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A guide to whether the “Let’s go [TEAM NAME]” chant works

Watching San Jose Sharks games can be a chore. For one, in the playoffs they exclusively wear those black jerseys with no vibrant accent colour, which look terrible in a building with such flat lightning. For two, their fans try to chant “Let’s go Sha-arks” with no regard for rhythm.

It’s clunky. The only teams that that works for are two-or-three syllable team names, where the stressed syllable is not the last one in the word. This is why “Let’s go PAN-thers!” works but not “Let’s go Ca-NUCKS!” or “Let’s go Is-LAN-ders!” and not “Let’s go Av-a-LANCHE!”.

Here are a list of teams for which “Let’s go [TEAM NAME]” works, following that criteria:

-Bruins
-Sabres
-Hurricanes
-Blackhawks
-Blue Jackets (or Jackets)
-Red Wings
-Oilers
-Panthers
-Predators
-Devils
-Islanders
-Rangers
-Senators
-Flyers
-Penguins
-Lightning
-Maple Leafs
-Capitals

You may notice the omission of the Coyotes, despite the second syllable being the stressed syllable in that word. This is because there are no fans with which to test that theory.

My NHL Awards ballot

I don’t get an NHL Awards ballot, but James convinced me to put one together and influence the masses.

I’ll steal the format used by Jesse Spector over at The Sporting News. He has all the definitions listed as well.

HART TROPHY

“To the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team”

Hart Trophy discussions often degrade into some wrangling over the definition of the word “value”. I think that “value” can also refer to things like jersey sales, ticket revenue and TV viewers, so if I did have a ballot, I’d see it more as a “Most Outstanding Player” award rather than one with a silly definition.

Otherwise a goaltender would win every year. No player was more instrumental in his team’s victories than Sergei Bobrovsky in the West or James Reimer in the East. Why should other players be punished for playing around better players?

1 - Alexander Ovechkin, Washington Capitals

2 - John Tavares, New York Islanders

3 - Jonathan Toews, Chicago Blackhawks

4 - Martin St. Louis, Tampa Bay Lightning

5 - Phil Kessel, Toronto Maple Leafs

EAST COAST BIAS

NORRIS TROPHY

“To the defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position”

Well this excludes P.K. Subban, who plays defence as a player on a Canadian team. Jokes about American spelling aside, the Boston Bruins have remained a competitive defensive team even with the best goaltender in the last seven years deciding to bolt the sport after deciding he was having too much fun.

1 - Zdeno Chara, Boston Bruins

2 - P.K. Subban, Montreal Canadiens

3 - Kevin Shattenkirk, St. Louis Blues

4 - Drew Doughty, Los Angeles Kings

5 - Kris Letang, Pittsburgh Penguins

CALDER TROPHY

“To the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition”

*Googles definition of ‘proficient’*

“Competent or skilled in doing or using something.”

Well if it were possible to find a definition more vague than “valuable” we found it in “proficient”. Tyson Barrie was very competent or skilled at what he did, or at least I thought so, but the Colorado Avalanche didn’t because they kept scratching him and sending him to the minors.

1 - Nail Yakupov, Edmonton Oilers

2 - Mika Zibanejad, Ottawa Senators

3 - Jake Muzzin, Los Angeles Kings

4 - Jonathan Huberdeau, Florida Panthers

5 - Brandon Saad, Chicago Blackhawks

LADY BYNG TROPHY

“To the player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability”

The “don’t get penalty minutes Trophy”. I think the referees should get to vote on this one. Instead I’ll just copy Jesse:

1 - Matt Moulson, New York Islanders

2 - Martin St. Louis, Tampa Bay Lightning

3 - Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks

4 - Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers

5 - Logan Couture, San Jose Sharks

SELKE TROPHY

“To the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game”

I find Shane Doan usually gets quite defensive, but that’s to officials and not usually on the ice.

1 - David Backes, St. Louis Blues

2 - Patrice Bergeron, Boston Bruins

3 - Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles Kings

4 - Andrew Cogliano, Anaheim Ducks

5 - Loui Eriksson, Dallas Stars

I couldn’t find a fifth there, so consider it the beginning of my quest to replace Jere Lehtinen in the hearts and minds of NHL fans with Loui Eriksson. They’ve both been at some point “the most underrated player in hockey” and in three years, nobody will be able to tell the difference.

NHL All-STAR TEAM

Center

1 - John Tavares, New York Islanders

2 - Jonathan Toews, Chicago Blackhawks

3 - Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins

Right Wing

1 - Martin St. Louis, Tampa Bay Lightning

2 - Phil Kessel, Toronto Maple Leafs

3 - Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks

Left Wing

1 - Alexander Ovechkin, Washington Capitals

2 - Matt Moulson, New York Islanders

3 - Thomas Vanek, Buffalo Sabres

Defencemen

1 - Zdeno Chara, Boston Bruins

2 - P.K. Subban, Montreal Canadiens

3 - Kevin Shattenkirk, St. Louis Blues

4 - Drew Doughty, Los Angeles Kings

5 - Kris Letang, Pittsburgh Penguins

6 - Ryan Suter, Minnesota Wild

Goaltenders

1 - Sergei Bobrovsky, Columbus Blue Jackets

2 - Antti Niemi, San Jose Sharks

3 - Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers

NHL ALL-ROOKIE TEAM

There’s more of this? Being a hockey writer is HARD WORK.

Forwards

1 - Nail Yakupov, Edmonton Oilers

2 - Mika Zibanejad, Ottawa Senators

3 - Jonathan Huberdeau, Florida Panthers

Defencemen

1 - Jake Muzzin, Los Angeles Kings

2 - Jonas Brodin, Minnesota Wild

Goaltender

1 - Jake Allen, St. Louis Blues

If regions in Westeros were regions in Canada…

The North: The North

Sending convicted criminals to serve to defend the Northwest Passage against the cold and cruel “Others” (chiefly, Danish people and Americans) has been shown to have little effect in deterring would-be criminals in the Crownlands.

The Crownlands: Eastern Ontario

Dragonstone, however, seems harsher than Algonquin Island.

The Iron Islands: Québec

The comparison falls apart when looking at geography, although both have popular political figures fighting primarily for sovereignty. Also, the ancient infrastructure of Pike is much sturdier than Montreal’s.

The Westerlands: Alberta

An oil baron always pays his debts.

The Riverlands: Southern Manitoba

The swampy and watery region connecting two sides of the kingdom makes this a natural fit, although Robert Barathneon’s famous rebellion on the Red Fork worked out worse for the crown than Louis Riel’s on the Red River.

The Reach: Lower Mainland & Vancouver Island

Come on. Why else would they call it “Highgarden”?

Dorne: Southern Interior British Columbia

The Okanagan region is known for its exotic fruits and fine wines. The Thompson region is known for its desert climate. The mysterious, regionally-distinct populace from the Kootenay’s are known for being the last to bend the knee to Her Majesty the Queen (we think).

Goaltending in a playoff series that happened 9 years ago

TSN had a Top 10 a couple of nights ago of Jarome Iginla’s moments as a Calgary Flame. One of the moments was Game Seven against the Vancouver Canucks in 2004, when he scored two goals and an assist in a 3-2 overtime win against a heavily-favoured Vancouver team.

I remember vague parts of that series. What I didn’t remember is just how awkward Alex Auld looked on the three Flames goals in that game. They weren’t bad goals, but Auld mostly falls over when allowing goals and looks worse than most goalies.

2004 the Canucks won the Northwest Division with a six-game win streak and it was a pretty big deal since it was the first time since the NHL went to geographical divisions that a team other than Colorado won this particular one. Anyway they came into the playoffs favoured against the No. 6 Flames. Cloutier got hurt in Game Three, and the Canucks lost Games Four, Five and Seven with Johan Hedberg and Alex Auld splitting duties.

Wanted to see exactly how his goaltending stacked up versus Hedberg and Auld in that series. I went back and looked at even strength shots against each goalie. Here are the tables against Canuck goalies:

And tables against Flames goalies:

Shots per team per game:

And team shooting percentages. Even strength only:

Hedberg was pulled for Game Five after a pretty lousy Game Four, but he had a pretty good game it looks. He allowed two goals on the powerplay and the Canucks lost 4-0 on an empty netter. Not sure why they decided to bring in Auld but it looks like a crummy decision in retrospect. That said, it’s tough to beat a team when you’re being out-shot at even strength and the other goalie is stopping 94.2% of pucks. My hypothesis that the Canucks would have won the series if Cloutier stayed healthy doesn’t hold because the game that’s weighing Auld’s numbers down is a game that the Canucks won anyway.

But… Cloutier got hurt in November of 2006 as well. At the time of his injury, the Canucks were 13-6-2 and a point back of four other teams for second place in the league. The team finished in 9th and Alex Auld was voted Team MVP by the fans, presumably because Vancouverites are awful at judging goaltenders. Always go with the French Canadian.

Gary, Donald and the League (Watching Baseball)

*sung to the tune of Terry Cashman’s Talkin’ Softball**
**sung to the tune of Terry Cashman’s Talkin’ Baseball

Well Bettman he had done it
All we could do was shun it
With Donald Fehr clucking all the while
Fans on the corner were forlorn
The season openers we would mourn
But now it seemed that hockey
Was no longer in style

We’re watching baseball
Talking Mike Trout and Cabrera
We’re talking baseball
Coco’s fielding error
Hockey on the shelf it’s all we can do
I’ll retweet this funny A-Rod joke for you
No love for Gary, 
Donald 
And the League

Ranking the James Bond title songs

Adele’s Skyfall theme dropped last night. I think it’s pretty solid. I ranked it “better than Carly Simon”, which puts it somewhere in the top half of overall James Bond theme songs. I’ve ranked them here for convenience. Keep in mind Dr. No did not have a traditional title track.

1. Live And Let Die
2. The World Is Not Enough
3. Goldfinger
4. Another Way To Die (Quantum of Solace)
5. You Know My Name (Casino Royale)
6. Diamonds Are Forever
7. For Your Eyes Only
8. Moonraker
9. Thunderball
10. GoldenEye
11. Tomorrow Never Dies
12. Nobody Does It Better (The Spy Who Loved Me)
13. You Only Live Twice
14. From Russia With Love
15. We Have All The Time In The World (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)
16. Die Another Day
17. The Man With The Golden Gun
18. License To Kill
19. The Living Daylights
20. A View To A Kill
21. All-Time High (Octopussy)

Just upon first glance, it doesn’t appear that theme song correlates with film quality.

And before you say it, screw you, You Know My Name is a solid track.

Gary Bettman thinks fans are stupid

When Gary Bettman talks about competitive balance in these terms:

Bettman: ‘We’ve had 7 years of great competitive balance and we’ve seen 29 teams make the playoffs’ #BettmanBeaksTheLeafs

— Bryan Hayes (@HayesTSN) September 13, 2012

…he has framed the question is own way, to try and make fans sympathetic to his cause.

This is not about competitive balance. This is about extracting every dollar you can from the Players’ Association.

Why? Well, in Major League Baseball, nine teams in the last seven seasons have missed the playoffs:

• Baltimore
• Houston
• Kansas City
• Miami
• NY Mets
• Pittsburgh
• Seattle
• Toronto
• Washington/Montreal

21 have made it.

The difference is, of course, in the NHL, 16/30 teams make it as opposed to 8/30.

Since the lockout, just 23 NHL teams have come top four in their own Conference, leaving out these teams, not just Toronto:

• Colorado
• Columbus
• Edmonton
• Los Angeles
• NY Islanders
• Tampa Bay
• Toronto

When Gary Bettman and the NHL make claims about “competitive balance”, what they’re really saying is “we think you, the fan, are stupid so we will tell you, the fan, deserve a more competitive league and lower ticket prices.”

Baseball has no salary cap, and yet its teams are almost as competitive as they are in the NHL. Theoretically, shouldn’t only New York, Boston and Philadelphia have made the playoffs in the last seven years in baseball?

Everything about this feels so artificial. Artificial means of creating competitive balance, artificial means to increase scoring, I feel like Bettman is a Diet Coke salesman.

The NHL only cares about cost-cutting, not league growth

Let’s say that the Phoenix Coyotes makes $55M in revenue next season and the Columbus Blue Jackets makes $70M over a full season.

Let’s then suggest that two new teams, in Markham, ON and Québec City, QC are somewhere in the upper echelon of revenue teams, according to Fobres, as other Canadian franchises are. They make $152.5M each.

Replace Phoenix and Columbus with Markham and Québec City, and the league has an extra $180M in revenue to work with.

Why this is important… is that an individual NHL player’s share of that revenue is $138,648.65. Think how much that is costing every player in the NHL. That’s quite a bit of money.

The players want more revenue, obviously, but what about the owners? Well, with $180M in revenue, since the salary cap is tied to league revenues, puts the salary cap and salary floor up $3,420,000.00.

The revenues of the individual teams like Toronto and New York and Philadelphia is tied to supply and demand inside their market. They do not benefit from the league growing as a whole, particularly now that the USA TV contract is locked up for 10 more seasons.

If the NHL is looking at a one-time cut in costs, I can’t get behind their program.

3 thoughts on the eve of the NFL season

1 - I’m optimistic for the Seattle Seahawks for the first time since the 2006 season.

2 - It’s 2012 and there are more NFL teams named “Redskins” than there are teams based in Los Angeles.

3 - Holy shit, I get the concept behind the Minnesota Vikings’ helmet now. Neat!

Stuff I wrote on Friday

I think Friday, August 17 was one of the best days I’ve spent as a blogger. I wrote a lot of things and some of you thought they were pretty cool, so kudos to you all for being good judges.

First off, at Backhand Shelf, I wrote about why big-market NHL owners pretty much control the floor: http://blogs.thescore.com/nhl/2012/08/17/this-is-an-owners-league-and-competition-is-futile/

At the Leafs Nation, I wrote two posts. Good guy Eric “I hate it when you say my last name” T. had a very interesting statistic about quality of competition. I talked about how this new statistic affects the Leafs: http://theleafsnation.com/2012/8/17/joffrey-lupul-sees-too-much-of-chara-for-his-own-good and then made jokes about how brutal EA NHL 2013’s player rankings are: http://theleafsnation.com/2012/8/17/nhl-13-ratings-released-grabovski-listed-as-first-line-c

I wrote about the Montreal Canadiens: http://nhlnumbers.com/2012/8/17/montreal-canadiens-2012-13-annual-les-habitans-du-sous-sol

Finally, it really bugs me when pro writers who make a lot more money than me are pretty lazy and sort of make up topics on which to write about without providing any new information. I’m sure Dan Rosen is a nice guy, but I had a lot of fun here: http://blogs.theprovince.com/2012/08/17/five-obvious-questions-about-the-canucks-an-nhl-com-writer-asked-nobody/

Then I don’t know.