NHL - Fundamentally Flawed - A Follow Up
Hey, Trevor. I figured you'd be the first one to fire back at my post; you're just so damn fiesty. But, dude - ouch! I cried myself to sleep when I first saw your biting headline's personal attack. (Actually, I was crying because I saw how much money I've dropped on NFL bets this season. But rest assured - there were tears.)
Before I address your arguments, let me be clear – I understand the appeal of hockey; especially to Canadians. It’s part of our culture and history. But there are reasons hockey has struggled to break into the greater North American consciousness (soccer has the exact same problems, by the way)… and part of the problem is what hockey lacks compared to the other sports available to the typical North American viewer.
I totally understand your desire to defend hockey. But many of the arguments you use simply don't hold up. Let's take a look at a couple of the main points you raised, and why I disagree with one of them. Here's one of your comments:
However, hockey- and any other single point sport, as that is the essence of his argument here- provide other types of excitement that you simply cannot get with games based on multiple point values.
Trevor, you seem to forget that multiple point values doesn't preclude having similar scoring situations to hockey. If a team goes up by one touchdown late in the game, the other team has to get a touchdown to tie, then another score to win... just as a hockey team must get one score to tie and another to win. A baseball team can score a run to tie in the bottom of the ninth, then score another run later to win the game in extra innings, just as a hockey team can tie it up then win in overtime. The situation you describe - going from losing, to tied, to winning in seperate stages - isn't exclusive to hockey.
The truth is that some sports get BOTH kinds of drama, while hockey only gets one. That is, inherently, a disadvantage in marketing the sport. Fans who want the "come from behind in one play" drama AND fans who want the "tie it up, then surge ahead" type of drama get both in all the major North American sports... except hockey (and soccer). The potential audience is fractured, and some fans are left behind simply by the scoring system used by the game.
This brings me to your second point:
Speed, you think that's a pretty important dynamic to baseball do you? Perhaps I've not watched as much baseball as you, but last I checked, a fluent pace wasn't exactly paramount to a baseball, or a football team's success.
First, let's agree to play fair - don't put words in my mouth. I never said baseball was about speed. If you want this to degenerate into a semantic pissing contest where we twist and turn words and ignore the spirit of an argument for technicalities, then we're wasting our time. You can get that on any message board populated by smart-ass 15 year olds.
But I'll cut you some slack; maybe you weren't trying to use technicalities and word-twisting simply because logic and reason can't save your position. Maybe I just didn't make my point clearly enough. So I'll try again:
I fully concede that hockey has speed, strength, physicality, etc. My point was that these things can be found to various degrees in every sport. Football has incredible physicality in every bone-crunching hit; baseball has 95+mph pitches hurtling towards batters or outfielders sprinting to make a diving catch; basketball has players soaring through the air to deliver thunderous slam dunks. Yes, hockey offers amazing athletic feats we mere mortals marvel at... but every profesional sport can make that case.
You prefer the specific feats of hockey; fair enough - that's always a matter of personal opinion. But those elements don't actually have anything to do with the fundamental flaws of hockey. If they had a multi-layered scoring system, you could still have all the speed, passing and body-checks you love. That's the point I was making, so don't try to make it sound like I'm saying baseball is action packed - we both know it's not.
My third problem with your counter argument comes from your comments about soccer. This is a hockey blog, as you said, so I focused my arguments on hockey. But from a game theory perspective, hockey and soccer are the same sport: teams work together to put the game play object (ball or puck) into the opposition net for a single point. So let's take a closer look at soccer, because it helps clarify my issues with hockey.
We all know soccer is the most wide-spread sport in the world, and I partially agree with your comments about why soccer isn't spreading to North America. But only partially. First, realize why soccer is popular: in addition to tradition and history, it's dirt cheap to play. You need a ball and some open space. Hell, even baseball is more expensive - you need a ball and a stick. That's why I'd argue that much of it's popularity comes from the fact that a huge percentage of kids around the world simply don't have any other options for team sports (not everyone enjoys the North American standard of living). As you yourself say: just because it's popular doesn't make it good.
Soccer isn't making inroads into North America... but baseball, football and especially basketball have made massive inroads into soccer-mad countries. Asia is baseball nuts. European basketball leagues continue to grow in ratings and numbers. And the NFL TV ratings world wide grow each year. (The hardest ticket to buy in London this year wasn't Man United vs. Arsenal - it was Saints versus Chargers!)
Why is this? Oh, yeah - because soccer is a fundamentally flawed game. It's basic mechanics are lacking compared to the other three sports I mentioned. And it's basic mechanics are the same as hockey.
Okay, one last thing. You need to read my posts more carefully, Trevor.
Considering that the entire premise of reason #1 is that a one point sport somehow takes excitement out of the game, it ought to be very intersting to see how something like 'sudden death' overtime, where every single moment might bring complete and total devastation or utter and complete victory to either team, could in actuality be a detriment to the enjoyability of the game.
I never, ever, ever, ever said I had a problem with sudden death OT. I said hockey's problem was with TIES. There's a huge difference, and you'll see what I mean when I post part two.
Drew
Before I address your arguments, let me be clear – I understand the appeal of hockey; especially to Canadians. It’s part of our culture and history. But there are reasons hockey has struggled to break into the greater North American consciousness (soccer has the exact same problems, by the way)… and part of the problem is what hockey lacks compared to the other sports available to the typical North American viewer.
I totally understand your desire to defend hockey. But many of the arguments you use simply don't hold up. Let's take a look at a couple of the main points you raised, and why I disagree with one of them. Here's one of your comments:
However, hockey- and any other single point sport, as that is the essence of his argument here- provide other types of excitement that you simply cannot get with games based on multiple point values.
Trevor, you seem to forget that multiple point values doesn't preclude having similar scoring situations to hockey. If a team goes up by one touchdown late in the game, the other team has to get a touchdown to tie, then another score to win... just as a hockey team must get one score to tie and another to win. A baseball team can score a run to tie in the bottom of the ninth, then score another run later to win the game in extra innings, just as a hockey team can tie it up then win in overtime. The situation you describe - going from losing, to tied, to winning in seperate stages - isn't exclusive to hockey.
The truth is that some sports get BOTH kinds of drama, while hockey only gets one. That is, inherently, a disadvantage in marketing the sport. Fans who want the "come from behind in one play" drama AND fans who want the "tie it up, then surge ahead" type of drama get both in all the major North American sports... except hockey (and soccer). The potential audience is fractured, and some fans are left behind simply by the scoring system used by the game.
This brings me to your second point:
Speed, you think that's a pretty important dynamic to baseball do you? Perhaps I've not watched as much baseball as you, but last I checked, a fluent pace wasn't exactly paramount to a baseball, or a football team's success.
First, let's agree to play fair - don't put words in my mouth. I never said baseball was about speed. If you want this to degenerate into a semantic pissing contest where we twist and turn words and ignore the spirit of an argument for technicalities, then we're wasting our time. You can get that on any message board populated by smart-ass 15 year olds.
But I'll cut you some slack; maybe you weren't trying to use technicalities and word-twisting simply because logic and reason can't save your position. Maybe I just didn't make my point clearly enough. So I'll try again:
I fully concede that hockey has speed, strength, physicality, etc. My point was that these things can be found to various degrees in every sport. Football has incredible physicality in every bone-crunching hit; baseball has 95+mph pitches hurtling towards batters or outfielders sprinting to make a diving catch; basketball has players soaring through the air to deliver thunderous slam dunks. Yes, hockey offers amazing athletic feats we mere mortals marvel at... but every profesional sport can make that case.
You prefer the specific feats of hockey; fair enough - that's always a matter of personal opinion. But those elements don't actually have anything to do with the fundamental flaws of hockey. If they had a multi-layered scoring system, you could still have all the speed, passing and body-checks you love. That's the point I was making, so don't try to make it sound like I'm saying baseball is action packed - we both know it's not.
My third problem with your counter argument comes from your comments about soccer. This is a hockey blog, as you said, so I focused my arguments on hockey. But from a game theory perspective, hockey and soccer are the same sport: teams work together to put the game play object (ball or puck) into the opposition net for a single point. So let's take a closer look at soccer, because it helps clarify my issues with hockey.
We all know soccer is the most wide-spread sport in the world, and I partially agree with your comments about why soccer isn't spreading to North America. But only partially. First, realize why soccer is popular: in addition to tradition and history, it's dirt cheap to play. You need a ball and some open space. Hell, even baseball is more expensive - you need a ball and a stick. That's why I'd argue that much of it's popularity comes from the fact that a huge percentage of kids around the world simply don't have any other options for team sports (not everyone enjoys the North American standard of living). As you yourself say: just because it's popular doesn't make it good.
Soccer isn't making inroads into North America... but baseball, football and especially basketball have made massive inroads into soccer-mad countries. Asia is baseball nuts. European basketball leagues continue to grow in ratings and numbers. And the NFL TV ratings world wide grow each year. (The hardest ticket to buy in London this year wasn't Man United vs. Arsenal - it was Saints versus Chargers!)
Why is this? Oh, yeah - because soccer is a fundamentally flawed game. It's basic mechanics are lacking compared to the other three sports I mentioned. And it's basic mechanics are the same as hockey.
Okay, one last thing. You need to read my posts more carefully, Trevor.
Considering that the entire premise of reason #1 is that a one point sport somehow takes excitement out of the game, it ought to be very intersting to see how something like 'sudden death' overtime, where every single moment might bring complete and total devastation or utter and complete victory to either team, could in actuality be a detriment to the enjoyability of the game.
I never, ever, ever, ever said I had a problem with sudden death OT. I said hockey's problem was with TIES. There's a huge difference, and you'll see what I mean when I post part two.
Drew
posted by Drew at
11:40 AM
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