I am not a baseball fan. Of all the "major" sports, America's ex-pastime is the one I have the most difficulty commenting on. Really, the most pointed analysis I provided in the Yankees' run to the World Series was "C. C. Sabathia reminds me of a brontosaurus when he extends his neck."
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Maybe I'm just seeing things.
Although ESPN the Magazine is at best the ugly stepchild of Sports Illustrated, they had an offer for a $3/year subscription so I thought, "Why not?"
I'm not sure if you'll be able to read these because they're "Insider" stories (let me know in the comments), but the "Player X" columns have been some of the more interesting/odd pieces I've read in a while.
On a bittersweet note, it'll be pretty shocking if the magazine survives my 3 year, $9 commitment ...
By now you've already seen Ohlund's vicious (but perfectly legal) hit on Phil Kessel, but it's been a slow week in me caring about the hockey blogosphere so let's bask in its barbarism:
Daaaang.
It would be useless - and quite futile - to point out a specific post; instead, I will just implore you (if you're a blogger, a writer, a business person, if you have a pulse) to take a look at Seth Godin's blog. You might feel better about yourself, but you'll probably also feel the need to do a little soul searching.
I know I'm far from being done with that, myself.
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Did you write something interesting this week? Or maybe you read something that simply should not be allowed to float off into the wild blue irrelevant? E-mail me your links at cyclelikesedins@gmail.com. Please?
Do you think that you've written something worthy of next week's list? Are you a reader of a smaller blog and feel it deserves some attention? Drop me an e-mail at thevancitycanuck [at] gmail.com and maybe you'll end up in the next NW Links around the League, I promise to be relatively nice.
I've been throwing some fun little statistics at you lately, but numbers are only fun when they lead to people writing angry comments. That (along with porn and pirating music/movies/ships) is what the Internet is for, right?
1. San Jose Sharks
Average: 5
6. Pittsburgh Penguins
16. (tied) Edmonton Oilers
22. Toronto Maple Leafs
27. (tied) Montreal Canadiens
Here's the spreadsheet:
The sample size is still pretty small, but I thought it would be a good time to take another look at two of the stats I made up (True PP and True PK) as well as where each team ranks in Net Goals and Special Teams Plus/Minus. The original posts can be found here and here. Each screen capture will have an explanation of the stats that are included. Click on them to get a better look.
Net Goals (all stats taken before Tuesday's games)
Net Goals refers to a simple formula: a team's total goals for minus a team's total goals against.
Special Teams Plus/Minus (all stats taken before Tuesday's games)
(Powerplay Goals For subtracted by Shorthanded Goals Allowed) minus (Penalty Kill Goals Allowed subtracted by Shorthanded Goals For) is the formula for Special Teams Plus/Minus.
True PP%
To simplify things, True PP% is a lot like PP% except it factors in the Shorthanded Goals a team allows along with the PP goals it scores.
True PK%
Much like True PP%, except this considers the SHG a team scores along with the PP goals it allows.
As newspaper pages yellow and hairs become gray, time tends to remember only the winners and people who break other people's necks. It takes a Super Bowl savant to even remember the losers, let alone the many teams that couldn't even get there.
OK, so this squad never got especially close to a Cup but that's part of what makes their completely failed dynasty perplexing. Brett Hull - Al MacInnis - Chris Pronger - Adam Oates. They had all four of those HoF-caliber performers for big chunks of their primes but could never really put together even a deep playoff run. Perhaps those teams weren't constructed well or simply lacked goaltending, but it still is pretty stunning those guys didn't break through the Dallas/Detroit/Colorado gamut at least once.
And their even more terrible new logo:
Still, despite those logos, it was pretty much impossible to root against the Sabres until they played against your favorite team.
Sadly, a big part of what made those Sabres team so difficult to play against (rolling line after line of quality forwards) is what made them so difficult to sustain in a small market, salary cap world. Their most important forwards went on to be grossly overpaid; with Briere and Drury going to other teams and Vanek staying in Buffalo for a crap ton of money.
Basketball Teams
The Barkley Era and Steve Nash Phoenix Suns
This one hits close to home. As a kid, I didn't choose sports teams based on geographical convenience but rather who captured my immature imagination. Naturally, the brash, bald and bold Charles Barkley captured my attention like no basketball player before him.
Those Barkley-Kevin Johnson-Thunder Dan Suns teams were outrageously fun to watch. If you want to find the key to my heart, make sure that you find a solid and charismatic coach, an explosive and quirky offense and a largely terrible defense. Is that a formula for a championship? Almost definitely not. But perfect defense and coaching usually kills fun (see: Devils, New Jersey and Spurs, San Antonio).
After Barkley was traded away, I thought that a basketball team would never captivate me in the same way again. Jason Kidd lobbing alley oops to Shawn Marion was entertaining but ... eh. Stephon Marbury nearly killed basketball for me.
Just as I thought I'd never care again, floppy haired banger of Elizabeth Hurley Steve Nash came along and captained the priceless "Seven Seconds or Less" Phoenix Suns. And it was good.
You can conspiracy theorize all you want, but those teams ultimately fell short because they didn't want to pay to get to the top and because they couldn't play defense. So what? They were a joy to watch and I miss them terribly (since Steve Kerr murdered them with terrible decisions).
Seriously, though, fuck you Steve Kerr.
The Webber-Ugly Dude Sacramento Kings
Much like the Nash Suns, the Chris Webber-Mike Bibby-hairy European Sacramento Kings were a lot of fun to watch. Also a lot like those Suns teams, the Kings probably had as many flaws as strengths.
If nothing else, the Kings will always make me smile when I remember that Shaq referred to Vlade Divac as "a flopping bitch." Good times.
The Cuban-Nowitzki Mavericks
It's crazy how close that team came to a championship before getting absolutely screwed in the Finals. But let's face it, they're done.
Football Teams
The Jim Kelly Buffalo Bills
No sense kicking this dead horse anymore. No sense bringing up Scott Norwood's name. That would just be mean.
Late 80s Bengals/Browns
The state of Ohio actually came pretty close to winning a Super Bowl. For the Browns, it was their epic choking and John Elway that kept them from glory. For the Bengals, it was Joe Montana.
On some level, the Oilogosphere's coverage of Edmonton's Cinderella run to the SCF may not ever be matched for its sheer hilarity and insane genius. One could devote many a post (and many links) to the great portions of comedy that resulted from that special time but it ultimately just makes me sad that most of those guys are long gone.
One of the reasons I run a general NHL blog instead of a Penguins-related blog is that Pensblog covers the bases I would attempt to as a Penguins fan: they write over the top, offensive and funny things about the Penguins and include professional wrestling references. This post is my favorite of theirs and is generally just full of genius. Bonus points for the hilarious Photoshop of a bloodied Mike Richards.
I never actually watched a single episode of the show Rudy was talking about, yet I'll always go back to this post as a rebuttal for people who say that they can't write anything interesting during hockey's off time. This is one of the best posts to come out of BoC and it was during a dead time in the year. Rudy: "It's like someone put a camera inside my head and filmed my dreams."
Bird Watchers Anonymous with an in-depth look at drafting
Anyone who wants to contemplate how much of a crapshoot drafting can be needs to look no further than this exhaustive take on how each NHL team fares in the draft. It's also a great example of making deep stat analysis digestible for the unwashed masses.
Five Reasons Justin Bourne Loves Hockey
Puck Daddy often hits Internet-wide features out of the park and one of the best ones is their "Five Things I Love about Hockey" specials. What makes this piece especially interesting is that it takes a very humanistic approach to what makes hockey great and is written almost at a Ken Dryden's The Game-level. This shows that players can come up with some truly great stuff every now and then.
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Do you think that you've written something worthy of next week's list? Are you a reader of a smaller blog and feel it deserves some attention? Drop me an e-mail at cyclelikesedins@gmail.com and maybe you'll end up in the next Links around the League.
