hockey Archives - Page 3 of 9

Change is coming in sports but it's slow, hard work

As with the rest of the world, sports cultures are constantly in flux. Nowhere is free from the push and pull battle between honoring and conserving the past and pushing the present towards what we think the future should look like. These three stories show different elements of that battle from sport to sport, region to region, and issue to issue.

A Tactical Shift Sweeps Soccer, Only It Comes From the Police

by Sam Borden for the New York Times

For at least the past fifty years, soccer matches across the world have been popular vehicles through which to fight political or cultural battles. All to often these fights have literally been fights — mass mob violence. In an attempt to prevent violence at soccer matches, police have traditionally sought to overwhelm any trouble-makers with large numbers of well-armed and armored police. Just recently, some police forces have begun to take a more gentle and perhaps ultimately more effective approach.

The most dangerous factions of fans, security officials said, are generally the splinter groups or unaffiliated organizations that support a particular team. Many of these groups have political affiliations or ideologies, which can make their interactions more combustible.

While some cities — particularly in Eastern Europe, Mr. Martins said — have stuck to the older philosophy of using loads of officers carrying lots of weapons, a more peaceful strategy is growing in popularity. Instead of using “batons and barking dogs” to keep the peace, Mr. O’Hare said, the goal is to shepherd visiting fans to a particular area of the city and then help accompany the fans to the stadium.

The National Women’s Hockey League: Impatience Is A Virtue

by Kate Cimini for The Hockey Writers

Women’s sports have made an amazing amount of progress since 1972 when Title Nine went into affect, forcing all federally funded institutions (basically all schools) to provide equal opportunities for women. One of the largest deficits remaining is in the ranks of professional leagues for women’s team sports. The most successful of women’s leagues has been the WNBA which from its start was operated and subsidized by the men’s league, the NBA. None of the other major men’s sports leagues have followed suit by supporting a women’s league in their sport. Recently a group of people decided not to wait any longer for the NHL to initiate a women’s league but to do it themselves. I wish them luck and am excited that one of the original four franchises will be located in my new home town of Boston. I will be a fan!

The National Women’s Hockey league held its launch party Monday night at Chelsea Piers in New York City.

One thing was clear: the NWHL was born out of impatience. Impatience for women’s sports to be recognized as important, impatience for the next step, for women not only to have a place to continue to play hockey (as the CWHL allows) but to give them the ability to dedicate more of their time to it, as money affords time and opportunity.

Five gay college basketball coaches speak from the closet

by Cyd Zeigler for Out Sports

Despite rapid change in the outside world, the plight of homosexual men and women in the sports world remains annoyingly, frustratingly stagnant. Believe it or not, despite more than 300 schools competing in both men’s and women’s college basketball, there isn’t a single openly gay head coach. Cyd Zeigler, who does a wonderful job covering the gay sports beat, got a group of closeted gay coaches together and wrote their stories (while protecting their identities) of fear and anxiety with empathy and indignation.

Why would a closeted gay coach take a job where he had to sign an anti-gay lifestyle contract? College basketball coaching jobs aren’t exactly plentiful. There’s stiff competition for each opening from the head coaching spots on down the line. For someone recently out of college with no coaching experience, that first job is essential to his career.

Plus, his head coach knew Thomas was gay.

“It was the first question my coach asked me when he interviewed me,” Thomas said. The coach didn’t care as long as Thomas kept it quiet. “He needed a black assistant coach. I played at a high level. My knowledge of the game and skills-training were good. I was the one who related to the kids. He needed me.”

Fear of getting another job was pervasive in all of my conversations with these five coaches. There is a clear assumption — by them and the people in the profession closest to them — that by coming out publicly their chances of advancing in the profession will be dead.

Sports Stories: Waffle fries and victory

Everyone has a sports story. As part of my mission to create peace in the world between sports fans and non-sports fans, I am doing a set of interviews of people on both sides of the line. Whether you’re a die-hard fan with their favorite player’s face tattooed onto their body or someone who is not a fan but whose life intersects with sports in some way, you have a valuable story to tell. Sign up today to tell your story on our easy to use booking page.

To get things started, I’ll be sharing some of my own personal sports stories here.

Although we grew up in Central New Jersey, my friend James and I have been Pittsburgh Penguins hockey fans for around 20 years. Like many young people (read this New York Times article about this phenomenon) we jumped on the bandwagon of a winning team in that impressionable age bracket between 8 and 12. Back then, the Penguins were a skilled hockey team that played a wide open style of play. They didn’t care so much if their opposition scored five goals because they were convinced they could score six. This provided a striking contrast with our local team, the New Jersey Devils, whose tactical choice to turn hockey into a grapple-first, skate-second sport eventually sparked widespread rule changes. Not only were we rooting for a winner, but we felt we had the favor of the hockey gods.

Fast forward to the Spring of 2009 and James I were both living in New York City. We weren’t close friends but we hadn’t had a falling out, either. Call us, dormant friends. Then, the NHL playoffs started, and for the second year in a row, the Penguins began a deep run. In the first round, they faced their dreaded rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers. We started meeting up for games at a bar convenient to both of us called Dewey’s. The Penguins beat the Flyers in Game Six of the series. After giving up 3 goals to start that game, the diminutive and much-loved Penguin, Max Talbot, picked a fight with a much bigger Flyer. Talbot “got his ass kicked” as he said later, but it seemed to snap the team out of their malaise, and they rattled off five straight goals to win the game and the series. It was glorious.

Over the next few weeks, as the Penguins progressed closer and closer to their goal of winning the Stanley Cup, James and I settled into a superstitious pattern. Go to Dewey’s. Sit in the back. Get the waitress or busboy (most of whom knew us by then) to turn on the game. Order a pitcher of Yuengling. At the start of the second period, order chicken fingers and cheese fries and share them. We even had roles to play. James was the optimist, I was the pessimist. “They’re not going to win,” I would say, “the other team is too big, too strong, their goalie is too good.” James would talk me down. Our act worked. The Penguins beat the Capitals 6-2 in Game Seven on the road to win that series 4-3. The conference finals were a breeze — a four game sweep over the Carolina Hurricanes. This set up a rematch of the previous year’s Stanley Cup Finals between the Penguins and the Red Wings.

The series was an epic. The Red Wings won two games at home, then the Penguins won two games at home. The Red Wings took game five, the Penguins took game seven. Before we knew it, we were looking at one last evening at Dewey’s for game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. There’s nothing better or more thoroughly nerve-wracking than a game seven. The only problem was — James was hosting a party in his apartment that night. Not to worry, he said, he would get a friend to open his door and we could join the party after the game. NO WAY was he going to be responsible for a Penguins loss by changing up our routine.

We went to Dewey’s. The Penguins won. We hopped into a cab and rode it to Red Hook, Brooklyn, screaming happy inanities periodically through the open windows.

Thanks for reading. Share your sports stories with me soon. Book some time today.

Stanley Cup Playoff Companion, April 17, 2015

The playoffs are a wonderful time in sports but they can be hard to follow, even for the most die-hard fan of a playoff team. They’re virtually impossible for a non-fan or casual observer! No matter who you are, Dear Sports Fan’s Playoff Companion can help. Sign up to get text updates each day for your favorite team or teams or just for the team or teams you feel you need to know about in order to be able to have a decent conversation with your wife, husband, son, daughter, parent, colleague, or friend.

Montreal Canadiens vs. Ottawa Senators — Game 2, 7 p.m. ET on CNBC — Series is 1-0

Montreal Canadiens fans – Ignore the game outside the rink, all that matters is another win tonight.
Montreal Canadiens interested parties – This series has exploded into controversy thanks to a slash by Canadiens P.K. Subban that broke an opponent’s wrist. The controversy is fun but winning would be better.

Ottawa Senators fans – Vacillating between seeing red and wanting to keep calm and play on.
Ottawa Senators interested parties – Senators fans are up in arms about a slash that broke the wrist of winger Mark Stone. Anger mixed with disappointment is the cocktail of the day.

Washington Capitals vs. New York Islanders — Game 2, 7 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network — Series is 0-1

Washington Capitals fans – Time to even it up. No excuses, no tomorrows.
Washington Capitals interested parties – Having a better record than your playoff opponent means you get the first two games of the series at home. This is usually an advantage but if you lose the first game, as the Capitals did, it really puts the pressure on to win the second.

New York Islanders fans – There’s nothing better than being a road team in game two after stealing game one. It’s literally all upside.
New York Islanders interested parties – The traditional goal of a road team in a playoff series is to win one of the first two games on the road. The Islanders already did that, so the pressure is taken off this game in a big way.

Nashville Predators vs. Chicago Blackhawks — Game 2, 9:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network — Series is 0-1

Nashville Predators fans – Time to wipe the disappointed memories of double-overtime out of our heads. The positives will outweigh the negatives… if we win tonight.
Nashville Predators interested parties – Only the slimmest of margins separated the Predators from their opponents in game one. Fans will be hoping for the same kind of game with just a tiny bit more luck tonight.

Chicago Blackhawks fans – Win, rinse, repeat.
Chicago Blackhawks interested parties – The Blackhawks have been so successful over the past five years, that winning has become, if not expected, at least habitual. Spirits are high heading into game 2.

Vancouver Canucks vs. Calgary Flames — 10 p.m. ET on CNBC — Series is 0-1

Vancouver Canucks fans – Breath easy, relax, project confidence. Try to ignore your stomach starting to creep up into your throat.
Vancouver Canucks interested parties – It’s only been one game, but the pessimistic streak that typifies the true Canucks fan may already be starting to run rampant.

Calgary Flames fans – As long as the kids keep winning, maybe they won’t notice (and no one else will notice) that they’re in a bit over their heads.
Calgary Flames interested parties – The Flames are a young team that’s playing better than expected. Fans will be thrilled but with a tiny bit of reserve held for the moment things start going badly.

New York Rangers vs. Pittsburgh Penguins — Rest Day — Series is 1-0

New York Rangers fans – See? The Penguins are soft. Oh sure, they made a game out of it, but they don’t have our discipline or depth.
New York Rangers interested parties – The Rangers should have won and they did. Today is a good day for Rangers fans. Game two is Saturday night.

Pittsburgh Penguins fans – Oh no! Same old, undisciplined, mentally lapsing Penguins. Although they did look good for the other 58 minutes…
Pittsburgh Penguins interested parties – Your Penguins fans may seem either unusually affected or unaffected by last night’s loss. Both responses are normal.

Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Detroit Red Wings — Rest Day — Series is 0-1

Tampa Bay Lightning fans – Every fear we had about the Wings came to fruition in one night. Still, the hope is to wear them down.
Tampa Bay Lightning interested parties – A game one loss won’t dampen a Lightning fan’s enthusiasm… yet.

Detroit Red Wings fans – The Magic Man’s got a little bit of magic left. All hail Pavel Datsyuk.
Detroit Red Wings interested parties – A perfect road playoff game for the veteran Red Wings have their fans strutting just a little bit today.

St. Louis Blues vs. Minnesota Wild — Rest Day — Series is 0-1

St. Louis Blues fans – Not the start we were looking for, but all roads to Rome weren’t paved in a day, right?
St. Louis Blues interested parties – Encourage the Blues fan in your life to take the longer view of things. The first game didn’t go well, but were they really expecting to go 16-0?

Minnesota Wild fans – Never a doubt! The Blues may be more accomplished, but our team is a bad matchup for them.
Minnesota Wild interested parties – The Blues were a scary opponent for Wild fans but now that game one went so well, a little bit of confidence will be creeping in. That’s good, nurture it.

Anaheim Ducks vs. Winnipeg Jets — Rest Day — Series is 1-0

Anaheim Ducks fans – One down, one to go. The best way to mute the Winnipeg crowd is to beat their team twice in California.
Anaheim Ducks interested parties – The Ducks looked very strong in their first game and win of the postseason.

Winnipeg Jets fans – Doesn’t matter, let’s steal game two!!! GO JETS!!! Although, I will admit that the Ducks looked strong.
Winnipeg Jets interested parties – Losing game one will barely have an affect on the near-berserker levels of enthusiasm of the Jets fans in your life.

Stanley Cup Playoff Companion, April 16, 2015

New York Rangers vs. Pittsburgh Penguins — Game 1, 7 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network — Series is 0-0

New York Rangers fans – Better record, deeper team, more reliable goalie. No need for cockiness but lots of reasons for confidence.
New York Rangers interested parties – The Penguins have the two best players in the series, but the Rangers may have the next ten. In hockey, the better team should win.

Pittsburgh Penguins fans – After years of cruising into the playoffs only to come crashing down, maybe backing into them is going to be good luck?
Pittsburgh Penguins interested parties – These Penguins are not like the Penguins of the last five years. They’re a distinct underdog in this series.

Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Detroit Red Wings — Game 1, 7:30 p.m. ET on CNBC — Series is 0-0

Tampa Bay Lightning fans – Don’t get spooked by seeing the winged wheel. Our team won seven more games than the Red Wings this season. We’re better.
Tampa Bay Lightning interested parties – Tampa Bay has had some history of success but nothing approaching the traditionally powerful Detroit Red Wings. This year though, the Lightning have the better team.

Detroit Red Wings fans – Mrazek over Howard. In Babcock we trust.
Detroit Red Wings interested parties – The biggest story coming into the playoffs is the coach’s decision to start 23 year-old goalie Petr Mrazek over veteran Jimmy Howard.

St. Louis Blues vs. Minnesota Wild — Game 1, 9:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports — Series is 0-0

St. Louis Blues fans – Dubnyk has been unbelievable for the Wild… but he used to be on the Oilers, how tough could he be?
St. Louis Blues interested parties – The Blues have had one of the most complete teams for the past five years but have never won the cup. Could this be their year? It starts tonight.

Minnesota Wild fans – The Blues are an intimidating opponent but I think we can get to their goalie. At least it’s not the Blackhawks.
Minnesota Wild interested parties – The Wild are a good team but they can’t match up player for player with the Blues and not come out looking worse, except at goalie, which is the most important position… so they have a shot.

Anaheim Ducks vs. Winnipeg Jets — Game 1, 10:30 p.m. ET on CNBC — Series is 0-0

Anaheim Ducks fans – Games 1 and 2 at home are almost must wins because Winnipeg is going to be CRAZY for 3 and 4.
Anaheim Ducks interested parties – The Ducks are in the unenviable position of playing against the sentimental favorite Winnipeg Jets, who haven’t made the playoffs in 19 years.

Winnipeg Jets fans – Yes! YES! ARRRGHH*#%#@!!!!
Winnipeg Jets interested parties – Yes! YES! ARRRGHH*#%#@!!!!

Montreal Canadiens vs. Ottawa Senators — Rest Day — Series is 1-0

Montreal Canadiens fans – It wasn’t pretty but it doesn’t have to be. Game 2 is on Friday, let’s hope Subban doesn’t get suspended before then.
Montreal Canadiens interested parties – The Canadiens won the first game, so today’s a time to nervously celebrate and relax… a little.

Ottawa Senators fans – Stone. Microfracture. Okay, so we’re not going to win, but let’s kill them all.
Ottawa Senators interested parties – Montreal’s strategy seemed to be to injure the Senators best players and it worked. News just broke that Mark Stone, an important forward has a broken wrist.

Washington Capitals vs. New York Islanders — Rest Day — Series is 0-1

Washington Capitals fans – Oh no, not again. I know it’s just one game, but it feels like another collapse is coming. Ughhhghgh.
Washington Capitals interested parties – The Capitals are notorious for collapsing in the playoffs, so Caps fans quite reasonably, may assume the worst after game one.

New York Islanders fans – Home ice advantage gained. Mission accomplished. Game two is all gravy.
New York Islanders interested parties – After a win in game one, the Islanders now have the advantage.

Nashville Predators vs. Chicago Blackhawks — Rest Day — Series is 0-1

Nashville Predators fans – Get through it. Overtime happens. And when it happens again, it could happen for us.
Nashville Predators interested parties – Game one went into double overtime before the Predators lost. Today would be a good day to get your Predators fan an extra cup of coffee and a smile.

Chicago Blackhawks fans – And THAT’S how the playoffs work!
Chicago Blackhawks interested parties – Winning a game in double-overtime has some luck to it but also experience and determination, both qualities the Blackhawks have in large quantity.

Vancouver Canucks vs. Calgary Flames — Rest Day — Series is 0-1

Vancouver Canucks fans – Slow and steady wins the race. Game one wasn’t what we wanted but the Flames will sputter the longer the series goes.
Vancouver Canucks interested parties – The Canucks lost game one but there’s no reason to panic yet.

Calgary Flames fans – The Canucks can’t hang with us! Keep the Sedins off the scoreboard and we’ll keep winning.
Calgary Flames interested parties – Winning your first playoff game in six years is worth a celebration. Enjoy the moment with the Flames fan in your life!

Stanley Cup Playoff Companion, April 15, 2015

Montreal Canadiens vs. Ottawa Senators — Game 1, 7 p.m. ET on CBC — Series is 0-0

Montreal Canadiens fans – Time to beat the Senators soundly in game one and show them that what works in the regular season doesn’t always fly in the playoffs.
Montreal Canadiens interested parties – On paper, the Canadiens should be favored over the Ottawa Senators but the Senators have seemed magical on their run to the playoffs in the past two months. Nervous times before the first game.

Ottawa Senators fans – All you need to win in the playoffs is a hot goalie and there’s no one hotter than the Hamburgler. We got this.
Ottawa Senators interested parties – The Senators are an unlikely playoff team, having been way at the bottom of the standings just a couple of months ago. They made the playoffs thanks to an amazing run of wins and now their fans are hungry for more success.

Washington Capitals vs. New York Islanders — Game 1, 7 p.m. ET on USA — Series is 0-0

Washington Capitals fans – Shoot high on Halak, shoot high.
Washington Capitals interested parties – Caps fans may be wary after a string of playoff disappointments but they should feel confident going into this series against the New York Islanders.

New York Islanders fans – Steal one of the first two and then come back to home, sweet home, Nassau Coliseum.
New York Islanders interested parties – When your team starts on the road, like the Islanders do, the goal is always to win one of the first two games.

Nashville Predators vs. Chicago Blackhawks — Game 1, 8:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports — Series is 0-0

Nashville Predators fans – Score one and hope for Rinne. Game one, we can do this.
Nashville Predators interested parties – Despite finishing with a better record than their opponents, most Predators fans are probably justified in feeling their team is modestly out-gunned by their opponents, the Chicago Blackhawks.

Chicago Blackhawks fans – Of course Kane is back, he’s a hockey player. Let’s go Hawks!
Chicago Blackhawks interested parties – Blackhawks fans are excited to get the playoffs started, especially now that they know one of the team’s best players, Patrick Kane, will be returning from his broken collar-bone to play in tonight’s game.

Vancouver Canucks vs. Calgary Flames — Game 1, 10 p.m. ET on USA — Series is 0-0

Vancouver Canucks fans – Youth plays in the regular season, experience wins in the playoffs.
Vancouver Canucks interested parties – In years past, Canucks fans might have expected to win in the playoffs. Now that the team is a little older, fans are mostly happy just to have made it.

Calgary Flames fans – Argh. If the Flames were playing anyone but the Canucks, it would be easier to worry less about the result and simply enjoy the experience.
Calgary Flames interested parties – The Flames have been one of the most pleasantly surprising teams this year. They’re young and young teams don’t often win in the playoffs but this team could be older than its years.

When is assault, assault in ice hockey?

There’s an old joke, usually attributed to Rodney Dangerfield, about hockey that goes, “I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.” At the risk of trying to explain humor, this joke works because it flips what would be a more reasonable comment, “I went to a hockey game the other night, and a fight broke out.” In reversing the statement, the joke identifies a hidden truth about how many people watch hockey — the violence is the primary attraction and the sport, secondary. The juxtaposition of two news stories today from Yahoo!’s hockey blog, Puck Daddy, made me think about the joke in another way.

The first of the back to back stories was a story by Greg Wyshynski about an NHL player whose choice to play with a tinted visor on his helmet following a concussion casts doubts on whether he truly recovered. Wyshynski suggests that the player, Matt Calvert, played through concussion symptoms earlier in the year before being held out for fifteen games. Now that he has apparently recovered, he’s returning with a tinted visor because he is still sensitive to light. Now, it’s not impossible that his light sensitivity is unrelated to the concussion or that it’s not a sign that he hasn’t truly recovered enough to be playing, but it sure is suspicious. The second story, published eight minutes later by Sean Leahy, comes from Sweden, where a 31 year old hockey player named Andre Deveaux has had an arrest warrant for an assault charge issued following something which happened before a Swedish club hockey game. Deveaux felt he had been dangerously attacked by an opposing player in a previous game and decided to take his revenge during pre-game warm-ups. In video you can see Deveaux skating up behind an opponent, swinging his stick at the player’s feet, and then wrestling him to the ground. When asked about it afterwards, Deveaux protested that his actions were not as bad as his opponents, because he felt the hit he took was more dangerous (and indeed, he claims to have had concussions symptoms since that hit, although he still played) than the attack he perpetrated.

The connection between these two stories may not be obvious but I do think it’s significant. Both stories are about grappling with violence in the context of hockey. Hockey has a complex set of written and unwritten rules that determine which forms of violence are acceptable. The outside world does as well, both in the form of laws and cultural norms. When we criticize a sport for allowing a concussed player to return too soon after a concussion, we’re basing that view on our ever-changing set of cultural norms. When we issue an arrest warrant for a player for assaulting another player, we’re basing that on both laws and cultural norms.

In the first article, we never find out much about the hit that caused Matt Calvert’s concussion, but we don’t really need to. Like in American Football, the collisions that are integral to hockey are more than enough to plausibly and perhaps inevitably cause brain injuries among a good percentage of its players. That Calvert got a concussion playing hockey is understood — what’s at question is how he and his team and the league should be handling his diagnosis, recovery, and return to play. In the second article, the details of the incident are important. It’s rare but not unprecedented for a warrant to be issued from an incident on a hockey rink. Of course, hockey players assume a certain amount of violence when they step on the rink. Lots of what happens on a hockey rink would be fairly considered assault of the rink. What differentiates Deveaux’s assault from a normal body-check is primarily the rules, written and unwritten, of hockey itself.

“I went to a hockey game the other night and a conversation about cultural acceptance of violence broke out.” Is, perhaps, less of a good joke, but in this case, it’s probably more true to life.

Dear Sports Fan at 100,000

This morning I woke up to find that Dear Sports Fan turned 100,000 overnight. That’s right, since May 22, 2011, the first day of this blog’s existence, it has been viewed 100,000 times! The past almost five years have been an amazing time for me. This blog has gone from being a casual side-project to a passion to an almost full-time avocation. I’ve poured a lot of myself into the around 500,000 words I’ve written for this site and if there hasn’t been blood or tears so far, there has definitely been a lot of sweat. I want to thank the close to 3,000 people who have come along for the ride in a really meaningful way by following me on Twitter or Fancred or liking my page on Facebook. You all are the worm that keeps me excited about getting up early and writing. [BAD METAPHOR ALERT]

To celebrate, I’d like to share a little bit about the blog, give some stats and anecdotes from the first 100,000 views and talk a little bit about the next 100,000.

Statistics

How did Dear Sports Fan get to 100,000? Let’s let the numbers tell the story.

As you can see from this first chart, the site’s growth was reasonably consistent for its first three years, from May of 2011 to the spring of 2014. Then it starts picking up a little speed and grows a little more rapidly. Starting in August of 2014, the site’s growth accelerates like a mile runner kicking towards the finish line. This growth rate continues to get steeper until the last little bit of the graph. Translating those numbers to events, I can tell you that I became much more dedicated to the site in late 2013/early 2014. My dedication was rewarded with more views. More views fed my dedication, and during the Spring and Summer of 2014, as I struggled with the decision to leave my job of seven and a half years, I decided that part of what I wanted to do when I left was write Dear Sports Fan. After I left in August of 2014, I was able to start writing every day. This, combined with a particularly newsworthy NFL football season, sparked the growth you see in the curve above. This peaked with the Super Bowl on Feb 1, Dear Sports Fan’s best day ever with 966 views. Since then, there’s been a natural lull, both in terms of my writing and the public’s viewing. I’m actually thrilled that Dear Sports Fan has maintained its relevance as much as it has during the slow sports time after the Super Bowl.

An even better way of looking at these statistics is through a chart showing average views per day.

One fun thing to notice in the chart above is that every September before this past one has a little peak. This is the peak in interest as the college and NFL football seasons start and lots of people start wondering how football works and why our culture seems so obsessed with it. This past year I was able to take that peak and build on it. Two other spikes that are fun to notice and remember are February 2014, when I wrote a lot about and even traveled to the Winter Olympics in Russia and June 2014 when the World Cup made soccer a brief national obsession.

What’s Next?

I have two projects that I’m excited about starting. The first is a text message service for hockey or basketball fans and the people who live in, around, or with them. The NHL and NBA playoffs begin April 15 and April 18 respectively. The playoffs are a hectic time. Teams play almost every other night but are not always scheduled in a predictable way. The importance of each game is magnified to somewhere on a scale from vital to earth-shatteringly important depending on the context of the seven-game playoff series. Injuries are tracked with as much interest and as little forthrightness as Cold War era troop movements. It’s a lot to keep track of and I’d like to help out with a text message each morning. The second project will be a series of articles and podcasts describing major sports franchises and what’s unique about being a fan of that team. There’s a surfeit of information out there about sports teams but very little that helps the layperson understand what to expect from a typical Mets fan and how that’s different from a Yankees fan.

Both of these new initiatives are more focused on getting directly involved with people who read, listen to, or otherwise make use of the site. Engagement has been the biggest struggle so far and I’m really hoping this will help. If you’re interested in being a part of one or both of the new features, comment on this post or send an email to dearsportsfan@gmail.com. Let me know if you’re a fan or someone who lives among the fans and which team or teams you follow.

Thanks for all the support,
Ezra Fischer

Why do hockey forwards give their sticks to a defenseman?

Dear Sports Fan,

I’ve been watching a bunch of hockey lately and really liking it, but there’s one thing I don’t get. When a defender’s stick breaks, the announcers usually make a big deal out of the fact that a forward will give his stick to the defender. What is this all about? Why do hockey forwards give their sticks to a defenseman? Wouldn’t it be better for the forward to just hold on to his own and let the defender get a new one?

Thanks,
Blanca

Dear Blanca,

There’s a rule in ice hockey that forces any player except the goalie who breaks his or her stick to drop it immediately. I’m pretty sure that this is a safety rule. A broken stick becomes an unpredictable and extremely sharp tool. Playing a sport with what is basically a weapon in your hands is dangerous enough, there’s no reason to allow that weapon to get more dangerous. Sticks do break pretty frequently though — at least a few times a game. When a stick breaks, its player is forced to continue playing without the benefit of a stick. There are a few options for this player. Substitutions are free-flowing in hockey, so the player can skate to her bench and have another player replace her on the ice. If the player was just starting his shift on the ice and doesn’t want to come off, he can skate past his bench and grab a stick that someone on the bench hands him and keep playing. Among the coaches on every hockey team’s bench is an equipment manager. At least at the NHL level, equipment managers stock several sticks per player and are incredibly adept at noticing when a player breaks his stick, grabbing the right one from their stock of extras, and having it ready to be handed to him within seconds. One of these two options, either substitute quickly and get off the ice, or skate by the bench and get a new stick, is the solution for maybe 75% of the situations when an ice hockey player breaks a stick. The other 25% of the time is when things get tricky.

When a player breaks her stick while she is in her own third of the rink, playing defense, there isn’t as simple of a solution. In the defensive zone, the cost of skating to the bench to get a new stick or to substitute is generally thought to be too great for the benefit of getting a new stick to outweigh. Conventional wisdom says that it’s better to play defense with all your players, even if one doesn’t have a stick, than it would be to give the other team a brief numerical advantage. Okay, so, there’s no easy way out. The difficult way involves playing defense without a stick. It’s probably worth taking a minute to think about why this is such a disadvantage. A hockey player without his stick is not completely lost, but he’s very close to it. Hockey players on defense use their sticks to try to intercept or prevent passes, to tie up opposing players’ sticks so they can’t pass or shoot, and to check an opponent with. A player without a stick has to use her hands or feet to do all of those things, which reduces the radius that they can defend from a circle as wide as their stick is long (four to six feet) to just a few feet on either side. It reduces their effectiveness defensively and it means that even if they do get the puck, they’ll have to awkwardly try to kick it to pass it to a teammate or clear the puck to mid-ice. It’s not fun for anyone to play hockey without a stick.

When one of the three forwards on the ice breaks her stick, she keeps playing if the play is in her defensive zone. When one of the two defenders breaks his stick, one of the forwards on his team will try to sneak back and hand him his stick. Even when this move is successful, it means the forward has to play without a stick and the defender has to play with one that’s unfamiliar and could be too short or too long or even curved the wrong way. As you pointed out, this seems like it could be a bad move. It’s worth it for two reasons. First, if the defensive team is able to get the puck back, it’s far easier for a forward to get to the bench for a new stick or a change. Forwards play closer to the middle of the ice where the team benches are. The second reason is about what responsibilities each position has on defense. The role of a forward playing defense is largely obstructive. They try to get in the way of the offense – to not let them get comfortable with the puck, to get into places where attackers would like to pass the puck and to throw their bodies in front of shots. Defenders are more controlled and targeted in the defensive zone. Each defender will be responsible for one side of the ice near the goal. They clear offensive players away from the net with their bodies and use their sticks as a last line of defense to prevent passes or shots from close range. If there’s a rebound in front of the net or a scramble for a loose puck, they’re going to be the ones to get the puck and smack it out of a dangerous position.

Given their jobs while playing defense, offensive players are marginally less affected by losing their sticks and their jobs are slightly more expendable. That, plus the fact that it’s going to be easier for them to get a new stick or a quick substitution, is why they give up their sticks to a defender without one. The same thing is true, but even more so, when a team is killing a power play. When a four player, or three player penalty kill unit breaks a stick, their team is in serious trouble but it’s still better for a forward to be without a stick than a defender.

Thanks,
Ezra Fischer

What's a goalie? Why are they so crazy?

Dear Sports Fan,

Why do people say goalies are crazy? What’s a goalie anyway?

Thanks,
Jean

Dear Jean,

When I was in middle school, I discovered ice hockey. I remember lying on my bed and watching games on a little square television at my Dad’s house. Even back then, I felt compelled to jot down interesting things I heard, as if I was preparing to write a blog, despite this being years before blogs existed and decades before I started Dear Sports Fan. I still have some of the quotes I wrote down. One of them was about goalies:

Some people say 90% of goaltending is mental. I say 90% of goaltenders are mental!

I’m not positive who said that but it’s a safe bet that it was John Davidson, a former NHL goalie who was then the color commentator for the New York Rangers. He and partner Sam Rosen were definitely the most common hockey voices in my early memories of the sport. Goaltenders or goalies are frequently described as being a little bit crazy. It’s unclear whether the position attracts players who are a little bit… different or whether the position takes normal people and twists them. My guess is that it’s a little bit of both. In order to appreciate the colorful nature of goalies, it’s important to understand what the position entails.

The position of goaltender exists in many sports: soccer, ice hockey, field hockey, lacrosse, team handball, and water polo. In each sport, the goalie is the most specialized position. She exists solely to do whatever she can to prevent the other team from scoring. Usually the goalie is granted special privileges in order to help them in their task. The most dramatic of those is in soccer where the goalie is the only player who can use his hands. In ice hockey, the goalie gets to wear thick leg pads, a large chest protector, a catching glove on one hand and a blocker and wide stick in the other. An ice hockey goalie also has special rules which apply only to her, including protection against being hit. Lacrosse goalies are allowed to have sticks with much larger heads than other players to make it easier to block shots with them. Water polo goalies are allowed to touch the ball with two hands and even touch the bottom of the pool.

You might think all those extra privileges make goalie the easiest position to play. Not true! The extra privileges of the goalie in most sports are a recognition of how difficult their job is. The margin of error for goalies in lower scoring sports (which is most goalies because, not coincidentally, there’s a strong correlation between having a goalie and having a low-scoring sport) is tiny and the consequences for error are enormous. Take poor Robert Green, for instance. In 2010 he was one of the best 40 people in the entire world at his profession yet all he will be remembered for (literally, it’s going to be the first line of his obituary one day) will be this momentary lapse against the United States in the World Cup. Hockey goalies who save 90% of the shots they face are probably not going to last long in the NHL where the best goalies save over 92.5% of the shots they face. Compare that to a non-goalie who scores on 20% of the shots he takes and is celebrated as an extraordinary goal-scorer. Even in a relatively high scoring sport like team handball, where, according to the New York Times, a goalie “can allow as many as 30 goals and still be thought to have had a good game” being a goalie comes with its down-side. Goalies are so frequently injured by shots that the international federation in charge of the sport is considering changing its rules to reduce injuries.

The challenges and pressure that goalies face seems to attract or create two types of people: those who compensate through obsessive behavior and those who compensate through aberrant behavior. Almost all goalies are one of the two types, some are both. Hockeygrrl lists some of the more well-known obsessive behavior in her post about hockey goalies, including Patrick Roy’s refusal to let anything, even ice shavings into his net, Henrik Lundqvist’s ritual of tapping the wall the same number of periods he’s played so far in the game, and my new favorite, Jocelyn Thibault’s tradition of pouring “water over his head precisely six-and-a-half minutes before a game began.” For the more far-out their behavior on the other side of the spectrum, see Colombian soccer goalie Rene Higuita, who was literally nicknamed “the lunatic” and hockey goalie Ilya Bryzgalov who once responded to a question about the offensive threats on an opposing team by saying that he was “only afraid of [a] bear.”

No matter how you cut it, goalies are some of the most important and most colorful people in sports.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

The best sports stories of the week 2.28.15

No theme this week, just a selection of wonderful articles about sports that I flagged throughout the week. One of my favorite parts of writing Dear Sports Fan is reading other great writers cover sports in a way that’s accessible and compelling for the whole spectrum from super-fans to lay people. Here are selections from the best articles of the last week on the subject of attitude:

How Madden Ratings Are Made

by Neil Paine for the Five Thirty Eight

Oh no! Not video games AND sports. It’s true, the subject of this article is the attempt to accurately recreate the strengths and weaknesses of real-world football players in the most popular football video game, Madden. One of the most fascinating aspects of this piece is the graphic showing how different strengths are weighted in importance for different positions. You can learn a lot about real football from how the game programmers decided to do this. For instance, look at how the importance of the pass blocking skill varies across the offensive line positions. It’s most important for the left tackle, who protects the blind side of all right-handed quarterbacks. Note that the tight end is the only offensive position where all the skills have some importance to the overall rating — the tight end is a hybrid position that does a little of everything.

There’s no good way to overcome the problem of simulating a quarterback like Manning, whose most important skills — reading defenses, calling audibles, seeing things on the field that no one else can, and making sound decisions — are instantly negated when a gamer picks up the controller.

“Quarterback decision-making is the most difficult thing to simulate,” Moore said. “We’re trying to simulate strengths and weaknesses as best we can within the game, but how you play the game is still you.”

Wasp species named in honor of Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask

by Carolyn Y. Johnson for the Boston Globe

Everything you need to know is contained in the headline of this article… but that doesn’t stop it from being a ludicrously fun short read.

“This species is named after the acrobatic goaltender for the Finnish National ice hockey team and the Boston Bruins, whose glove hand is as tenacious as the raptorial fore tarsus of this dryinid species,” the authors wrote in the paper, which has been accepted and will be published in April.

The name also fit for other reasons. The project that led to the discovery of the species was underwritten by the government of Finland, Rask’s home country. The wasp is yellowish and black, similar to the Bruins’ colors. The grasping front legs of the female have claspers that look vaguely like goalie gloves.

The battle within Larry Sanders

by Kevin Arnovitz for ESPN

Two months ago, Larry Sanders was the promising young starting center for an NBA basketball team. Now he’s unemployed after negotiating a buy-out of his contract. What happened and what does it mean for mental health advocacy in sports?

This presents a stubborn paradox for NBA teams: Mental health treatment for players can’t realize maximum effectiveness until there are first-class services in place. But it’s hard to sell owners, management and players on shelling out for first-class services until they’re proved effective.

All the while, NBA players struggle in the shadows. Virtually everyone in the league can rattle off names of current or former players who needed serious help but never found it. A player who is getting razzed on social media for pouting his way through a season is actually dealing with the sexual assault of a loved one who lives across the country. Another player who seems uncomposed on the floor and confrontational with teammates and coaches suffers from acute anxiety and the prescribed medications are having an adverse effect. Read deeper into any story about fragile team chemistry or “off-court behavior” and there’s likely a component of mental health embedded inside.