I Bet the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man had a Small Five-Hole

While I was rooting around hockey-reference.com looking for attendance numbers, I came across this chart that nicely illustrates my problem with modern hockey, or at least one of my problems. Look at the change in save percentages over the years. In 1983-84, the first year for which save percentage is tracked, goalies saved 87.3% of the shots that they faced. The save percentage grows gradually over time, first getting above 90% after the 1993-94 season, which happens to be the year in which the NHL's popularity was at its modern apex, at least in the United States. Now, there were a lot of factors that led to hockey reaching that zenith: the Rangers ending their Stanley Cup drought and the attendant overreaction by the Northeast media; a dramatic set of post-season series; Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux both being active, established stars (although Gretzky was coming towards the end of his career); etc. I would add to that list the fact that offense and defense were in balance.

In this past season, goalies saved 91.3% of the shots they faced, which is the highest save percentage since the NHL started recording the stat. The Eastern Finals are being contested between goalies with save percentages of .941 and .932. These explosions in save percentage are galling to me because they are not the result of increased skill on the part of goalies. (I'm sure that goalies now are in better shape than they used to be, but the same would be true of the guys taking shots at them.) Rather, it seems inescapable to conclude that save percentages are way up because goalies get to wear a ridiculous volume of equipment, such that they take up the vast majority of the goal simply by basic positioning. I don't pretend to be enough of a hockey fan to make this argument based on extensive research and game watching, but from what little of the playoffs that I've watched, I've noticed on numerous occasions that goalies are credited with making great saves when all they did was position themselves and then let the puck hit them.*

I find the reduction of scoring based on bigger goalie equipment to be a turn-off because there is no skill involved in picking the right accessories and then getting dressed. Scoring is down and fielding percentages are up in baseball, but I have no problem with that. If teams are giving up fewer runs because they are deploying centerfielders and shortstops who get to everything, then I'm going to enjoy watching baseball more to see those athletes in full flight. (I'll acknowledge that the emphasis on better defense has come with the price of more at-bats for punch-and-judy hitters, so there is a trade-off.) In contrast, it's not exciting to watch a grotesquely-clothed goalie stop 19 of 20 shots without having to show quick reflexes. I'm not denying that goalies have to have great reflexes to play the position, but the same would be true for baseball players if they suddenly started hitting .400 with regularity because they got to use aluminum bats.

Bringing the discussion back to the soon-to-be-departed local professional hockey collective, I have to credit something that Steak Shapiro said. (There is a Jewish prayer called the Sheheheyanu that is recited whenever something good happens that has not happened for a while. That prayer seems appropriate at this stage.) When discussing the potential sale of the Thrashers several weeks ago, Steak hypothesized that the team has had trouble finding a local buyer in no small part because that buyer would not just be buying a franchise with a dwindling fan base and no profile in the local sports market, but they would also be buying into the NHL. In light of the fact that the league has allowed its product to be devalued by a basic equipment issue, that reasoning is persuasive.


* - Note that shots per game have remained relatively constant over time. It's not as if scoring is down because coaches are playing too conservatively. If that were the case, then shots would be down. Instead. the decline in scoring has to be primarily caused by goalies' equipment.

Rebranding in the NHL

I recommend the article in Tuesday's New York Times about the efforts of the Tampa Lightning to rebrand their product by simplifying the uniforms:

Redesigning the Lightning’s uniforms took six painstaking months.

“This is a big, long process involving researchers and writers and designers and strategists,” said Ed O’Hara, the chief creative officer of SME Branding, the New York firm hired to make the Lightning crest and uniforms evocative of hockey’s roots.

The path to rebranding the Lightning was littered with discarded sketches for jersey and crest designs, cashiered concepts for remaking the team’s image and weekly speakerphone conferences between New York and Florida to hash it all out.

It ultimately led to a simple blue-and-white uniform: a clean design redolent of the N.H.L.’s Original Six. Tampa Bay’s uniform is only the third in the league to use just two colors, after the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings.

Lord, please let this be a trend. With football uniforms headed towards the garish end of the continuum, it's refreshing to see a pro sports franchise realize that branding itself in a more traditional way makes sense. The fact that Tampa is in a non-traditional market makes the rebranding even more important. They've clearly come to the realization that they need to downplay the fact that they aren't one of the Original Six and the way to do that is to play in duds that look like they could have come from the 1930s. Of course, they have also been able to rebrand in the one way that would save hockey in Atlanta: new ownership.

Speaking of which, Tim Vickery made a great point on the World Football Phone-in a few weeks ago regarding coverage of futbol in Brazil and the point applies to the NHL. He was talking about the discussions in England regarding whether the new tenant of the London Olympic Stadium, either Spurs or West Ham, will tear out the track when one of the clubs moves in after the Olympics. In the process of making the point that having a running track kills the atmosphere for a match, he said that Brazilian TV companies can't get enough of the English Premier League in large part because the atmosphere is so good. The fans are screaming and singing the whole time and significantly, they are close to the action, so the cameras can pick up the facial reactions of the fans when goals go in.

Vickery's point has applicability to the NHL, specifically as an illustration of yet another way in which Gary Bettman has got things all wrong. He expanded hockey throughout the Sunbelt because of the size of the markets here. In the process of doing so, he reduced the value of the NHL as a TV property. Hockey already struggles on TV because it's hard to follow the puck. The sport needs to make up for this shortcoming in other ways. One such way is passion from the fans. Hockey fans tend to be screamers, especially in places where the game has deep roots. Leaving aside the fact that I live in Atlanta and want our city to have an NHL team, what is going to be more appealing to an average viewer: a playoff game in a beautiful, but somewhat sterile arena in Atlanta or Nashville or the same game played in front of crazy fans who live and breathe the game in Quebec City or Winnipeg? The NHL already has something of a spectacle problem by virtue of iconic franchises leaving their great old arenas for new, less interesting venues. (Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, and Boston all come to mind; Hockey Night in Canada just isn't the same without Maple Leaf Gardens. Now, if you'll excuse me, there are some kids on my lawn who require shooing.) The league adds to the problem by moving its product outside of its sweet spot.

Five Thoughts on USA-Canada

1. If you want to know why some people opine that Gary Bettman is a plant by David Stern to destroy the NHL, Bettman is having second thoughts about NHL players participating in the 2014 Olympics. Today's game makes me infinitely more likely to watch an NHL game or three over the remainder of the season. The game reminded me - a fan who used to follow hockey quite closely, but who has mostly dropped the sport because of a combination of work/family demands and the complete ineptitude of the local franchise - of what I loved about the sport, of what made me play it in the backyard at home. (Yes, the fabled story of a 12-year old kid playing hockey on grass in the 95 degree heat of a July day in Macon, Georgia. It's just what CBC would have in mind if they did a documentary on the sport at the grass roots level.) I'm going to venture a guess that the rating for today's game will dwarf the rating of any Stanley Cup Final game by a factor of five. So why would the NHL want its star players being exposed to a wider audience? Why would it want them showing the game at its absolute highest level? Why would the league have an interest in large audiences seeing its players bust their lungs on every shift?

2. The strange thing about the game is that I kept saying to myself "when is Sidney Crosby going to make an impact?" Crosby has the mantle as the next Gretzky (or at least the next Lemieux), and S.L. Price's piece on Crosby in SI before the Olympics got me excited for the tournament. Expecting Crosby to be the best player on the ice, I had a hard time finding any impact from him, other than a breakaway that he created in the third period and then flubbed. Sure enough, Crosby emerged from a quiet night with a sterling play to win the gold medal for Canada on Canadian soil. It's hard to overstate the movie-esque quality of the moment. Just read the Price piece if you haven't already and then try to think of the last American athlete who is or was as iconic as Sidney Crosby now is in Canada. (On a related note, how pissed is Alex Ovechkin tonight?)

3. At times during the game, I thought that there were two factors keeping the U.S. in a game with a more talented opponent. One was a superior goalie, the great equalizer in hockey. The other is the fact that the U.S. team is more like a regular hockey team, with a few stars and then a series of role players. Canada has gotten away from the notion of putting star players on all four lines, but they still seemed a little less constructed for a tight, grind-it-out game like the final. Then, Jarome Iginla and Crosby connected on a tremendous goal and I was reminded that sometimes, skill wins out. It's hard to imagine two American players combining like Iginla and Crosby did.

4. If there's a better way to end a sporting event than an entire arena belting out their country's national anthem, I'd like to see it.

5. Part of what was so cool about the game was that NBC presented it as a straight sporting event. I remember being in London during the 2000 Olympics and enjoying the Games far more than I normally do because the English presented the Olympics without the insultingly stupid engineered melodrama that NBC favors. Fortunately, NBC did nothing of the sort this afternoon, possibly because it has the NHL's national contract and has an incentive to show a hockey game in a way that will appeal to a sports fan like, say, me. More, please.