Sidney Crosby, PittsburghWhile I’m not a big fan of hockey (not even a small fan), there are some things I like about the stats. Hockey is second only to baseball in terms of the number of unique stats available. If a person were a stats freak and an NHL fan, they would definitely have a lot to play with. Now, I grew up poor. My room in the old farm house was sloped so badly, I used to place red and black checkers at one end of the wood floor and let them roll down hill to the other end. I would keep stats on the results. So… anything that has a lot of stats interests me - even hockey. Anything that doesn’t… doesn’t.
I picked the Pittsburgh Penguins and the San Jose Sharks to root for this year. Each season I pick someone different. I’m always going to pick teams that I think can score a lot of goals. Because Pittsburgh toyed with coming to KC, there may be a little more interest in them locally. And, they do have (arguably) the best player in the league – Sidney Crosby. So, we’ll see what we can do with that.
The NHL has big problems – at least in the midwest. A major reason is because we don’t have enough cold weather so kids don’t grow up playing the game. Also, we don’t have a franchise nearby. And, if that weren’t enough, it’s not readily available on TV. Even if it were, it’s not much fun to watch – and I’ll explain why.
There is one common denominator in each of the other three major sports – “play anticipation”. In baseball, it is before each pitch. The viewer understands what is at stake beforehand and subconsciously determines the many probable (or possible) outcomes. Thus, baseball is considered a “thinking man’s game”. But, even apart from that, the viewer actually watches the play develop. From the wind-up until the ball is no longer in play, dozens of things can happen. Once the batter swings and the ball is hit, we can follow the flight with our anxiety (or relief) building by the split second. Thus, we feel we “participated” in the process. This is a critically important emotional attachment to the game.
Football is similar. We can evaluate all the variables between plays. What down is it? How many yards are there to go? How much time left? How many time outs do they have remaining? What play will they run? Again, once the play starts, we begin the process of anticipating what will happen. The QB drops back, the running back gets the ball, the hole opens up. We have 4, 5, 6, 7 seconds to root for a specific end result one way or the other. We watch it develop and unfold before our eyes. If it is a pass, we wonder “Will he catch it? Will he catch it? Will he catch it?”
Basketball doesn’t have the same stoppage of play except for free throws, so the ability to calculate a lot of variables ahead of time is not always present. However, it is still true that basketball has a big advantage in that we can follow the flight of the ball. It’s either in the basket or it isn’t, but we have a couple seconds to prepare to be elated or devastated.
The “event” – meaning the play in football, the pitch in baseball or the shot in basketball - all allow the viewer an opportunity to visualize, anticipate and feel part of the process. Hockey doesn’t have it.
I don’t watch hockey because it’s no fun to watch. It fails on the “event” standards each of these other sports have. The few times I have watched it, I am reminded of why I rarely do. Unless there is a breakaway – which is rare – or a shootout at the end of a game, it is almost impossible to anticipate a goal.
First of all, you can’t see the puck. They played around with the glowing, flowing puck in the past, but that’s only of minimal value.
Secondly, even if you could see it – even if it were as bright as the sun, it’s still a fact that the “event” (the shot) happens - and is either scored or deflected in the blink of an eye. It’s almost impossible to know who has the puck and what they are going to do with it and what the odds of scoring are PRIOR to the event having already happened. And, that’s the major problem hockey has. The event is over before you even knew it existed. It is impossible to anticipate history! The first way I know a goal was scored is either because the announcer yelled it out, the light came on, or the player raised his hands. Who would know otherwise?
Ok, so that’s what wrong with viewing hockey. But, that doesn’t mean it’s no fun statistically. I have to admit, however, that I haven’t developed an appreciation for hockey stats to date. I know a lot more than I used to, but that isn’t saying all that much.
One thing, which will always attract my attention, is scoring. For any stat guy, you have to favor that which produces numbers. Defenses have never produced the measurable data that offenses produce. Part of it is a bias toward offense by humans (including me). But, part of it is that defense is inherently a team concept more than offense. Thus individual stats are difficult to quantify for defensive players.
So, to the degree that hockey has more scoring, it’s a more exciting game – at least in terms of the data produced. NHL scoring so far in 2008 is 5.84 goals per game. That’s ahead of last season’s 5.44 gpg. That’s a good thing. But, lest you think there is a trend here, keep in mind that in the 80’s and early 90’s, NHL games averaged around seven gpg. Much like the NBA, and at about the exact same time, scoring went down considerably. Both leagues have tried to make changes to increase scoring. The NHL changed the rules in 2005-06 and it caused gpg to increase from the low 5’s pg to the upper 5’s pg where it is today.
Scoring is mandatory for success in the US. (INSERT TANGENT HERE) It is why professional soccer has so little popularity. Who wants to watch two hours of a scoreless tie. Yuk! Now, if they made the field smaller where the ball could bounce off the walls or if they allowed one less defender past half court than offender or if they made the nets even bigger, then soccer could possibly be less than dreadful. But, that’s not going to happen – even unto it’s death – because it is the most popular sport in the world… just not here. In the U.S. we want to see action. We want to see “events”. And, we want to see results that are measurable by stats. That’s the US sports reality.
No matter how many goals they score in the NHL, it is never going to compete with the NBA, MLB or NFL. It’s just not possible. The nature of the beast from a viewing perspective guarantees it. But, occasionally, there may be some interesting stories and I’ll throw some stats up now and then to see what sticks.
Here is one: I looked at the top-25 scorers of all time in the NHL. An interesting number popped out at me. The average person played for 3.76 teams during their career. That seems like a huge number to me. What causes that? I can’t really do the same thing for baseball. Which offensive stat do I use? I could do it in football for points, but what about QB’s. The best analogy would be points in basketball. Taking the top-25 scorers of all time in the NBA yielded lower numbers. Don’t think the reason has anything to do with era as both sports cover basically the same period of time. There wasn’t a huge difference, but the top-25 players (by scoring) in the NBA averaged playing for "only" 3.08 teams in their career.
Ok, there’s your obligatory hockey post. Has college basketball started yet?