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Hockey
Monday, August 18, 2008
Stumbling on this cool article on the platoon advantage of same-handed shooters and goalies (RH shooters prefer to play against goalies who have a glove on the RH, meaning that the stick and glove are on opposite sides, just like a RH pitcher is on opposite side of a LH hitter), there was a comment about how a disproportionate number of Canadians are LHH in baseball. It certainly makes sense, since the number of LH shooters in hockey is disproportionately large, and a LH shooter in hockey will become mostly a LH hitter in baseball. Here’s more on the subject.
Well-written article:
We all know that the map of Alberta and the territory of Alberta are two different things. The map might show that a road is straight, but when you head out to that road, you actually find that it curves here and there, that the territory itself is different than the map. So the map is not the territory, and it never is, and it never can be. When it comes to hockey, the map is the statistics we use to try to describe the performance of a player. The territory is the player’s performance itself. The map and the territory are two different things here as well. For instance, the statistical map might say that Shawn Horcoff was +3 on the night, but really he had a terrible game. Horcoff had little to do with any of the three goals scored when he was on the ice, and on one goal against his team, after making a terrible play, he left the ice before the goal was scored, so the minus mark went to some other player, not him. When you hear then, that Horcoff played great because he was +3 and he faced strong opponents, and that’s all you know about the matter, it’s important to realize that number has great limitations in describing the performance.
There are easy ways to handle plus/minus in hockey, and that’s the With Or Without You (WOWY) method. 82games.com does that for basketball. While the above author is correct that plus/minus has its flaws (giving a plus to someone who doesn’t deserve it, etc), that doesn’t matter. You can take say Albert Pujols and Benjie Molina, and then, randomly give each player 200 PA of a mean of .340 OBP (that is, let a random number generator, with mean = .340, and 1 SD = .030, create a number, then multiply that by 200), and add that to his totals. Guess what? Pujols will still have a higher OBP than Molina. Once in a blue moon Molina might end up with a higher OBP than Pujols because he lucked into a .600 OBP in 200 PA while Pujols lucked into a .100 OBP in 200 PA. But, the underlying basis of OBP (and plus/minus) still holds. The signal is still there, but now you have more noise to sift through.
Anyway, enjoyable read.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Marian Hossa is one of the best players in the NHL, a free agent, had a great post-season, went to the finals, and he seemed to have been offered some Ovechkin-like contract, some $92MM long-term deal. Instead he opted for a one-year $7.45MM deal:
“I asked what they were looking for,” Holland told Landsberg. “It was north of 7.5 (million). I told them I was uncomfortable (having Hossa make more than Lidstrom). “In the end, Marian Hossa told me to not bother calling Nik, one year at 7.45 - it was a done deal.”
Even his agent was surprised. “I have never been involved in a deal and seen a player get so excited to take $85 million less than he was offered elsewhere,” Winter told The Canadian Press. “It’s almost incomprehensible, even to an agent. But Marian is a special player.”
To put this in baseball perspective, you need to double all NHL salaries to get it into MLB terms. He effectively turned down a $185MM multi-year deal, for a 1 year $15MM deal to play for the best team in the league.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
When you participate in something, you assume the risk of that activity. As I understand it, it means: what can you reasonably expect to happen if you do what you do, even if it may be fairly unlikely.
Well, the line has been drawn, and in hockey, a hockey player on the ice, who is 200 feet away from the action, is not expected to engage the opposing goalie, if that goalie has to skate all the way down the ice and starts pummeling him. And in hockey, the referee does not assume any risk in ejecting a player and having that player later come back on the ice and attacking the ref.
You’ll often hear from non-fans that they have a high tolerance level, that basically anything goes. They might argue the McSorely incident and the Bertuzzi incidents were all assumed risk. They are not, and now we have more incidents to add to the list that not all action is automatically assumed risk.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Don’t bother saying my name. In this case, it will have no influence whatsoever.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Futterman says:
Hockey is tribal. NHL research shows 50% of NHL fans won’t watch the finals if their favorite team isn’t playing. Television ratings for hockey grow just 41% in the playoffs, while baseball’s grow 400%, and the NBA’s grow 135%.
That’s pretty shocking, really. I didn’t realize that. To that end, it makes sense then that you have 16 teams make the playoffs, and you can argue even more should make it.
That said, NHL revenues are just a bit under half of those of MLB, and all that without a national TV contract. And with half the games. Per game, the NHL generates as much revenue as MLB. With the lack of interest in hockey in most of USA, that’s pretty impressive. That the NHL can “only” generate 2.5 billion dollars should be treated as the NHL “somehow managed to” generate that much.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
NHL’s Sean Avery, interns at Vogue. I guess the closest thing in baseball is A.J. Pierzinsky (I don’t care enough about AJ to bother spell-checking his name.)
Everyone I’ve told about this dream of mine has been asking me: “Why would a 28-year-old pro hockey player want to be an intern at Vogue?” I guess the answer could be complicated, but to me it’s simple: I like clothes… If you feel like teasing this hockey player about an obsession of his that you might think is a little unusual, go right ahead. Just know that you may get your ass kicked by a very expensive pair of shoes — and that they’ll probably match both my belt and my shirt.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Joe Posnanski has his criteria:
- in a hugely important game
- more than brilliant … it has to be utterly unrepeatable.
- decide the game
His focus was on football, to which these three criteria make the most sense. Anyway, in my lifetime for MLB, and sticking to the above rules, I guess it would be Kirk Gibson v Eck. But baseball is really about the build-up of drama, not that single event that really marks football. In basketball these rules wouldn’t even make sense. In hockey, these rules would only make sense in an OT game, and the goalie can never win here.
What rules can you make up for baseball? First, I’d call it the Greatest Moment ever, since that’s what baseball is about, not a single play. The first criteria is fine, and the third criteria would be “impact the game hugely” (basically, a high WPA play, or a series of such plays). The second criteria would be “I don’t believe what I just saw”. Kibson/Eck still qualify, but now you have the 8th inning of Cubs/Marlins and Pedro/Little game added in (again, in my lifetime). Carlton Fisk, but that was just a bit before my time. 9th inning of 1986 Game 6.
In hockey, I’d keep the first criteria, and the new second criteria ("I don’t believe what I just saw") and the third criteria would be ("back-and-forth action, where each team was about to take a huge lead or win the game; or a play that you can relive knowing that you’ll never see such a play again"). So, the Rangers/Islanders Game 5 would be one such game (1984). The Gretzky/Lemieux Canada Cup 1987 winning goal. I’m not happy with that third criteria, since it lets you bring in the 1972 Summit Series, but not the 1980 Miracle on Ice.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Americans have a few anthems: the Star Spangled one, God Bless one, and Pledge Allegiance one. I suppose even the This Land one (though Canada among other countries have their own version with the text changed, but it’s not as popular as in America).
Canada has two big anthems: Oh Canada..... and The Hockey Night In Canada theme song. CBC, which held the licencing rights for the last 40 years let it lapse, and TSN (the Canadian version of ESPN, and owned by CBC competitior CTV) bought perpetual use rights for likely between 2.5 and 3 million$. (CBC went as high as 1 million$)
I’m trying to think of a song or melody that is as iconic as this theme is, in America. Maybe the Wide World of Sports, at one point? But, even that one pales in comparison. Maybe you have to go to the movies, like Godfather or Star Wars?
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Great job by Canada’s (Toronto’s) Globe and Mail in praising NBC over Canada’s CBC. The ice-level reporting was pretty good. The NFL usually saves this for some hot chick to talk to players about how they feel. MLB sometimes gets a headset talk with the manager every now and then. The story of the playoffs was really Zetterberg and Fleury, and NBC was all over it. Great job on them (and Versus) in terms of the focus on selling the game.
As for Tiger Woods:
I don’t really care. Let’s talk about the Dodgers. … I don’t think anybody really watches hockey any more.
Does he not realize that the NHL ($3billion) draws 50% the revenue of MLB ($6billion)? Two years ago, the PGA drew $1billion. In 2007, prize money, in total was 257 million$, which is less than one-fifth of the prize money (salaries) of NHL players. Tiger does the classic arrogant thing that if he’s not interested, then how can most other people be interested? Not only arrogant, but an ignoramous to boot. And mostly, I hate Tiger for making me side with Mike Milbury:
Milbury: “You know what? I’m gonna change the name now. It’s gonna be Tiger Wuss. Here’s a guy that took about three months to get over a simple arthroscopic surgery. You look at [Pens forward] Ryan Malone. His face exploded with a slap shot last night — he’s back out in 10 minutes!
“Keep your yap shut, Tiger, or I’ll send a couple of wingers down there — [Pens forward] Gary Roberts — to tidy you up a little bit, meat head.”
Pierre McGuire: “I’ll just say this: Tiger Woods doesn’t usually have a bogey, but this was a triple bogey.”
McKenzie: “Unfortunately, [Woods] epitomizes what a lot of Americans feel about hockey: They don’t give it a chance, they don’t get it, they’re not wired correctly — and to those Americans that do get it, Mike Milbury, thank you very much.”
James Duthie: “I’ll say this to Tiger: Nobody watches golf any more either! Except when you’re playing, then everybody watches it.”
Thursday, May 29, 2008
That third period of Game 3 of the Cup Finals was fantastic. That’s hockey right there. Speed, checking, flow, action, no stoppages for a good 5 minutes, incredible saves and a depressing goal. Really, what could have been better?
If you can’t become a hockey fan after that, I don’t think you ever can.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Would most magazines exist if they didn’t make lists like this one?
Monday, May 19, 2008
Why, why, why would the NHL Network (channel 401 on Cablevision, NJ) broadcast the tape-delayed live broadcast of a game (GREAT!), but will feature a scroll bar at the bottom telling you the final score of the game? I’ve got to now force myself to not let my eyes wander.
I know someone else here (Rally?) said that the MLB.com games have a somewhat similar problem, in that you can tell how much broadcast time is left in the game (because of the scroll bar), and therefore, likely precludes certain outcomes if you are nearing the end of the scroll bar.
Non-baseball post.
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Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Montreal is infamous for its hockey riots. We had the one with Rocket(*) Richard being suspended and the league president was in the building the following game. We’d have one following a Cup victory. And, of all things, one happened last night after the first round (still 3 more rounds to go to the Cup). First time for that one. Almost always, it’s following the last game of the playoffs.
And the fans usually target cop cars. What makes Montreal such a target is that everything is downtown. The arena is right at the heart of downtown, there are tons of bars and restaurants downtown, the subway (Metro) has two lines that goes right through downtown, you can get from any part of the island to downtown in under an hour, and typically 20 minutes. Downtown is where the action is. And the people who start the riots are not the ones that go to the game! Just your standard hooligans who take advantage of the situation. And Montreal police is usually undermanned in these sport riot situations (until the next time). You’d think they’d learn their lesson. But, someone’s gotta pay I guess.
A true shame. You just need a few hundred idiots, and if you put them all in the same place, bad things will happen that is irrespective of the thousands of other law abiders. I’m sure Detroiters know what we’re talking about.
(*) There’s only one Rocket. I don’t like it that Clemens and Ismael got the same nick name.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
For a long time, there were two major online hockey databases that I was using: HockeyDB.com, by Ralph Slate, and EuroHockey.net by lots of people. Now, we have Hockey-Reference.com by Justin Kubatko, with data provided by NHL-sanctioned Dan Diamond.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
The NHL seems to be embracing the share and share alike that is the web motto:
“We actually support people snagging content of ours,” Mika said. “We love for our fans to share content and to send the links around. It’s something we really encourage.” The NHL is able to control the use and distribution of highlights because it is not locked into television deals with major networks. Using material gleaned from NBC, Versus, and the various regional cable rightsholders packages, the NHL can offer video content to its fans to see and share free of charge.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Michael Farber, one of the great writers few know, describing Joe Juneau’s post-NHL life.
Monday, December 10, 2007
I love goalie masks, and USA Today has them all. As is typical for most people, I prefer those from my youth: Ken Dryden and Gerry Cheevers. It’s different now, since all goalies have the grid shield, not the face shield those goalie had.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Criss-crossing.
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