By E. Martin Nolan The debate over advanced stats in hockey is by now well-established, but it is also still young. The usual positions have been staked out by the usual suspects, with the old school predictably favouring their own intuition and experience while the outsider stats nerds lead a slow insurgency based on numbers…
By E. Martin Nolan An Open Letter to NHL Players Brad Marchand: “The more we play each other, the more we hate each other.” Sidney Crosby: “I hate everyone on their team.” Dear NHL Players, Think about how people see you for a second. From the most skeptical perspective, you are grown men playing a…
By E. Martin Nolan Do the NHL Playoffs Facilitate Catharsis? Shea Weber knew he’d be hit, even though the game was over. Henrik Zetterberg went after it like it was midway through the period, like he’d actually be able to make a play. So Weber slams his head into the glass, twice. But let’s not…
By E. Martin Nolan So the Toronto Maple Leafs have apologized to their fans for another awful season. How do you think that went over? Yeah, not so well. Based on the initial response, the fans have refused to accept the apology, instead taking this as another opportunity to bash the organization they feel has…
By E. Martin Nolan A follow-up to “Are the Toronto Maple Leafs a Public Institution? No (but Also Yes)” A professional sports team may have a genuine public aspect to it, but it looks a lot less like a public institution when it’s failing. Witness this year’s sad Toronto Maple Leafs. You’d be hard-pressed to…
By E. Martin Nolan In the Moment Last month, Puck Daddy’s Greg Wyshynski defended the fan’s natural inclination to root for an opposing player’s injury. The occasion was an incident in Montreal, where some fans cheered when opposing super villain Zdeno Chara was hit in the face with the puck (Chara was not seriously injured,…
By E. Martin Nolan Of course, you see past the positive vibes. Hockey Weekend in America is a sales pitch put on by the NHL that relies on a positive notion of the game itself and on the game’s growing influence in America. The sale comes first, but it relies on the positive vibes being…
By E. Martin Nolan Backhand Shelf’s Daniel Wagner thinks it’s weird that Ralph Nader entered the public debate over fighting in hockey. He also thinks Nader’s open letter to Gary Bettman exposed Nader as a hockey know-nothing. He’s wrong on both accounts. On the latter point, Wagner employs an unspoken double standard to dismiss Nader’s…
By E. Martin Nolan A month ago, when it became clear that The Winter Classic would be played in Ann Arbor and not Detroit, I argued that the NHL was wrong to deny Detroit the opportunity to host the game, all for the cash incentives offered by the use of Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.…
By E. Martin Nolan There was downtime before the meeting. I asked, “Leafs for real this year?” His response was tentative, but cynical as he was, you could clearly sense the relief he felt for even being able to seriously answer this question. Someone else chimed in, “you’re from Toronto?” My co-worker affirmed this third…
Hockey in Society / Hockey dans la société 