NHL Flawed?
A big thanks goes out to Drew for the effort in writing two posts so far as to why he thinks the NHL is a fundamentally flawed game. I needed some time to think over his post before posting a response.
It's clear to me that a lot of time was spent in coming up with his theories as to why the NHL is flawed, and I wanted to make sure that I really knew how I was going to respond throwing myself into the pit.
In his first post Drew points out that the game of hockey is the only one of the big four sports where you can't go from losing to winning in one play. And, as Trevor pointed out, soccer which just so happens to be the most popular sport in the world (I think you'd be hard pressed to debate this point) also employs this scoring strategy. Drew points out that because soccer is dirt cheap to play, this explains it's gross acceptance over the entire world.
Drew has picked a specific difference in how hockey works and described it accurately. What he has failed to do was to prove to anyone how this one aspect of hockey makes the game any worse than the other three games. Yes he tells you of a specific type of excitement that can only be obtained by going from losing to winning in a single play, but then doesn't really explain why that excitement is so important and integral to the success of the big three sports that include it.
Just as Drew says that he thinks the reason that the other '3' big sports in North America (Basketball, Football, and Baseball) have an advantage over hockey because you can go from losing to winning in a single moment, I might suggest that an advantage hockey has over all three sports is that fighting is a common, popular, and accepted part of the game.
Fighting, is also a 'dirt cheap' sport, even cheaper than soccer, and fighting at it's rawest level is probably more popular than all other sports combined.
My point being is that Drew picked a very specific element of hockey, and correctly made a diagnosis, and then failed to convince anyone that it is the reason that hockey has a disadvantage.
I am a huge fan of baseball, I might even say that I like baseball more than hockey. Why? Sure the allure of a grand slam home run is great, and there was a game this September where Gregg Zaun of the Blue Jays hit a grand slam to win the game in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. It was a fantastic end, a sort of emotional high that you rarely get to experience when watching a sporting event.
That said, for every one moment like that, there are 1000's of moments that don't fit that criteria. And if I only watched baseball for the anticipation of those rare moments, there would be an incredible amount of down time. It certainly wouldn't be enough for me to watch every possible baseball game (which I do).
Okay my example isn't entirely fair, because in this case the game ended when the Blue Jays went from 2 runs down, to winning the game in a single swing of the bat. Many times throughout the season teams will go from behind 1 or two runs, to ahead a couple runs with a single swing. It's great when this happens, but is it a core reason as to why I love the game of baseball?
I originally became a fan of the Blue Jays because in 1990 the Jays had an incredible team. Watching some of the amazing fielding plays that Roberto Alomar would make, how he would steal a base after taking a walk, watching Joe Carter hit a monstrous home run, or seeing a player make a straight steal of home (this in my opinion is the most exciting play in sports).
After spending some time and thinking about it, I think the main reason I like to watch baseball is that anything can happen at any time, and usually once per game something truly amazing happens.
No other sport has as many ridiculous and incredible things happen to it on a regular basis.
Randy Johnson hitting a pigeon in mid-flight, a ball bouncing off Jose Canseco's head and out of the park, John Kruk forgetting that there was only two outs and then allowing the runner to score because he caught what he thought was the third out and wasn't watching the play, Eddie Gaedel being signed to a contract to bat for the St. Louis Browns because he was 3 foot 7 and had a small strike zone. (He ended his career at 0 for 0 with one walk).
Ok those are extreme incidents, but on a regular basis you see incredible diving plays, monstrous home runs, flying bats, stolen bases, managers arguing with umpires, and if you are lucky and watch A LOT of baseball you might see a perfect game, a no-hitter, a triple play, a bench clearing brawl, or a player hit for the cycle.
Amazing stuff happens on the baseball diamond virtually every game.
Additionally, Baseball is a game about psychology, about trying to out-think the person you are dueling against. The pitcher knows that in a 3-2 count that the batter will probably be expecting a fastball, so should the pitcher throw a slider? Or will the batter know that the pitcher knows he is expecting a fastball, because the batter is a good slider hitter, and hasn't been able to catch up to the heater this game yet. Last at bat the pitcher caught him with a 3rd strike fastball, will the pitcher try it again?
This type of psychology cascades throughout the game of baseball, and why is this? Baseball is an incredibly slow paced game, there is plenty of time to think about things between pitches. It is a "stop and start" type of game with many pauses in the action. To a casual observer, these long breaks in the action might have you thinking that nothing is going on, but that's where the thinking part of the game happens. Pitchers are deciding what to throw, batters are deciding what pitch they think is going to come, managers are aligning fielders into positions, runners on base are taking big leads thinking that they might be able to steal, pitcher might throw a pitch out and try to catch the potential run stealer. The breaks are where the strategies are formulated.
The game of baseball is a multi-layered game. If you look past the surface you would see that there is lots going on, but to someone who doesn't watch it religiously you would never learn that there are finer points to the game.
How does this relate to Drew's point about hockey? Drew has accurately described a condition within hockey, the fact that you cannot go from losing to winning in a single play, and then arbitrarily decided to point his finger at this condition and say that it is a fundamental flaw in the game of hockey. Just as a hindering 'flaw' of baseball might be that there are long breaks between the action, after watching the game for many years you realize that these long breaks are the moments where the strategy is formed, and these breaks are an important part of baseball.
Here are some things about hockey where in my mind hockey is the undisputed leader. #2 'Blowouts' directly comes from hockey being a single point game. The other points aren't necessarily related to hockey being a single poitn game, but are defining characteristics of hockey (more so than the other sports).
1. Jaw Dropping Amazing Individual Plays - This is a subjective category for sure, and I have seen some amazing football catches and throws. Baseball has home runs, and diving catches. A well executed Double play can be a religious experience. I once saw an amazing kick from a soccer player where he flipped upside down and kicked it in the net.
That said, no sport has the same level of amazing unbelievable individual effort that hockey can have. To watch a highly skilled dangling hockey player slide and dodge his way through opposing players, maneuvering his stick so that a small black object goes through the opponents feet, around another player, and then fake left and wrap around the goaltender to tuck it behind him simply doesn't occur in any of the "Big 3" sports. These plays are rare, granted, but I have likely watched three times as many baseball games as I have ever watched hockey games, and I have never seen an individual effort that rivals this Doug Weight goal versus Calgary (right off the face-off too, first 8 seconds of the game), not only that, there are a few incredible individual efforts on this clip that are of equal calibre.
(Doug Weight's goal is at the 19 second mark)
2. Blowouts - Hockey is the one sport out of the 'Big Five' that has blowouts on a regular basis.
Specifically what I mean by a blowout is that there is a time in the game where both teams realize that the game is decided, yet there is still a significant portion of playing time left in the game. I will throw soccer in the mix here too because soccer scoring is so rare, and blowouts are so uncommon that any game is basically up for grabs at any time.
Blowouts do occur in other sports it's true, but I think it is rarer, and when it happens because of the other sports multi-point systems it's somewhat easier to catch up.
Let's be honest here, blowouts are fun to watch. No I don't want every game to be one, but once in a while I like to watch my favorite team absolutely destroy another team. A major side effect of a blowout is that the coaches sometimes like to put the "Road Warriors" line-ups on the ice to try and get a little street justice.
One of my favorite games ever was a game the oilers had against the Atlanta Thrashers on February 11th, 2004. It included rookie Oiler Mike Bishai somehow ending up inside the Atlanta thrashers bench, and continuing to beat the crap out of anyone who'd go, a fight between goaltenders Ty Conklin and Pasi Nurminen that resulted in the Thrashers having to play the last 2 minutes of the game without a goaltender because Byron Dafoe had left earlier with a groin pull, 198 Penalty minutes, and a fight with Jason Smith and a thrasher player who both agreed to stop fighting because they got tired because the linesmen were too busy breaking up other fights to separate them. Pay special attention to how funny it is at the end because they both have to awkwardly skate away from each other instead of being held apart by two linesmen.
No I don't want every game to be like this, but it's a good example of a specific type of entertainment you might only get in a blowout. In this case I pointed to an arbitrary element of the game of hockey, one that other games don't have (mainly because of Drew's multi point scoring theory, any team is theoretically still in the game unless REALLY out of it, which would be very rare).
3. Powerplays - I think that hockey and soccer are the only two sports that employ this type of penalization, where a team has to play at a disadvantage of number of players for a period of time simply because a rule was violated. Soccer teams are at a lesser disadvantage only because taking one player away from 10 or 11 is only 10% or 9% disadvantage, in hockey, removing 1 of 5 attacking players is a 20% decrease in effectiveness, or more correctly, the team with the powerplay has a 5/4 advantage, making them 25% more effective.
I suppose you could arbitrarily pick one side or the other on powerplays too, but I think that at a raw level of excitement, it's hard to legitimately say that a powerplay doesn't add excitement to a game, regardless of which side of the powerplay you fall upon.
Also as Drew accurately says in his most recent post, one of hockey's main issues is that there isn't enough scoring. The powerplay certainly increases the amount of scoring in a game.
4. Fighting - I know I touched on fighting in the "Blowouts" section, but it is such an important part of the game of hockey that it is worth having it's own section. Hockey is the one sport of the "Big Four" where fighting is an integral part of the game. The threat of being beat up prevents dirty players from injuring the other teams superstars. Fighting is so woven into the fabric of the NHL that there is no way it could ever be completely eliminated. A big reason for this is having someone smack you with a piece of wood is very annoying, add to that being hit from someone into the boards from behind, having someone intentionally try to take out your kneecap, or cross-check you in the face, you have a game where accumulative frustration builds and builds until the only way to vent is by punching the cause of it.
It's my opinion that everyone loves at least watching a fight. Even people that don't admit to it crave it on some basic carnal instinctual level.
Next time you see a fight in a bar or on the street take a look around at the bystanders. You won't see a single person who isn't focused on it, yes some people will look disgusted by it, some people will try to break it up. But at its most basic level it is entertainment of the highest form. You simply cannot look away. It's like driving by a highway accident, you are horrified possibly, but you still have to look. It's basic human nature.
When I was at the aforementioned game I took a look around at the crowd during the brawl, and anyone who had legs to stand upon was doing so. The crowd was in an excited frenzy that I can only imagine being equal Gladiator fights in ancient Rome.
We can sit here and talk about how baseball has been around since the 1800's, and the NHL since 1917, but NO sport has been around longer than fighting. It is older than our oldest structured sport by a longshot, and even older than the worlds oldest profession. It is the one thing that newborn animals will do instinctively with no prodding. Pay-per-view fighting events gross an incredible amount of dollars each and every year, with the even more carnal UFC and MFC styles of fighting gaining ground on the more gentlemanly form of the bout known as boxing.
Around 2000-2001 I think that the CBC tried to institute a no-show fighting ban on television broadcasts. I'm not sure that the CBC actually ever tried to broadcast a game with this 'rule', the public outcry was so much in favor of showing fights on television that the fighting ban was taken out before ever catching on.
A few years ago (2005-2006), the NHL tried to get rid of fighting by making a rule that any player caught instigating a fight in the final 5 minutes in addition to the 5 minutes and a fine, gets an additional game suspension. Back in the mid-eighties, an instigator penalty was only ever levied against a player if it was incredibly obvious that the player instigated the penalty. In the same year the league cracked down on fighting instigator penalties were handed out more often, now, three years later, the stance against fighting has softened somewhat. Players like having fighting in the game, and fans adore watching it.
It's easy to pick out things that exist in one game and not another, it's even relatively easy to come up with some justification as to why this thing makes one game better over another game.
But the reality here is that although hockey may not have Drew's specific feature, it has it's own, equally exciting and admirable features. The fact alone that the NHL has a 91 year history should be enough to see that it is a successful league. My opinion is that it definitely takes longer to catch on in areas of North America where it is difficult for kids to play it, and in some areas it may NEVER catch on, but the main reason is that the current 'favorite sport' in that area is so rooted on a cultural level that nobody has time for anything else. Sports teams require a commitment of time and dollars, not everyone has a budget for more than one such type of commitment.
I'll leave it at that for today. Comments are welcome.
It's clear to me that a lot of time was spent in coming up with his theories as to why the NHL is flawed, and I wanted to make sure that I really knew how I was going to respond throwing myself into the pit.
In his first post Drew points out that the game of hockey is the only one of the big four sports where you can't go from losing to winning in one play. And, as Trevor pointed out, soccer which just so happens to be the most popular sport in the world (I think you'd be hard pressed to debate this point) also employs this scoring strategy. Drew points out that because soccer is dirt cheap to play, this explains it's gross acceptance over the entire world.
Drew has picked a specific difference in how hockey works and described it accurately. What he has failed to do was to prove to anyone how this one aspect of hockey makes the game any worse than the other three games. Yes he tells you of a specific type of excitement that can only be obtained by going from losing to winning in a single play, but then doesn't really explain why that excitement is so important and integral to the success of the big three sports that include it.
Just as Drew says that he thinks the reason that the other '3' big sports in North America (Basketball, Football, and Baseball) have an advantage over hockey because you can go from losing to winning in a single moment, I might suggest that an advantage hockey has over all three sports is that fighting is a common, popular, and accepted part of the game.
Fighting, is also a 'dirt cheap' sport, even cheaper than soccer, and fighting at it's rawest level is probably more popular than all other sports combined.
My point being is that Drew picked a very specific element of hockey, and correctly made a diagnosis, and then failed to convince anyone that it is the reason that hockey has a disadvantage.
I am a huge fan of baseball, I might even say that I like baseball more than hockey. Why? Sure the allure of a grand slam home run is great, and there was a game this September where Gregg Zaun of the Blue Jays hit a grand slam to win the game in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. It was a fantastic end, a sort of emotional high that you rarely get to experience when watching a sporting event.
That said, for every one moment like that, there are 1000's of moments that don't fit that criteria. And if I only watched baseball for the anticipation of those rare moments, there would be an incredible amount of down time. It certainly wouldn't be enough for me to watch every possible baseball game (which I do).
Okay my example isn't entirely fair, because in this case the game ended when the Blue Jays went from 2 runs down, to winning the game in a single swing of the bat. Many times throughout the season teams will go from behind 1 or two runs, to ahead a couple runs with a single swing. It's great when this happens, but is it a core reason as to why I love the game of baseball?
I originally became a fan of the Blue Jays because in 1990 the Jays had an incredible team. Watching some of the amazing fielding plays that Roberto Alomar would make, how he would steal a base after taking a walk, watching Joe Carter hit a monstrous home run, or seeing a player make a straight steal of home (this in my opinion is the most exciting play in sports).
After spending some time and thinking about it, I think the main reason I like to watch baseball is that anything can happen at any time, and usually once per game something truly amazing happens.
No other sport has as many ridiculous and incredible things happen to it on a regular basis.
Randy Johnson hitting a pigeon in mid-flight, a ball bouncing off Jose Canseco's head and out of the park, John Kruk forgetting that there was only two outs and then allowing the runner to score because he caught what he thought was the third out and wasn't watching the play, Eddie Gaedel being signed to a contract to bat for the St. Louis Browns because he was 3 foot 7 and had a small strike zone. (He ended his career at 0 for 0 with one walk).
Ok those are extreme incidents, but on a regular basis you see incredible diving plays, monstrous home runs, flying bats, stolen bases, managers arguing with umpires, and if you are lucky and watch A LOT of baseball you might see a perfect game, a no-hitter, a triple play, a bench clearing brawl, or a player hit for the cycle.
Amazing stuff happens on the baseball diamond virtually every game.
Additionally, Baseball is a game about psychology, about trying to out-think the person you are dueling against. The pitcher knows that in a 3-2 count that the batter will probably be expecting a fastball, so should the pitcher throw a slider? Or will the batter know that the pitcher knows he is expecting a fastball, because the batter is a good slider hitter, and hasn't been able to catch up to the heater this game yet. Last at bat the pitcher caught him with a 3rd strike fastball, will the pitcher try it again?
This type of psychology cascades throughout the game of baseball, and why is this? Baseball is an incredibly slow paced game, there is plenty of time to think about things between pitches. It is a "stop and start" type of game with many pauses in the action. To a casual observer, these long breaks in the action might have you thinking that nothing is going on, but that's where the thinking part of the game happens. Pitchers are deciding what to throw, batters are deciding what pitch they think is going to come, managers are aligning fielders into positions, runners on base are taking big leads thinking that they might be able to steal, pitcher might throw a pitch out and try to catch the potential run stealer. The breaks are where the strategies are formulated.
The game of baseball is a multi-layered game. If you look past the surface you would see that there is lots going on, but to someone who doesn't watch it religiously you would never learn that there are finer points to the game.
How does this relate to Drew's point about hockey? Drew has accurately described a condition within hockey, the fact that you cannot go from losing to winning in a single play, and then arbitrarily decided to point his finger at this condition and say that it is a fundamental flaw in the game of hockey. Just as a hindering 'flaw' of baseball might be that there are long breaks between the action, after watching the game for many years you realize that these long breaks are the moments where the strategy is formed, and these breaks are an important part of baseball.
Here are some things about hockey where in my mind hockey is the undisputed leader. #2 'Blowouts' directly comes from hockey being a single point game. The other points aren't necessarily related to hockey being a single poitn game, but are defining characteristics of hockey (more so than the other sports).
1. Jaw Dropping Amazing Individual Plays - This is a subjective category for sure, and I have seen some amazing football catches and throws. Baseball has home runs, and diving catches. A well executed Double play can be a religious experience. I once saw an amazing kick from a soccer player where he flipped upside down and kicked it in the net.
That said, no sport has the same level of amazing unbelievable individual effort that hockey can have. To watch a highly skilled dangling hockey player slide and dodge his way through opposing players, maneuvering his stick so that a small black object goes through the opponents feet, around another player, and then fake left and wrap around the goaltender to tuck it behind him simply doesn't occur in any of the "Big 3" sports. These plays are rare, granted, but I have likely watched three times as many baseball games as I have ever watched hockey games, and I have never seen an individual effort that rivals this Doug Weight goal versus Calgary (right off the face-off too, first 8 seconds of the game), not only that, there are a few incredible individual efforts on this clip that are of equal calibre.
(Doug Weight's goal is at the 19 second mark)
2. Blowouts - Hockey is the one sport out of the 'Big Five' that has blowouts on a regular basis.
Specifically what I mean by a blowout is that there is a time in the game where both teams realize that the game is decided, yet there is still a significant portion of playing time left in the game. I will throw soccer in the mix here too because soccer scoring is so rare, and blowouts are so uncommon that any game is basically up for grabs at any time.
Blowouts do occur in other sports it's true, but I think it is rarer, and when it happens because of the other sports multi-point systems it's somewhat easier to catch up.
Let's be honest here, blowouts are fun to watch. No I don't want every game to be one, but once in a while I like to watch my favorite team absolutely destroy another team. A major side effect of a blowout is that the coaches sometimes like to put the "Road Warriors" line-ups on the ice to try and get a little street justice.
One of my favorite games ever was a game the oilers had against the Atlanta Thrashers on February 11th, 2004. It included rookie Oiler Mike Bishai somehow ending up inside the Atlanta thrashers bench, and continuing to beat the crap out of anyone who'd go, a fight between goaltenders Ty Conklin and Pasi Nurminen that resulted in the Thrashers having to play the last 2 minutes of the game without a goaltender because Byron Dafoe had left earlier with a groin pull, 198 Penalty minutes, and a fight with Jason Smith and a thrasher player who both agreed to stop fighting because they got tired because the linesmen were too busy breaking up other fights to separate them. Pay special attention to how funny it is at the end because they both have to awkwardly skate away from each other instead of being held apart by two linesmen.
No I don't want every game to be like this, but it's a good example of a specific type of entertainment you might only get in a blowout. In this case I pointed to an arbitrary element of the game of hockey, one that other games don't have (mainly because of Drew's multi point scoring theory, any team is theoretically still in the game unless REALLY out of it, which would be very rare).
3. Powerplays - I think that hockey and soccer are the only two sports that employ this type of penalization, where a team has to play at a disadvantage of number of players for a period of time simply because a rule was violated. Soccer teams are at a lesser disadvantage only because taking one player away from 10 or 11 is only 10% or 9% disadvantage, in hockey, removing 1 of 5 attacking players is a 20% decrease in effectiveness, or more correctly, the team with the powerplay has a 5/4 advantage, making them 25% more effective.
I suppose you could arbitrarily pick one side or the other on powerplays too, but I think that at a raw level of excitement, it's hard to legitimately say that a powerplay doesn't add excitement to a game, regardless of which side of the powerplay you fall upon.
Also as Drew accurately says in his most recent post, one of hockey's main issues is that there isn't enough scoring. The powerplay certainly increases the amount of scoring in a game.
4. Fighting - I know I touched on fighting in the "Blowouts" section, but it is such an important part of the game of hockey that it is worth having it's own section. Hockey is the one sport of the "Big Four" where fighting is an integral part of the game. The threat of being beat up prevents dirty players from injuring the other teams superstars. Fighting is so woven into the fabric of the NHL that there is no way it could ever be completely eliminated. A big reason for this is having someone smack you with a piece of wood is very annoying, add to that being hit from someone into the boards from behind, having someone intentionally try to take out your kneecap, or cross-check you in the face, you have a game where accumulative frustration builds and builds until the only way to vent is by punching the cause of it.
It's my opinion that everyone loves at least watching a fight. Even people that don't admit to it crave it on some basic carnal instinctual level.
Next time you see a fight in a bar or on the street take a look around at the bystanders. You won't see a single person who isn't focused on it, yes some people will look disgusted by it, some people will try to break it up. But at its most basic level it is entertainment of the highest form. You simply cannot look away. It's like driving by a highway accident, you are horrified possibly, but you still have to look. It's basic human nature.
When I was at the aforementioned game I took a look around at the crowd during the brawl, and anyone who had legs to stand upon was doing so. The crowd was in an excited frenzy that I can only imagine being equal Gladiator fights in ancient Rome.
We can sit here and talk about how baseball has been around since the 1800's, and the NHL since 1917, but NO sport has been around longer than fighting. It is older than our oldest structured sport by a longshot, and even older than the worlds oldest profession. It is the one thing that newborn animals will do instinctively with no prodding. Pay-per-view fighting events gross an incredible amount of dollars each and every year, with the even more carnal UFC and MFC styles of fighting gaining ground on the more gentlemanly form of the bout known as boxing.
Around 2000-2001 I think that the CBC tried to institute a no-show fighting ban on television broadcasts. I'm not sure that the CBC actually ever tried to broadcast a game with this 'rule', the public outcry was so much in favor of showing fights on television that the fighting ban was taken out before ever catching on.
A few years ago (2005-2006), the NHL tried to get rid of fighting by making a rule that any player caught instigating a fight in the final 5 minutes in addition to the 5 minutes and a fine, gets an additional game suspension. Back in the mid-eighties, an instigator penalty was only ever levied against a player if it was incredibly obvious that the player instigated the penalty. In the same year the league cracked down on fighting instigator penalties were handed out more often, now, three years later, the stance against fighting has softened somewhat. Players like having fighting in the game, and fans adore watching it.
It's easy to pick out things that exist in one game and not another, it's even relatively easy to come up with some justification as to why this thing makes one game better over another game.
But the reality here is that although hockey may not have Drew's specific feature, it has it's own, equally exciting and admirable features. The fact alone that the NHL has a 91 year history should be enough to see that it is a successful league. My opinion is that it definitely takes longer to catch on in areas of North America where it is difficult for kids to play it, and in some areas it may NEVER catch on, but the main reason is that the current 'favorite sport' in that area is so rooted on a cultural level that nobody has time for anything else. Sports teams require a commitment of time and dollars, not everyone has a budget for more than one such type of commitment.
I'll leave it at that for today. Comments are welcome.
posted by Jay at
3:41 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home