“Jersey fouls” before the Thanksgiving fowl

Captain Misfit passed on a great running bit by Yahoo! Sports’ Puck Daddy called Jersey Fouls which, as they describe, is their “ongoing exploration of the rules and etiquette for proper hockey jersey creation and exhibition.”  They show actual photo captures of the unorthodox things people have done to their hockey jerseys. Read it and weep, here.

We don’t have to look too far for our own examples. Silver B players aren’t so immune to such exhibition of creativity, for better or for worse:

GENERAL LEE 01 – Hogs01 takes his inspiration from the Dukes of Hazzard.

FOUR 20 – Ice Dawgs’ #20 in his throwback Dawgs green.

LOLO 16 – Captain Misfit also goes by another name.

YAMA 2 – It was just easier to call this Hogs alumnus “Yama”.

IL DUCÉ 4 – Hogs alumnus “The Dooch” found some inspiration in Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Yeah, I didn’t quite get it either.

I can appreciate the self expression, it definitely adds some personality to the game!

Singh10.

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.

The HogCam!

We have a ton of game pictures for our team, but one thing I always thought would be cool is to have game videos so that we can go back and look at some of our finer and not-so-finer moments from our games.  Instead of just telling people stories of the plays we made or the goals we scored, it would be nice to have videos to show friends and family who are not able to come to our games.

I recently bought a small handheld HD video camera called the Flip Mino HD. It’s about the size of a cell phone, records 4 GB of HD-quality video and plugs directly into a computer via USB. It records 60 minutes of HD video on a 2.5 hour battery.

We’ve taken two game videos so far. The small size of the camera makes it easy to carry around and use. Since ice rink lighting is challenging (due to fluorescent lights), the video comes out a little dark, but I think it’s pretty decent:

Many thanks to Heikila22 who recorded these games from our bench.

The only issue I’ve had is that after I download the video to my computer, I have to collapse the 45+ minute recording into a 10 minute highlight reel to upload on to YouTube. This takes is a bit of time consuming work and I’m not sure I’ll be able to sustain doing that every week. I will do it as often as I can though because it’s fun to watch (at least for me) and anything that I can do to improve the hockey experience for my teammates, I want to do.

I might be one of the few who likes the videos though. The reality shock of watching ourselves on video was a little overwhelming for some of our players. One teammate wanted me to destroy the camera, and another player threatened to quit the team.

On the next movie, I’ll put up a warning.

Singh10.

Some milestones

I am trying to be good.  I really am. 

It has come to my attention that behind my back, my name is being attached to silly accusations, and I have a strong temptation to address these things.  However, since I’ve resolved to stop the smack talk for the sake of peace in the Silver B galaxy, I will continue to bite my tongue even if it makes for less entertaining stuff to write about.  Besides, certain people are free to bring up their little accusations with me on Friday.  

So, onwards and upwards.  Let’s talk about some milestones that I’ve crossed over the past couple of weeks.

First, our game against the Ice Dawgs a couple of weeks ago was my 100th as a Puck Hog.  There’s nothing particularly significant about 100 games per se, other than that it’s a traditional milestone.  But, it’s still a good feeling to know I’ve played that many games for this great group of guys.  It’s a ton of fun every week, and not just because of the hockey.  All the postgame hanging out  we do into the wee hours of the morning at our pizza place or another local restaurant makes it totally worth it, win or lose.  We’ll talk or joke around about a gamut of topics - be it about the game we just played or mixed martial arts matchups within our own team.  It’s always a lot of fun and is the best way to kick off the weekend.

To date, I’ve played 103 out of 107 games for our team.  My “career” hockey stats look like this:

Singh10 Career Stats

My points per game went up a bit with the Hogs compared to when I played on the original Foothill Flyers, but I’ve been pretty consistent.  I’d like to think I’ve improved over the 100 games, but that might be a tough call.  The fact that my stats still show a little growth in light of facing more able players in our current league suggests that there was some improvement.  But hey, I’m still working on it.

Excluding some notable exceptions, at the time when Silver B was created, like most teams we Puck Hogs moved our whole team up to a higher league (the league we’re in now – Silver B).  We’ve had to face much tougher competition since then, which I’m glad we do.  Several of the original Silver B teams still retain much of their character from their Bronze League days, including the Misfits (formerly the Phantiaks, formerly the Phantoms/Kodiaks), Ice Dawgs, SMB (formerly Yo MaMa, formerly the Volcanoes) and our team, and I think there is something very positive to be said for that.

Another milestone that just passed was the second anniversary of the Hog Blog on July 5.  On the first anniversary last year, I did a quick summary, so I’ll do that again this time around.  In year two, the Hog Blog has seen:

• Visits: 11,085
• Posts: 54
• Comments: 134
• Busiest day: September 30, 2008
• Most visited post: “Holey the Goalie and Nogoalov” – 256 views
• Most visited page: “The Hog Blog” – 567 views
• Top five search engine terms: “hog blog hockey”, “bryan klein”, “puck hogs”, “puck hog blog”, “puck hogs roseville”.

I posted much more regularly last year, so I clearly need to pick up the pace.  Silver B, you have been warned.

On to year three!

Singh10.