the thing is, Man U were pretty close to Arsenal for large patches this season despite losing a few games…simply because they never draw games very often.
A draw to a team in need of the 3 points for a win is like a loss, and to minnows playing a big team fights hard for at least a point. Having only 2 points for a win really made some dull teams do well in the early 80s in England at least (Aston Villa, Nottingham Forrest)…
Another difference I’m told of (I know nothing about hockey) is the goal differential…if a team is tied on points, it goes to goals scored minus goals conceeded and that number is sort of a tie-breaker for points. In Scotland last year, Celtic and Rangers came to goal difference and the last day was quite something, watching them try and hammer more goals on their hapless victims.