Friday, April 27, 2012

Two G Goofs

The graphic you see below is from Sports Illustrated. It's comparing the shifts and productivity of NHL players. (For those who aren't hockey fans, NHL players come on and off the ice frequently during a game. A shift is the time spent on the ice by a player.) According to the chart, Ilya Kovalchuk, for example, spends an average of 60.98 seconds on the ice during each of his shifts. For the season, he has scored two goals and added seven assists.

Now take a look at the totals for Joe Thornton and Alex Ovechkin. What, exactly, are "G Goals"? I've heard of PP (power-play) goals, SH (shorthanded) goals and even GW (game-winning) goals, but not this. To co-opt a hockey term, it appears as if no cross-checking took place. For that, the editor earns two minutes in the penalty box.

4 comments:

  1. I wish Joe and the Sharks would have scored more “G Goals” or any other type of goal instead of choking in the first round. It was supposed to be their big year and instead it was the quickest departure from the playoffs in team history.

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  2. Oh, I feel your pain, John. San Jose has been my “adopted” NHL team ever since my beloved Whalers set sail for Carolina in 1997. The Sharks are most definitely NOT an easy team to support. I’ve been let down by them time and again — and this season’s first-round loss as a #7 seed was one of the least painful to bear. The frustration was greater and the heartbreak bigger when the Sharks lost in the first round as a #1 seed and when they got spanked in three Western Conference finals. Their repeated futility, ineptitude and failure haven’t gone unnoticed. Earlier this month, Sports Illustrated described San Jose as an underachieving NHL franchise. The label fits. Sadly. The Sharks have no bite … and I fear they never will.

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    1. Inconsistency is the hallmark of the Sharks. Just when they look like an amazing team, they suddenly go on a huge losing streak and find themselves fighting for a playoff spot. The team lost their chemistry at some point during the trades. With so many teams on the East Coast, why did you adopt San Jose?

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    2. I tend to be a tad more pessimistic than most, so even if the Sharks were up three games to none in the Stanley Cup finals — and up 3-0 in the third period of Game 4 — I’d hesitate to believe that a first championship was in store.

      Why did I adopt San Jose? I did so for a few reasons, most of them trivial. I’ll list my reasons, working from most trivial to least trivial. 1. I liked the teal-and-black color scheme and the nickname. 2. I rooted for Owen Nolan back in the day because, let’s face it, a guy named Owen doesn’t have many namesakes to follow. And, when the Whalers left Connecticut in 1997, Nolan happened to be playing for the Sharks. 3. As a Whalers fan, I grew up rooting against the other East Coast teams, so I couldn’t pull a 180 and root for, say, the Rangers or Bruins. No way. I figured it’d be best to cast my net as far as possible and, before you know it, I wound up in San Jose. The rest is history — a history filled with letdown. Maybe next season. Probably not.

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