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Monday, January 22, 2007
The NHL can learn from Hungary
You may remember the campaign to vote journeyman Rory Fitzpatrick into the All-Star game. I ended that blog entry with:
Hey, if Stephen Colbert can win the contest (but lose on a technicality) to name Hungary’s newest bridge after himself, anything is possible.
Well, what’s happened since then?
Alot! The NHL put their foot down.
While the NHL reserved the right to remove any automated internet ballots, they chose to strip only parts of a ballot. And which part? Why, only the 100,000 ballots of Rory Fitzpatrick. And how do we know all this? Because the NHL released vote totals for the top votegetters, and there was a one-week period where there were 100,000 less votes for one conference’s defensemen than the other, while the votes for the forwards and goalies matched almost perfectly for the two conferences.
Fun links to read on this issue, and also check out all the links that they provide as well:
http://www.slate.com/id/2157741/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070112.WBhockeyblog20070112135729/WBStory/WBhockeyblog/
http://sabermetricresearch.blogspot.com/2007/01/did-nhl-arbitrarily-void-rory.html
When I run the Fans’ Scouting Report, I have my own process to remove junk ballots. They are very easy to spot. But, I certainly don’t just drop off parts of a ballot. If a ballot is suspect, the whole ballot gets dumped. Programmatically, this is easy to do. And, if NHL.com is any indication, the NHL employs some pretty good programmers. Given that, it is clear that the NHL simply does not take this issue seriously enough to employ a technical solution, and instead picks and chooses what players do and don’t deserve further scrutiny.
I know what most of you are thinking: big deal. But, the NHL should be honest about this.
Recently, Stephen Colbert had his dream of getting Hungary’s bridge named after him squashed. Did Hungary simply remove 17 million ballots cast for Colbert (more than the entire population of Hungary!), or the infamous Chuck Norris? No, they implemented a second round. And, he won that one too. So, how did Hungary spin this? Incredibly, the ambassador of Hungary appeared on the Stephen Colbert show. And, he basically made up some rules that disqualified Colbert.
That was a great move. We all know that Colbert was not going to get a bridge named after him. But, it was great publicity for everyone involved. And, the ambassador of Hungary was very classy. The fun part of all this was to see how Colbert was going to lose out. And, it was a fun thing to watch unfold.
The NHL? It didn’t do anything creative about it. Someone simply stated: listen, next time we release the voting, just drop the leading “1” from Rory’s vote totals. Let’s sweep it under the rug. How utterly boring, and of course, very deceiving.
The NHL should have asked the ambassador of Hungary how to handle the issue.