1. TSN recapping the hockey scores at the end of every evening and relating it directly to the Leafs’ playoff push while completely ignoring that there are 5 other Canadian teams in the league, of which 3 are either fighting for the President’s trophy, a division title, or an 8th place playoff seed of their own that is much more realistic to attain than the Leafs snagging 8th in the east.*
Take tonight, after the highlight of the night, Kate Beirness starts her COTU soliloquay, “well, the Leafs win tonight but not much has changed in the east, they’re still well back of a playoff spot.”
Hey Kate, a much more important game was happening at the Molson Centre. Montreal lost to Buffalo, while coupled with Boston's win, pushed them 3 points out of 1st place in the northeast. But hey, let’s not even mention that game even though YOUR FREAKING STATION CARRIED THE BROADCAST. Also, why is it even worth mentioning Toronto’s playoff chances when the difference between 8th place Buffalo and 6th place Montreal is almost the exact same difference separating Buffalo and the 10th place Leafs.
*That might be the longest sentence I’ve ever written.
2. The Toronto Raptors continuing to get front line basketball coverage when a playoff spot is as likely as a radioactive-free Japan. If Senators highlights get bumped before a Flyers-Hurricanes game, why do Raptors highlights lead off the basketball block?
This has been a pet peeve of mine forever with TSN. I bet not even 10,000 people west of Sudbury care about the Raptors, yet we have to sit through pre and post-game stories and highlight packages starting at 9:05, right after the Canadian and eastern hockey teams, and before the late games.
3. Political attack ads. Look, I know there are benefits to discrediting your opponent. But come on, Stephen Harper. Don’t tell me why I shouldn’t vote for Michael Ignatieff. Tell me why I should vote for you.
I’m not a parent, but if I were and my child tried to explain knocking up his 15-year old girlfriend by saying, “well at least I don’t smoke pot like your other son,” I’d roundhouse kick him in the spleen.
It's sad when I learn more about what another party's leader believes in than the party's leader who's paying for the ad.
March 22, 2011
March 14, 2011
The Polish Prince
I suppose I’ve never disclosed which writers I look up to. Hockey writers like Allan Mitchell, Gabe Desjardins, and Tyler Dellow* are my first three searches in the morning. They are who I learned balderdash like PDO, Fenwick, and zone starts from.
*Dellow is the Toronto lawyer who broke the Colin Campbell email story. I started reading him several years before and it turned into a source of personal pride when he got his break. I guess that’s how Kings of Leon fans felt before Your Sex Is On Fire.
My absolute favourite, however, is a fella by the name of Joe Posnanski. Unlike Mitchell, Desjardins and Dellow, Posnanski is paid to write full-time. Also unlike Mitchell, Desjardins, and Dellow, I’ve never seen him write about hockey. No doubt he’s talented though, Sports Illustrated is his employer and he has the rare ability to write captivating prose alongside a string of statistics. It’s quite the remarkable feat – believe me. Most stats-based guys are drier than a fig.
Posnanski writes about baseball first and foremost and uses glorious terms like WAR, DIPS, and OPS+. If you are unfamiliar with a lot of advanced baseball statistics and want to learn something today that may make you change the way you look at the game, check out his recent blog post here.
I wanted to highlight one thing from it primarily. A lot of people believe in the concept of clutch. I don’t and that’s okay if you feel differently. I’m not trying step on toes. I’m merely trying to create an outlet to communicate my point of view because I feel it’s a bit of a radical one compared to most.
Anyhow, in precisely one paragraph, Posnanski dispels more logic about the clutch debate than I could in 100:
“The baseball community has long celebrated players for their ability to lift their game when the chips are down, when the moment is bleak, when the game is on the line. And the sabermetric community has for a while now scoffed at the notion that players CAN consistently lift their games in the clutch moments. The baseball community builds its case on waves of emotion and selective memory. The sabermetric community builds its case on the fact that so far nothing has been found in the numbers to suggest that players, no matter how good, no matter how celebrated for their heroics, are capable of predictably and reliably being better in the biggest moments.”
God bless you, Joe. Keep fighting the good fight.
*Dellow is the Toronto lawyer who broke the Colin Campbell email story. I started reading him several years before and it turned into a source of personal pride when he got his break. I guess that’s how Kings of Leon fans felt before Your Sex Is On Fire.
My absolute favourite, however, is a fella by the name of Joe Posnanski. Unlike Mitchell, Desjardins and Dellow, Posnanski is paid to write full-time. Also unlike Mitchell, Desjardins, and Dellow, I’ve never seen him write about hockey. No doubt he’s talented though, Sports Illustrated is his employer and he has the rare ability to write captivating prose alongside a string of statistics. It’s quite the remarkable feat – believe me. Most stats-based guys are drier than a fig.
Posnanski writes about baseball first and foremost and uses glorious terms like WAR, DIPS, and OPS+. If you are unfamiliar with a lot of advanced baseball statistics and want to learn something today that may make you change the way you look at the game, check out his recent blog post here.
I wanted to highlight one thing from it primarily. A lot of people believe in the concept of clutch. I don’t and that’s okay if you feel differently. I’m not trying step on toes. I’m merely trying to create an outlet to communicate my point of view because I feel it’s a bit of a radical one compared to most.
Anyhow, in precisely one paragraph, Posnanski dispels more logic about the clutch debate than I could in 100:
“The baseball community has long celebrated players for their ability to lift their game when the chips are down, when the moment is bleak, when the game is on the line. And the sabermetric community has for a while now scoffed at the notion that players CAN consistently lift their games in the clutch moments. The baseball community builds its case on waves of emotion and selective memory. The sabermetric community builds its case on the fact that so far nothing has been found in the numbers to suggest that players, no matter how good, no matter how celebrated for their heroics, are capable of predictably and reliably being better in the biggest moments.”
God bless you, Joe. Keep fighting the good fight.
A Conspiracy Theory That Gives Me An Excuse To Vent About Hab Fans
A few nights ago, Zdeno Chara and a rink partition teamed up to nearly decapitate Max Pacioretty. My opinion – if it counts for anything – holds it was a routine hockey play that took place in an unfortunate spot on the ice. Patches is a good young player who was trying to use one of his weapons, speed. Chara is a seasoned veteran who was trying to use his body to his advantage as he so often does.
Putting myself in Chara’s shoes, I’m not sure how you can make the split-second decision to guide someone into the partition at that speed. It’s just one of those plays where everything went wrong to no one’s fault.
That said, I think a small suspension was justified. If you break someone’s vertebrae on an interference call, there should probably be some extra punishment attached to that. I used to be against gauging the suspension length by the severity of the injury but I’ve turned on that. Chara’s play, while clean, was illegal and the direct cause of a ghastly injury. That warrants some extra punishment if you ask me.
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Now that I’ve disclosed my opinion on the play, I can discuss what really irritated me about this play, Hab fans and their resulting tantrum. It wasn't so much Hab fans I know – moreso the ones who live in Montreal who reportedly called into radio shows the next morning with cries of boycotting the NHL.
My hate for Canadiens fans supersedes that of any other fan base in the NHL. Five out of 11,000 reasons for this are:
• They treat their city like a G20 protest after winning one playoff round.
• They boo the American anthem. Stay classy.
• Their fans are merciless pricks to their players. They showed Pat Roy the door, they booed Carey Price incessantly, and the way they treated Patrice Briesbois was deplorable.
• They sing that stupid ole song which isn’t even French. It’s Spanish you dinks. More Cegep is necessary.
• I have an inherent dislike for the province of Quebec primarily due to their politics.*
*Why do I feel this way? Well to make a list using various synonyms of the word “hate”, I loathe the Bloc Quebecois, I detest the disproportionate funding Quebec receives from the federal government, and I abhor the province’s people who encourage this by voting as they do. If I woke up tomorrow and found out Quebec separated, I’d dance a jig. I don’t put a lot of stock in culture and would happily waive adieu from Parliament Hill as they could assume a third of our national debt to make up for those equalization payments.
Anyhow, as if Hab fans aren’t mental enough, this Pacioretty story broke.* Not only have the fanatics lost their marbles over this thing, but so too has the eclectic.
*Pun intended.
First off, the Quebec Ministry of Justice has encouraged the Montreal police to investigate the incident. Apparently they're suffering from a grade-3 concussion too. The only hockey play I’ve ever recalled a criminal investigation of was the Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore situation. It is simply asinine to say these are related in any way. I hate being a conspiracy theorist, but there is no way Pernell Karl Subban would be investigated if he did the exact same thing to Tyler Seguin as Chara did to Patches. This reeks of a few higher-ups in the ministry letting their fandom get in the way of their job.
Not to be outdone, Air Canada has threatened to pull sponsorship from the NHL because the league didn’t suspend Chara. Huh???? The arrogance of Air Canada to blackmail an organization the size of the NHL is startling. Using corporate dollars to influence league-decision making is wrong on every level and makes me irate as a fan of the NHL.
I seethed further when Air Canada’s CEO Calin Roviescu sure seemed like a Hab fan according to his bio. First off, before heading Air Canada, he spent over 20 years in Montreal practicing law. The guy also spent the bulk of the 1970s attaining degrees from McGill and the University of Montreal. Google couldn’t tell me where he spent his childhood but a French name leads me to believe that unless he’s from St. Brieux, Saskatchewan, his formative years were also in Quebec.
But that’s not even the smoking gun of my theory This is. Mr. Roviescu was at the game Patches nearly died. I presume he was using his pair of season tickets to watch his favourite hockey team, le bleu, blanc, et rouge.
Following Air Canada's stand, VIA Rail has also threatened to pull sponsorship from the NHL. Anyone want to guess where they’re HQ’d? I’ll give you a hint, it’s not Toronto.
This kind of stuff makes me sick. Say what you want about Gary Bettman*, but he actually made the right call this time around. He won’t be bullied by corporate fanboys who are trying to turn his league into their string puppet show.
*And I’ll say plenty, because I really dislike the man.
“If they decide they need to do other things with their sponsorship dollars, that's their prerogative, just like it's the prerogative of our clubs that fly on Air Canada to make other arrangements if they don't think Air Canada is giving them the appropriate level of service,” Bettman is quoted as saying.
It’s nice to see a little Keyser Soze in him. Suppose Coke tried to pull their sponsorship from the NHL after Dustin Byufglien got injured or Telus threatened to stop sponsoring the Oilers unless Darryl Katz fires Steve Tambellini.
The NHL's reputation, already with a few black eyes at the senior administrative level, would be even worse. Thankfully, most corporations are above that. Now if only La Belle province would take off their diapers and let senior (hockey) executives direct the game....
Putting myself in Chara’s shoes, I’m not sure how you can make the split-second decision to guide someone into the partition at that speed. It’s just one of those plays where everything went wrong to no one’s fault.
That said, I think a small suspension was justified. If you break someone’s vertebrae on an interference call, there should probably be some extra punishment attached to that. I used to be against gauging the suspension length by the severity of the injury but I’ve turned on that. Chara’s play, while clean, was illegal and the direct cause of a ghastly injury. That warrants some extra punishment if you ask me.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now that I’ve disclosed my opinion on the play, I can discuss what really irritated me about this play, Hab fans and their resulting tantrum. It wasn't so much Hab fans I know – moreso the ones who live in Montreal who reportedly called into radio shows the next morning with cries of boycotting the NHL.
My hate for Canadiens fans supersedes that of any other fan base in the NHL. Five out of 11,000 reasons for this are:
• They treat their city like a G20 protest after winning one playoff round.
• They boo the American anthem. Stay classy.
• Their fans are merciless pricks to their players. They showed Pat Roy the door, they booed Carey Price incessantly, and the way they treated Patrice Briesbois was deplorable.
• They sing that stupid ole song which isn’t even French. It’s Spanish you dinks. More Cegep is necessary.
• I have an inherent dislike for the province of Quebec primarily due to their politics.*
*Why do I feel this way? Well to make a list using various synonyms of the word “hate”, I loathe the Bloc Quebecois, I detest the disproportionate funding Quebec receives from the federal government, and I abhor the province’s people who encourage this by voting as they do. If I woke up tomorrow and found out Quebec separated, I’d dance a jig. I don’t put a lot of stock in culture and would happily waive adieu from Parliament Hill as they could assume a third of our national debt to make up for those equalization payments.
Anyhow, as if Hab fans aren’t mental enough, this Pacioretty story broke.* Not only have the fanatics lost their marbles over this thing, but so too has the eclectic.
*Pun intended.
First off, the Quebec Ministry of Justice has encouraged the Montreal police to investigate the incident. Apparently they're suffering from a grade-3 concussion too. The only hockey play I’ve ever recalled a criminal investigation of was the Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore situation. It is simply asinine to say these are related in any way. I hate being a conspiracy theorist, but there is no way Pernell Karl Subban would be investigated if he did the exact same thing to Tyler Seguin as Chara did to Patches. This reeks of a few higher-ups in the ministry letting their fandom get in the way of their job.
Not to be outdone, Air Canada has threatened to pull sponsorship from the NHL because the league didn’t suspend Chara. Huh???? The arrogance of Air Canada to blackmail an organization the size of the NHL is startling. Using corporate dollars to influence league-decision making is wrong on every level and makes me irate as a fan of the NHL.
I seethed further when Air Canada’s CEO Calin Roviescu sure seemed like a Hab fan according to his bio. First off, before heading Air Canada, he spent over 20 years in Montreal practicing law. The guy also spent the bulk of the 1970s attaining degrees from McGill and the University of Montreal. Google couldn’t tell me where he spent his childhood but a French name leads me to believe that unless he’s from St. Brieux, Saskatchewan, his formative years were also in Quebec.
But that’s not even the smoking gun of my theory This is. Mr. Roviescu was at the game Patches nearly died. I presume he was using his pair of season tickets to watch his favourite hockey team, le bleu, blanc, et rouge.
Following Air Canada's stand, VIA Rail has also threatened to pull sponsorship from the NHL. Anyone want to guess where they’re HQ’d? I’ll give you a hint, it’s not Toronto.
This kind of stuff makes me sick. Say what you want about Gary Bettman*, but he actually made the right call this time around. He won’t be bullied by corporate fanboys who are trying to turn his league into their string puppet show.
*And I’ll say plenty, because I really dislike the man.
“If they decide they need to do other things with their sponsorship dollars, that's their prerogative, just like it's the prerogative of our clubs that fly on Air Canada to make other arrangements if they don't think Air Canada is giving them the appropriate level of service,” Bettman is quoted as saying.
It’s nice to see a little Keyser Soze in him. Suppose Coke tried to pull their sponsorship from the NHL after Dustin Byufglien got injured or Telus threatened to stop sponsoring the Oilers unless Darryl Katz fires Steve Tambellini.
The NHL's reputation, already with a few black eyes at the senior administrative level, would be even worse. Thankfully, most corporations are above that. Now if only La Belle province would take off their diapers and let senior (hockey) executives direct the game....
March 9, 2011
This Needs to Stop
A reoccurring theme in recent Oilers broadcast came up yet again last night. Kevin Quinn and Louie DeBrusk talking about one of the great things about playing Steve MacIntyre is that it allow Tom Renney to give guys that are playing well some extra ice time.
Let that sink in for a second.
Is it just me or is this monumentally stupid?
If I wanted to sit here all day, I could probably come up with about 437 things that are wrong about this concept. In the interest of brevity, I will list only 3.
1. Every NHL coach gives guys that are playing well some extra ice time. Even coaches that don't have a useless goon to bench.
2. Having a real NHL player instead of Steve MacIntyre would give you 12 forwards who could potentially have a good game rather than 11.
3. There is not one single great thing about having Steve MacIntyre in the lineup.
I know Quinn and DeBrusk are paid by the team to convince fans that the Oilers are not as awful as they may seem, but this is colossally stupid and needs to stop. Immediately.
March 7, 2011
The Leafs And Playoffs
You see, the Oilers were awful that year. They toiled near the bottom of the standings before inexplicably going on an insane run in March and April to finish just out of the playoffs. See, Edmonton’s decision makers had no idea what a PDO number was and got tricked into thinking their team was better than they were.*
*It`s not only Edmonton who has been tricked, it`s a long and dirty list believe you me. Joe Sacco can thank his Jack Adams award finalist and inevitable firing on PDO.
Quick backgrounder on a PDO number for those who don`t know. A PDO number is simply even strength shooting percentage + even strength save percentage. League average is 1.000. The theory* goes that every team will regress to the mean (1000) over a period of time. While there is a cushion from about .993 to 1.007 that can be considered reasonable, a team below .993 is thought to be getting abnormally unlucky while a team over 1.007 is getting fortunate and cannot sustain their rate.
*Frankly, I don`t think it`s much of a theory anymore. It`s been proven time and again to be on the mark as a reliable predictor of long-term results. Only in extreme cases – the 1980’s Oilers – have teams been able to maintain a high PDO year over year.
Think it sounds like hogwash? Well let’s do a case study. Last year, Colorado was the league's feel good story. In 2009-2010, the Avs surprised everyone by squeaking into the playoffs on the back of a league best 1016 PDO (926 es save percentage, 9.0 shooting percentage). People with IQ's over their hourly wage knew it wasn't sustainable going into 2011 and predicted the Avs to struggle. The hockey media talked about balderdash like chemistry and youthful enthusiasm being the catalyst for an improvement in this year.
Currently, Colorado sits comfortably at 14th in the west with a PDO of exactly 1000.
At Christmas, Dallas had the league’s best PDO while New Jersey was far and away the worst. Twenty-five games later and it looks like things have started to correct themselves. Dallas was overachieving, New Jersey underachieving. They’ve both regressed to the mean.
What does that have to do with the Leafs? Well, the gods are smiling on Toronto just like the COTU thought it was meant to be. Prior to the game against Chicago on Saturday, the Leafs were 6-0-3 in their last 9 games and there were more than a few whispers about playoffs.
To put it bluntly, that run was luck-fuelled:
Team ES Shots: 197
Team ES Goals: 16
Team ES Shooting Percentage: 8.12
Opponents ES Shots: 235
Opponents ES Goals: 14
Team ES Save Percentage: .940
Team PDO: 1022
The Leafs were getting flat out murdered by shot rates over that run (Fenwick percentage of .449) and while their own conversion percentage on shots was normal, if not a tad low, James Reimer was Dominik Hasek on the clear.
Here’s where it all comes full circle from the beginning and why I hope the Leafs keep riding the percentages like Edmonton did in 2007. Kevin Lowe thought his team’s late season run was skill moreso than luck and it set the rebuild back 3 years. I hope Burke does the same. I hope he sees the late season run, the near playoff berth, and feels pressure from the fans to go for it next year by signing a couple of free agents when it’s probably in their best interests to stand pat.*
*As much as it hurts, there are some good things happening in Toronto. While I sort of undermined him above, James Reimer looks to be the real deal with an even strength save percentage of 931. Kulemin also looks like a player as does Nazem Kadri, who is almost hitting that magic 1.0 ppg threshold in his first year at the AHL.
The big club’s recent success is mostly smoke and mirrors at the moment. They really aren’t very good. For the time being, that doesn’t seem like it will change. If it somehow does though, this blog becomes a lot less interesting.
March 6, 2011
Is The East Really THAT Bad?
NHL.com has this information available, so a quick dump into excel and I was able to quickly confirm that even after yesterdays games, the West is still 56 games above .500 versus the East, posting a record of 131-75-31, good for 293 points out of a possible 474, which is a 61.8% points percentage. When matched up against other Western opponents, West teams are 373-293-80, 826 points from a possible 1492, good for a 55.4% points percentage. Quickly looking the other way the East is 7 games above .500 versus the West (you have to love the NHL's absurd point system), with a record of 106-99-32, 244 of 474 points, and a 51.5% points percentage. Within the East, teams are 372-287-85, giving 829 points and a 55.7% point percentage. This difference is good for about 30 points, or one extra win per team in the West relative to teams in the East.
Here is all the data pulled together:
When framed in that manner, it may seem that the difference is not that significant. Of the 237 inter-conference games, only 15 of them (6.4%) would have to have gone the other way for the leagues to be seen as even on this means of comparison. The question becomes, what is the probability of the West teams winning at the high rate that they do, assuming the conferences are actually even? Phrased another way, can the discrepancy be explained by luck?
Fortunately, math allows us to easily answer this question; however, the convoluted point system does complicate this a little bit. Both methods I tried suggest that the West is in fact significantly stronger this year. To summarize, the chances of the West getting 293 (or more) of 474 points assuming the conferences were equal strong (they should average .558 point percentage) works out to 0.46%. The chances of the west winning 131 (or more) games out of the 237, (assuming equal strength, they should win 119) is larger at 5.6%. Even still, we can say with some confidence that the Western Conference is stronger than the East this year.
When framed in that manner, it may seem that the difference is not that significant. Of the 237 inter-conference games, only 15 of them (6.4%) would have to have gone the other way for the leagues to be seen as even on this means of comparison. The question becomes, what is the probability of the West teams winning at the high rate that they do, assuming the conferences are actually even? Phrased another way, can the discrepancy be explained by luck?
Fortunately, math allows us to easily answer this question; however, the convoluted point system does complicate this a little bit. Both methods I tried suggest that the West is in fact significantly stronger this year. To summarize, the chances of the West getting 293 (or more) of 474 points assuming the conferences were equal strong (they should average .558 point percentage) works out to 0.46%. The chances of the west winning 131 (or more) games out of the 237, (assuming equal strength, they should win 119) is larger at 5.6%. Even still, we can say with some confidence that the Western Conference is stronger than the East this year.
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