Choices

Selecting Team Canada is an onerous task and I don't envy Steve Yzerman and his assistants. If their team fails to deliver a gold medal on home soil, the backlash from not only the hockey community, but Canadians as a people, will be tremendous. If one of the players has a poor game, his selection to the team will be questioned. If Canada fails to medal, the Prime Minister will have to come out of hiding to declare a state of emergency. There is a lot at stake for them, let's leave it at that.

I think that, for the most part, Stevie Y. has done a good job. The three goalies were clear choices, so I won't even go over them here. The top 9 forwards were also fairly obvious, and he seems to have chosen correctly:

Nash - Crosby - Iginla
Heatley - Thornton - Marleau
Staal - Getzlaf - Perry

Those would be my combinations, though I think you could put the names into a randomizer and still come out with three dominating forward lines. The theoretical fourth line, to me, would be:

Morrow - Richards - Toews

Those seem like good choices to me. Mike Richards is debatable, and maybe the other Richards deserved it more, but I like Toews and Morrow quite a bit. It's certainly a whole lot better than the Kris Draper selection, or my personal favourite, the immortal Rob Zamuner. I bet you'd forgotten about that one. In 1998, Rob Zamuner played for the Canadian Olympic team. Let's pause to consider that one, friends.



[Pause]



Okay, pause over. Also, in that famous shootout against the Czech Republic, the Canadian shooters were Theoren Fleury, Raymond Bourque, Joe Nieuwendyk, Eric Lindros and Brendan Shanahan. While Wayne Gretzky sat on the bench, those five were charged with scoring on Dominik Hasek at the pinnacle of his powers. RAYMOND BOURQUE! Sorry, that just kind of slipped out. BOURQUE! As you can imagine, it's still a touchy issue.

Back to the subject at hand. I think the only questionable forward selection is Patrice Bergeron, and since he's probably the thirteenth forward, that shouldn't be a big deal. The person that should be up in arms over this is Marc Savard. How do you look at those numbers and choose Bergeron? Or the best part, how do Team Canada executives go to scout Bruins games, and then miss Savard? How does that happen? Did he somehow offend Yzerman personally? I am flabbergasted.

The choices on defense are a little stranger:

Chris Pronger, Scott Niedermayer, Drew Doughty, Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith, Shea Weber and Dan Boyle.

I think that Duncan Keith, Dan Boyle, Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger are locks. I am not a big Pronger fan, but he's played well so far this year. He's +11 on a Philadelphia team that's only scored three more goals than it's given up. Weber is certainly a defensible choice, but the Seabrook and Doughty choices are a little weird. The conventional choice would have been Jay Bouwmeester. He's soaking up almost 27 minutes per game, mostly against the opponent's top line, and he's a solid + 9.

However, I think the real missed opportunity was Mike Green. Okay, I know he is not super defensively. Well, maybe I know he's mediocre.... okay, okay, he's not good, alright? Everyone knows that. He's also a point a game player with an outrageous level of skill. No one makes a better breakout pass in the NHL. No defenseman carries the puck better than him. And no one, no one, runs a power play better than him. How does Brent Seabrook and his magical .37 Career Points/Game average get the nod over Mike Green? Yes, Rick Nash dangled him that one time. Yes, he had a bad run in the playoffs last year. But if Canada's power play goes bad, Green will be sorely missed.

On the whole, I do respect the fact that they didn't go for old veterans that had more experience than some of the youngsters that were chosen. Any of the forwards is markedly better than say Ryan Smyth or Shane Doan. And resisting the temptation to create a true checking line is a stroke of genius in my mind. Even the hypothetical fourth line will be able to generate offensive chances. So, on the whole, kudos Steve Yzerman. You did a very credible job. Now, if this teams mucks it up, none of it will matter, you'll still get kicked out of Canada.

NB

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I am taking a brief Christmas hiatus. I'll be back early in the New Year. Safe and happy holidays to all!

NB

The Impossible Search for Clutch

A lot of this piece comes from a discussion I had with a friend of mine. We'll call him D-aunt-a. There, that should sufficiently hide his identity. Lord knows that if you are featured on my wildly popular website that you'll be fighting off the paparazzi within an hour of the posting. My unidentified friend is of the opinion that there is such a thing as a "clutch" skill. I do not share this opinion. In fact, I am of the opposite opinion. I'll put it bluntly:

There is no such thing as a "clutch" player. There is such a thing as a "clutch play", an instance during the game wherein a sometimes difficult play is executed that is crucial to determining the outcome of the contest. But the ability to make clutch plays as a skill? Does not exist.

The players that are typically identified as clutch are already the best players in the game by any metric. What I am about to produce is, obviously, a somewhat flawed metric, but I think it conveys the general idea.

Link 1: An all-time ranking of NHL players in terms of points per game in the regular season
Link 2: An all-time ranking of NHL players in terms of points per game in the playoffs

N.B: I have set minimum requirements of 300 games played in the regular season and 40 in the playoffs, so as to have somewhat significant data points. The main flaw in this system is that Alex Ovechkin has not yet played 40 playoff games and Evgeni Malkin has not yet played 300 regular season games. Otherwise, both would be in the top 10 in both categories.

You will notice a lot of similarities about this list. You can throw a few individual cases at me if you want, Joe Thornton and Johan Franzen(though Franzen, at 51 points in 63 games isn't even THAT good, yet I digress) are the classic examples, but on the whole, one has to admit that the best playoff performers are the same guys that are the best regular season performers.

Which brings us to the following question: Why is the "clutch ability" a commonly-held belief? Why do we glorify some, and mock others? Why do we long to make tangible something that is clearly not?

It's the impossible quest to explain randomness. The playoffs, in any sport, are such a tiny sample size that they are inherently random. Anything can happen, anyone can win. Literally. But we need a story, we need heroes and villains. Successes and failures. John Elway was considered one of the greatest choke artists of all time until his Broncos won those last two Super Bowls. Is he now clutch? Can we retroactively remove his choker title? How about Alex Rodriguez?

To me, it ultimately boils down to this: the best predicator of a player's success in the playoffs is his body of work in the regular season. There's no voodoo. If you are a good player in the large sample of the regular season, you are more likely to succeed in the playoffs than a player who experiences less success during the regular season. There are exceptions, and weird things do happen. But the "clutch skill?" Might as well believe in UFO's.

NB

Tiger Woods Connects All The Dots

I haven't written anything about the Tiger Woods scandal so far, and up until I read this piece, I was not intending to. The whole story is such a soap opera, and frankly, I don't care that much. Not to say I condone cheating on your wife, but so many people have already written about it, some better than others, that I don't feel like I need to get up on my high horse and reprimand Tiger. But an article about bookies taking bets on the size of Woods' divorce settlement? Now that was just too much for me. The article in question, and the rest of the media frenzy surrounding it, should tell us a number of things about ol' Tiger.

1) Tiger Woods is the most popular, and important, athlete in the world.

Lots, and I mean lots, of athletes are unfaithful. When their infidelities are made public, some get more coverage than others. Kobe Bryant's whole sordid affair in Colorado was very big news, but not nearly the monstrosity that this story has become. It's literally impossible to visit any news website and not have a Tiger-related story somewhere on the front page. Admittedly, the shock of the whole situation had something to do with it, I don't think there were too many people that saw this coming, but the fact that it happened to TIGER WOODS is the biggest story.


2) Tiger Woods is a unifying force.

One of the reasons that the article made me laugh is because of the section wherein they explain gambling odds. Here's the excerpt:

At odds of 25-1, people who bet $1 and win will get $25 plus the $1 stake back. At 6-4 odds, a $4 bet will get $10 in return.

It is innocuous and, if you are familiar with gambling odds, it seems like a throwaway. You probably just glossed over it. Now, what it actually tells you is that TSN thinks that it needs to explain how gambling odds work to its target audience for the article. They don't think gamblers are going to be particularly interested in the article. No, this is for a much broader audience. If Auntie Lynn who is a golf fan, but who watches only the majors, and only when Tiger's in the hunt, is going to read one column this year on TSN.ca, it'll probably be about Tiger. So, we need to explain this sort of thing to Auntie Lynn. If you have a relative like this, you can think of this as a family bonding opportunity. Tiger Woods: bringing people together through his shame.


3) Bookies will take bets on ANYTHING.

I mean look at some of those possible bets. Note that his wife hasn't even filed for divorce yet. Also, people like betting on pretty well anything. I think it's fascinating. I could debate the odds on the divorce settlement for at least 20 minutes with someone, not necessarily because I think the divorce itself is interesting, but because making up the odds would be highly entertaining. I don't think I'm alone in that.


4) There's been a certain gleeful "We got you! You tried to shut us out forever and we got you!" attitude to the media's coverage.

For years, Tiger Woods did his darndest to keep everyone out. And I mean everyone. His yacht is named Privacy. Privacy! So when he finally slipped up, it was a feeding frenzy.

Now I've never been chased by the paparazzi. I've never had mics shoved in my face from weird angles. I've never been expected to be a role model to millions of people. Maybe Tiger Woods' approach makes the most sense. But, I have to believe that you can't pretend not to be human forever. You can't act like you don't have real emotions or that you're not a real person. Because eventually, you are going to be exposed as being a real human being. And when that happens, it's gonna hurt worse than anything you were hiding from in the first place. I can't say it like Jay Smooth does, so I'll close this piece by throwing it over to him. Give it a watch, and let's get some more comments going!


NB

Telling Stories

Today, reports have surfaced that Roy Halladay has been traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. The rumours have not yet been confirmed, but that seems like a mere formality. In the world of sports reporting, where there's smoke, there's almost always fire. It's awfully hard to keep something of this magnitude under wraps forever.

I was well aware that this moment was coming, I even wrote about it earlier this summer. Roy Halladay and the Blue Jays were going in vastly different directions (Roy was good and the Jays were awful). My plan was to write a snarky, sarcastic piece about the folly of trading arguably the best pitcher in baseball. I might still write that piece. But, I also have to write this one.

I wouldn't consider myself a die-hard Blue Jays fan; I watch a lot of the games, but I've only been to a handful in my life. I've only ever seen Halladay pitch twice in my life. And yet, I feel like I know him. He was undyingly loyal to the Jays. He always, always, performed like a pro. Even as the franchise that employed him was self-combusting all around him, he went out and did his job. At the end of every spectacular outing, as the crowd rose to their feet to applaud the pitching genius, he would tip his hat in a way that seemed so sincere. It didn't hurt that he was one of the very best pitchers of his generation.

For the most part, I am a rational man. I would consider myself more objective than most when it comes to sports analysis. I don't "hate" my favourite teams' rivals. I don't lose sleep based on the outcome of a game. I follow attentively, but somewhat dispassionately. Or so I thought.

When I first read that Roy Halladay had been traded, I didn't have the reaction that I expected. I couldn't even muster a word of sarcasm. I couldn't write something funny here, it wouldn't be sincere. I don't know him, I never will know him, but it still feels like someone in my life is leaving. I'm left to marvel at the attachment I formed with a man that I watched go out and simply do his job once every five days for seven months out of the year. How did I ever get this attached to him? Was his loyalty contrived? Did he go about his work so professionally because he believed in honouring his contract, or because he truly did love the game and the fans?

In watching the sporting spectacle unfold, as fans, we can only ever guess at the motives of the players before us. As the Tiger Woods fiasco demonstrates, an image can be manufactured. As long as we're held at arm's length, we can never truly know the person in question. We are left to guess at who they really are.

Why do I think I know Halladay well enough to be saddened by his trade? I think it has something to do with telling stories. All of our lives are filled with stories. Some stories are private, and some we share with others. As you become more comfortable with someone, you share more of your stories with them. And, in turn, you hear more of their stories. Every five days, for seven months a year, Doc Halladay told stories for us to share in. It always felt like he wanted the fans to share in his stories. It never hurt that he was the best story teller around. And he was our story-teller. Being a fan of a baseball team not named New York, Boston, L.A or Philadelphia is a challenging proposition. Eventually, the talent is going to leave your team for greener pasture. They will be too expensive to keep around, and will probably be traded before they are lost for nothing in free agency. Halladay stuck with the Blue Jays through thick and thin. When J.P Riccardi made his plan to trade Halladay public, Roy remained professional throughout. A lot of people would have taken shots at management for the p.r nightmare that ol' J.P created, but not Roy. Maybe he has very good advisers, or agents, or lawyers, that help him keep his agent so clean, but I don't think so. I am just guessing, but it would take a lot to change my mind about Halladay. That's the story I created for him. Now that he's gone, I'll have to write a new one, about some new hero. I doubt it'll be as good because I won't have as good a co-author.

The Best of the NHL Decade in Review: Part 1

Sports Illustrated started a feature this week whereby they collected the best and the worst of the past decade for every sport. Well, I thought it was going to be every sport at least. They started off with football and baseball, which makes sense, they are the two most popular, and then went straight to pop culture....which isn't even a sport. So they skipped over basketball and hockey, which means that I get to completely rip-off the idea for the NHL. That's how copyright works right?

I'll clarify that I mean the decade as being from the 1999-2000 season through the 2008-2009 season. This, unfortunately for them, disqualifies players like Mario Lemieux and Peter Forsberg that were clearly some of the best players of their generation. Mario only played 170 games and Forsberg only played 440. Sorry guys, no one is disputing your place in the hockey pantheon, but in this discussion, you have to take a back seat. And so, without further delay, I give you my Best of the NHL Decade in Review:



Player of the Decade:Nicklas Lidstrom.
Runners-up: Martin Brodeur, Jaromir Jagr

This proved to be a most difficult choice indeed. For me, it really came down to three players: Jaromir Jagr, Martin Brodeur and Nicklas Lidstrom. Jagr is unquestionably the best forward of the decade, racking up 864 points in 692 games. Even more impressive is to consider how much damage he did before the lockout, when you were basically allowed to cut an opponent's arms off without being penalized. His 1999-00 and 2000-01 seasons are just outrageous. Some called him a floater later in his career, but you just cannot argue with the numbers. Jaromir Jagr flat out dominated.

Brodeur's case will always be hampered by the fact that some of those Devils teams he played on were impenetrable black holes on defense. Like it or not, hockey is a team game and Brodeur benefited from having very good teammates. Does this diminish everything he's accomplished? Not at all. He still had to play very well to achieve what he did, I just think you could have probably swapped him with Luongo or Roy, or maybe even an Ed Belfour-type goalie and gotten almost identical results. So, sorry Marty, but this is my list and your all-time wins record just don't cut it here.

Nicklas Lidstrom wins my fantastic fictional prize because he was unquestionably the best defenseman of the decade. Consistently excellent, he only had one down year in 2003-2004 when he mysteriously only scored 38 points, but was otherwise beyond comparison. He quarterbacked the powerplay AND the penalty kill on some of the best teams of the decade. He won the Norris 6 (!!!!) times and the Conn Smythe once. He's also generally regarded as one of the classiest players in the game. It was close, but it's got to be Lidstrom.



Best Franchise of the Decade: Detroit Red Wings
Runner-up: New Jersey Devils

This, again, was a very hard choice, though only between two real contenders. Both the New Jersey Devils and the Detroit Red Wings can make very strong cases for having been the franchises of the decade. Now, I think it's no coincidence that the two finalists were, and still are, lead by two of the finalists for the prestigious No Heart Ball Player of the Decade Award.

Really, there's no other franchise that can match the consistently excellent teams that these two put on the ice for all of those years. Both won two Stanley Cups and lost once in the finals. Both had highly publicized flame outs in the first round of the playoffs. But, to me, one of the true marks of their continued excellence is their outstanding regular season records: both teams made the playoffs every year in the decade. In fact, neither missed the playoffs during the span.

In the end, I decided to go with the Wings because they had more truly outstanding seasons. While New Jersey averaged an impressive 103 points per season during their run, the Red Wings rang up 113. Let's go over that number slowly. Over the entire 2000's, the Detroit Red Wings averaged 113 points a season. They averaged 50 wins, 19 losses and 13 ties. That, my friends, hurts my head to think about.



Best Canadian Franchise of the Decade: Ottawa Senators
Runners-up: Everyone else is remarkably similar

This being a (mostly) Canadian sports site, with a (mostly) Canadian audience, I figured this should be addressed. Now, as a Sens fan, I suspect I will catch some grief over this. Believe me, I wouldn't make this argument if it wasn't completely air-tight. Obviously everyone, and twice from those pesky Leafs fans, would point to Ottawa's "disappointing" playoffs record. Well, friends, Ottawa actually has the best playoff record of the lot. Shocking, I know. Let's break it down:

Ottawa: 8 playoff appearances, 7 series won, 8 series lost, 1 Finals appearance, 1 Conference Finals appearance
Calgary Flames: 5 playoff appearances, 3 series won, 5 series lost, 1 Finals appearance
Edmonton Oilers: 5 playoff appearances, 3 series won, 5 series lost, 1 Finals appearance (Weird coincidence!)
Toronto Maple Leafs: 5 playoff appearances, 5 series won, 5 series lost, 1 Conferences Finals appearance
Montreal Canadiens: 5 playoff appearances, 3 series won, 5 series lost
Vancouver Canucks: 6 playoff appearances, 3 series won, 6 series lost

The regular season number speak for themselves, so I won't even bother with those. If those Sens are playoff chokers, then we have a goddamn epidemic of choking amongst our Canadian hockey teams.

The second part of this piece, featuring my selections for the All-Decade team, will be posted sometime in the next couple of days. I am choosing four forward lines, three defense pairings and two goalies. Post your teams in the comments section and we'll do a comparison when mine goes up.


NB

New Post!

TONIGHT!!!!!





Woo.

The Code...

...Is the Worst Part About Hockey

There's a lot about hockey that I love, but a lot of those good things are often overshadowed by the actions of a stupid few. Hockey is a sport that requires a great deal of toughness to play at any level of competitiveness. Racing back to retrieve a dump-in at full speed, all while the opposition's forechecker breathes down your neck, just waiting to crush you into the boards, is not for the faint of heart. The physicality often crosses the line into violence. Every season, there are innumerable incidents in which "dirty" play causes injury, precisely because it's so hard to tread that line without crossing it. Your clean, open ice, hit to the chest was probably just a step, and a couple of inches, away from being an elbow to the head that causes a major injury. Accidental injury is a part of the game. It's possible to commit an infraction without ever intending to. Not every high stick that cuts a player's face open was deliberate, and those types of plays are unavoidable. The real issue stems from what most people would term "cheap shots".

To hear some people tell it, the best way to steer the game away from the cheap shots is to allow the players to police themselves. In this world, all players would abide by The Code. The Code, for those of you that aren't familiar with the term, is a completely ambiguous definition for how to "play the game the right way". I hate The Code. I defy anyone to clearly articulate to me what, exactly, The Code entails, and who, exactly, abides by it. Most of the time, it's about how a fight between two aggrieved parties will prevent any further escalation. Let boys be boys. Except that it doesn't work. And nobody abides by it.

Last night, Dan Carcillo sucker punched Matt Bradley after cross-checking him twice. It was a completely gutless act. Most sensible human beings watch that clip and see Matt Bradley is essentially the victim of assault. After hitting Carcillo, cleanly, both Bradley and Carcillo fall to the ice. Carcillo gets up first and cross-checks Bradley in the back. As Bradley gets up to skate away, Carcillo cross-checks him again. Bradley turns to face him, Carcillo grabs Bradley by the jersey with one hand and sucker punches him with the other. The whole thing happens in about 10 seconds flat. Bradley has zero chance to defend himself. He's starting to take his gloves off to fight, but Carcillo has already cold-cocked him by the time he gets one glove off. For his transgressions, Carcillo received 19 minutes in penalty. The Capitals scored 3 goals on the ensuing power play and won the game going away. Today, the NHL suspended Carcillo for 4 games. And yet, there are people that are defending him.

If you are a masochist, you can try to read through the comments on the video link. There are a surprisingly large number of people that defend Carcillo's actions. Any hockey related website that allows comments will feature a fair share of the same sort of message. The claim goes that Bradley should have been ready to fight, that Carcillo was just defending himself. Carcillo is tough, and Bradley, as YouTube commenter GNR27J puts it "Bradley you are a pussy and had it coming to you". Nice. Somehow, the victim is the problem because he didn't adequately defend himself.

Why is Bradley at fault? Because of The Code. He supposedly should have been ready to defend himself as soon as Carcillo dropped the gloves. Nevermind that Carcillo doesn't actually drop them, he throws them, and that there was no way that Bradley had any way of predicting that Carcillo would lose his marbles that quickly. I could never say it as well as Cedric Daniels does, so I'll let him say it for me.

The problem runs deeper. This whole thing started because Bradley hit Carcillo along the boards. Watch the whole replay: Bradley delivers a clean, hard check and Carcillo loses his mind. He cross-checks him, when Bradley tries to skate away, cross-checks him again, and, finally, just grabs him and sucker punches him. That's how you're supposed to react to a clean hit? This makes Carcillo tough? That is the opposite of tough. If Carcillo was really tough, he'd have shaken it off as part of the game. He took the hit to make the play. That's what someone with real guts would have done.

The players that commit the worst, dirtiest infractions are the same players that are supposedly enforcing the code. What do Marty McSorley and Chris Simon have in common? They're players whose sole role is to fight. If you asked the people that love The Code, those players should be keeping the cheap shots out of the game. And yet, for some strange reason, it's those very players that commit some of the worst acts.

I love hockey, and I'll probably never stop loving it, but things like this make me wonder why we cater so much to the vocal minority. Just because they scream the loudest doesn't mean they're right.

New and Exciting Posts...

...Coming Tonight!

Sorry all for the lack of updates this week, it's been kinda hectic in my part of the world. I will be back with more writing tonight.