Silver B’s goals for versus goals against, by team

We’ve now gone through nine games of the Winter 2009/2010 season – two preseason and seven regular season games.  What this means is that every team has played every other team at least once. 

I thought it would be a good opportunity to do a little survey of goals scored for and against for each team in the league.  As our preseason stats are woefully non-existent, here is a comparison of all of our regular season stats by team based on Skatetown’s stats:

RANK = Position in standings; GP = Games played; GF = Goals for; GA = Goals against; DIFF = Difference between GF and GA

Teams are ranked by their current position in the standings, and it’s not a shocker that there is a correlation between a team’s goals differential and their position in the standings.  

Some initial interesting observations:

• The Puck Hogs are in a cluster with Rehabilitated and the Misfits in terms of Goals For, Goals Against and the Difference between the two.
• The Pints score goals similar to the three teams mentioned above, but their goals against is among the teams in the lower half of the standings.
• The Flying Wizards and Pirates score significantly more goals per game on average than the rest of the league.  The Pirates are scoring almost six goals per game (two more than the next highest team) but give up almost four goals a game.  The Flying Wizards are scoring five goals per game but are allowing fewest goals per game of any team.
• Despite having a differential of less than one goal (i.e. on average they score about a goal more than they allow), the Misfits find themselves in third place. 
• The Rough Riders A and Norcal Crossover A both score the fewest goals per game, at just over two.  They both are also “A” teams.  Having the “A” might be too much of a burden.
• Norcal has allowed fewer goals compared to the Rough Riders.  Coincidentally, both teams lost some talent this season, as one of Norcal’s players was moved out of Silver B, and the Rough Riders lost their top scorer to the Flying Wizards (who offered the player a fee discount if he switched).  It seems the loss of these players has affected the competitiveness of Norcal and the Rough Riders.

Any other thoughts, comments, or interpretations?

Singh10.

Monday Musings: What’s up my sleeve?

We lost against the Flying Wizards last Friday, but in many ways it felt like a win.

Coming into Friday’s game, the Flying Wizards were undefeated this season and it’s not hard to figure out why.  The team gets better not because their own players are improving, but because they find ways to add more sandbaggers to their ranks each season and this Winter Season is no exception.  Their roster contains so much upper level talent that they make a mockery of our league rules, and of their opponents.  Several of their players are so talented that they can skate end-to-end and back again unchallenged.  When you hear their bench cheer that behaviour on, you feel a little embarrassed for them.

Clearly there’s not a whole lot we can do about it, other than to try our best to compete.  Sure, playing against stiffer competition might theoretically help us to become better players, but when our players push themselves beyond their limits just to keep up, it becomes a dangerous situation – not for them but for us.  Indeed, a couple of our guys got hurt on Friday night because just to be competitive with that overly talented group they had to exceed their own safety levels.

Regardless, to run with the Flying Wizards we knew that it was going to take more than just trying hard.  There isn’t that kind of parity in our league where just trying hard is going to help you be successful.  The week prior, the Flying Wizards not only outscored their opponents 9-0, but they did this by outshooting the other team 33-6.  Their opposition didn’t even stand a chance.  We saw this and didn’t want to suffer the same fate so we discussed a few strategies in the locker room before the game. 

Our strategies were not rocket science but we really made ourselves proud in that we executed and stayed focused throughout the game.   It worked well.  We knew we wouldn’t be able to generate their kind of offense (and indeed, we were heavily outshot ourselves) but we played a strong defensive game and our goalie came up big.  We jumped up to a 2-0 lead before the Flying Wizards capitalized on some bounces and tied it up. 

The other thing I was personally happy about was that when we went to the shootout, we maintained our tradition of giving everyone on our team a chance to shoot.  We cycle through player numbers so that everyone gets their chance to be a hero.  On the other hand, the Flying Wizards do what they always do: give ice time and shootout preference to talented players at the expense of lesser talented ones.  Nonetheless, we took them to eight or nine rounds of the shootout before one of their college players scored.  As one of the referees said to me after the game, we should be proud that we took that team that far.  And, we were.  Even though it was a loss for us, not a single head was hanging in our locker room afterwards.

Furthermore, an incident occured after this game that I will not let pass without comment.  Many will disagree with me, but I don’t believe the postgame handshake is automatic.  There is some meaning behind the act and it is a gesture that is to be deserved. The handshake is an expression of goodwill between two parties or people:

The handshake is initiated when the two hands touch, immediately. It is commonly done upon meeting, greeting, parting, offering congratulations, expressing gratitude, or completing an agreement. In sports or other competitive activities, it is also done as a sign of good sportsmanship. Its purpose is to convey trust, balance, and equality.

When I have felt that there was a particularly poor display of sportsmanship or there was a blatant lack of goodwill, I do not engage in the handshake.  Some will say that I am being unsportsmanlike in refusing, but when my team has been intentionally wronged by another, it doesn’t make sense to me to shake hands and say “good game”.  Play a good, fair and competitive game, and I will shake your hand. It’s not common for me not to shake hands after a game, however. In the over 200 games I’ve played at Skatetown, there were only about three times that I had not shaken hands.

Having said all this, I will be honest and say that ahead of this game, I had no intention of being in the postgame handshake line up with the Flying Wizards.  In our last game against that team – the infamous playoff loss where the Flying Wizards got away with cheating – I did not participate in the line up due to their actions and I still have issues with the sportsmanship and sense of fair play (or lack thereof) that team displays each season.  Nothing has occured since that playoff loss that has made me change my mind about them.

On Friday, when our game ended and the Flying Wizards won, my teammates began lining up for the postgame handshake.  I thought about this for a second, and decided that while I personally didn’t want to shake the hands of that team (there a few exceptions of one or two people on that team I actually like), since my teammates were going to do it, I should do it too.  I participated in the handshake not because of the Flying Wizards, but out of respect for my teammates.

I swallowed my pride and shook each of the Flying Wizards hands, but oddly enough one of the Flying Wizards grabbed my sleeve and tugged my jersey instead of shaking my hand.  I paused and reached my hand out again and he just skated past to the next person.

After the line up I approached this player and asked him why he didn’t handshake (since I really had no beef with him at any point during this game), and his response was simply “it’ll never happen”.  He then turned his back and skated away.

So be it.  If my participation in a handshake is conditional, I won’t complain if someone refuses to shake mine (unlike a past Flying Wizard who would chase me down after every game and complain if someone didn’t shake his hand, or if there were not enough pumps in the handshake or of the person squeezed too hard, or not hard enough, etc.). Furthermore, this player tends to be one of the more dirty players on the ice, and recently openly referred to me as a “turban-wearing [expletive]“, and to some of the women in our league as “c*nts”.   

While I’ve been called all kinds of names by various members of the Flying Wizards to insult my playing ability or call into question my sexuality, to take a shot at my ethnicity is off limits and uncalled for.  Still, I would be foolish to expect any kind of  apology from that team for the bigoted comments by their player. The fact that someone made such a comment, and that it came from a Flying Wizard, is not a big shock either.  I’m sure much worse is said about me behind my back, as most racists do not behave so openly.

I’ve always known it was just a matter of time before someone made some kind of ethnic slur towards me.   To our hockey community’s credit, it took five years before someone openly called me something, and I’d rather focus on that and the hundreds of decent players I’ve come across rather than the one or two bad seeds at our rink.

Accordingly, if a bigoted misogynist on the Flying Wizards refuses to shake my hand, I’m not losing any sleep over it.

Singh10.

Vindication

I’m really proud of and happy for the team after last Friday’s win over the Flying Ringers.  Our team played great.  To a player, there was a definite determination to play hard against the other team at both ends of the ice and it showed.

Even after the Flying Ringers tied the game late (after they significantly cut the ice time of their less talented players in the third period to give their sandbaggers more ice time), we didn’t lose our resolve.  There was no panic and right to the end we felt we could beat them.

The game proved to be a vindication of many different things:

• We finally were able to put together consecutive wins – that too against the top team in the league.
• We defeated them after they crushed us 9-3 earlier in the season.
• After they tied it up, one of their players began showboating on the ice after he scored.  It was nice to get the win after that display.
• One of our players, who during the offseason was told he wasn’t good enough to play for the Flying Ringers, scored a goal in his first game against them.  He now has more goals himself than about half their team combined, and has more goals than the person on that team who told him he wasn’t good enough.  I couldn’t be happier for our guy!
• Another of our teammates played injured and played an excellent game, scoring a goal himself.
• Two guys got their first goals of the season.  That leaves just one left to get a goal and when he does, every player (besides our goalie) will have scored at least one goal.  That’s awesome.
• After watching the game and how the Flying Ringers play, a couple of people commented to me after the game about how they were now convinced that what I have said about that team is true.
• Despite the Flying Ringers essentially benching their less talented players so that their sandbaggers could get them the win, they ended up losing the game.

Like many other teams in our league, we continued to roll all our lines throughout the game. Equal ice time in rec hockey is an ethic that many team captains share in our league and across rec hockey.  I’m glad that not only did we stick to it, but it payed off with the win as well.

I consider equal ice time a fundamental right in rec hockey.  It is sacred.  We all pay the same fee to play, and so we all deserve equal ice time regardless of our talent or ability.  Another captain in our league commented after our game about how the cutting of ice time of lesser able players by the Flying Ringers was “unfortunate”.  However, what is most unfortunate is that the team is proud of it and use it as a legitimate strategy.  As one of their more talented players said about this strategy:

It was a great game, even without some of our ringers and we almost gotrdone regardless. It’s alway a great time to play the Hogs and even that much sweeter when we see our game plan come together…..right down to the last 31 seconds!!

I’m not surprised that they pulled that move, we’ve seen them do that before when they are losing.  What I am surprised about is that people on that team even tolerate it.  Such behaviour was the catalyst for me leaving that group of players in the first place many seasons ago (back when we was Bronze), and last Friday was just more validation that I made the right choice.

Singh10.

A little motivation for tonight