an interesting idea for the baseball strike zone

Sometimes when flipping channels I'll stop on a major league baseball game and watch a few batters or a half inning. I used to watch a lot of baseball when I was young. Not so much the last few decades. If the Blue Jays have a good team in the playoffs I might watch a game if I remember when it's on.

So I'm randomly watching this game with the terrible California Angels. The announcers to fill time in this game between bad teams. They mention in their random banter this idea being kicked around baseball executives.

The idea is to make the strike zone both lower and wider.

I hear this and it's like aha! that would work. This change would simultaneously accomplish the following

• reduce walks
  
• reduce strikeouts
• reduce home runs

Baseball would immediately benefit from this change. They should make it. The number of at-bats resulting in some kind of ball-in-play has been in decline for decades now.

The analytics guys are geniuses. But the problem is that they "solved" baseball. Through intense and computer-assisted analysis they found "flaws" in the design of baseball rules. This led to overemphasis on walks and home runs as the optimal offense strategy.

The simple change in the strike zone would (for a while anyway) defeat or at least set back the analytics wonks.

With more batters putting the ball in play, then defense and baserunning becomes more important again. Walks, strikeouts, and home runs will still be an integral part of baseball, as they have been since the start in the nineteenth century, but just not quite as much. I hope MLB makes this change.

could uncertainty increase the effectiveness of icing the kicker

I remember when I stated watching football decades ago now, in the early 1980s. There was this novel strategy that coaches used when the opponent was facing a late and crucial field goal attempt.

The coach would call a timeout before the opponent could kick. This strategy is known as "icing the kicker". The timeout is supposed to disrupt the kickers preparation routine, and make the kicker spend more time thinking about the critical kick he has to make. The idea is that the kickers will miss more of these kicks as a result of the timeout.

Now over the decades, I've never seen a coach fail to use the timeout to try to ice the kicker. So what does this mean from the kicker's perspective as he sets up and mentally prepares for the kick. Well he knows for certain that if the other coach still has a timeout, then the coach will call the timeout. 

So at this point the timeout has been internalized and incorporated into the preparation for the kick. The kicker, along with everyone, knows it is going to be called. So I believe icing now has little effect in reducing the success rate of these kicks.

So the alternate strategy I'm suggesting. Some of the time, maybe 25% say, on a random basis that only the coach knows, don't call the timeout. This will introduce uncertainty into the kickers mental preparation and kick routine. He doesn't know for sure now if he really has to kick, or if timeout will be called before the snap. 

I believe that the strategy of usually calling timeout to ice the kicker, combined with the uncertainty and unpredictability of sometimes not calling the timeout and just making him kick without delay, will result in overall lower success rate; than the current strategy which is to always call time.

a plea for ties in NHL hockey

I'm tired of the NHL shootout. It has run its course. It should just end. I cringe whenever I see it in a box score. I turn off the game if it goes to shootout. I avoid watching shootout highlights.

Maybe the shootout had a purpose back in the reforms introduced in 2005. That was a generation ago now. Hockey can change, as it changed when the shootout came in.

My proposal is to bring back the tie in regular season NHL hockey. I never minded tie games. One point each team, an honourable and hard earned split. Shootout does not increase excitement or fan satisfaction. Shootout is mathematically distorting, as some games award three points, and some award just two. 

Shootout messes up and distorts the standings. It's hard to tell if a team is really a winning team or a losing team. At least if nothing else, as a start, fix the standings. The won-lost-overtime/shootout lost is so unsatisfactory. You look at a team like LA Kings, 12-11-6. that doesn't look that bad, 12-11 a winning team. the third number means they lost those 6 games, so does that make them 12-17?

if there must be shootout then properly distinguish clean regulation wins from lesser overtime, and even lesser cheesy shootout wins. so 4 numbers, regular time wins, regular time losses, OT-SO wins, OT-SO losses. it would at least highlight how a team is really doing. we effectively can't really tell now.

the format of overtime is now also lacking. I'm sure the 3-on-3 overtime was meant to create action and excitement. what I've observed is there is often a lack of intensity to the overtimes, players not seeming to skate or defend all that hard. also 3 on 3 limits the number of players who can participate, making half the team spectators; same problem as shootout, not a team effort.

so getting to my point. a solution. I'll call it 4:4:4. four-on-four overtime for four minutes. winning team two points, losing team zero points. ties are back, one point each. I think this would restore intensity to overtime, get rid of shootout which has run its course, get more skaters involved in overtime, still more room to skate and score in overtime

Nova Scotia novice hockey half ice games

Nova Scotia novice hockey now half ice games. The reasoning at link.

Well I don't agree with it. I've seen half ice novice first hand. Hockey is supposed to be about the players. Remember the old Timbits slogan the first rule is to have run.

So the players, the 7 and 8 year olds. Remember the players? The young players unquestionably want full ice games. period. full stop. I'm concerned this will put some young players out of hockey.

Where did I get my data about what the players want? first hand, that's where. about 12 years ago there was a lack of full ice play. some young players were discouraged, even some of the advanced players were finding hockey to be a chore. back then some corrections and adjustments were made (unfortunately the season was essentially over, but it was a good gesture) and there was an emphasis again on games and full-ice games like the players wanted.

Half ice hockey is not a swap substitute for full ice. to the players it feels like practice, drills. the kids are fine with practice and understand they need to work on hockey skills development. but they practice to get ready to play in the real games. there has to be the proper balance between practice/skills and actual game play.

I get the arguments for half ice. at the time years ago parents were told in full ice the average novice player has 8 seconds of puck on stick time per game. and yes better novice players sometimes can just skate away with the puck. yet that is what the players want, full ice play. they are willing to get up for 6 AM practice for that 8 seconds a game when the puck is on their stick.

Minor hockey players at all levels need to develop puck protection, passing, receive pass. still I feel forced half ice is losing the forest for the trees. like spending the whole season at practice and never actually playing a game. practice, drills, and skills development is fine. but there has to be balance between practice and play.

There can be a perception among some novice parents that there is overemphasis on identifying and developing elite players. also statistically just as many strong players will quit as mediocre players if the hockey experience is not enjoyable with the proper balance of practice and games.

I would suggest a sensible compromise would be every second game half ice. the rest full ice. though the decision of the right balance of half ice/full ice games at novice should be made at the local rink by the local coaches. they are closest to the situation. these coercive mandates from on high from Hockey Nova Scotia and Hockey Canada are wrong.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. make the information and data available to the novice coaches about half ice. listen to the novice players. and then trust the coaches to find the right mix that is best for the young players.

The Peril of the Baseball Wild Card Game

I didn't even realize it until this year with the Toronto Blue Jays. Apparently baseball expanded the playoffs to five teams from four. Previously it was the three division winners and a wild card. Then it seems in 2012 the playoffs were expanded to a second wild card team, which plays the higher wild card team in a 1 game playoff.

The addition of a wild card game definitely changes the dynamics of the playoffs. There is more emphasis now on winning the division and avoiding the jeopardy of a 1 game playoff. Anything can happen in one game.

Right now the Blue Jays are in good shape having swept their division series. But they were in a lot of danger in the wild card round. They were only 1 game better than Baltimore during the season, they were 11-16 in September, and Baltimore had won 2 of 3 off Toronto in Toronto just a week before. I'd say going in this game was pretty much a toss up or maybe with home field Toronto was at best a slight favourite to win this game.

It did get me thinking about the 1, 5, and 7 game series. The wisdom is that a longer series favours the stronger team. How much of a cushion does the 5 and 7 game series provide the better team. With a couple of reasonable assumptions it's not too difficult to actually calculate it.

Suppose x is the chance that the team we are hoping for will win any given game over the other team. So x then is a real number between [0, 1].

We know then that the other team's chance to win any game in the series is (1 - x).

For a 1 game series it's easy. The chance of our team winning the series is x.

For a best 3 out of 5 it is a bit more to think about. Our team can win the series in 3, 4, or 5 games. If you notice that our team always wins the last game, then you don't really care about what happened in the earlier games, you just count how many ways to get to that point before the decisive game. We only have to determine the number of ways to win the series. In any other outcome the other team wins and we lose.

So for a 3 out of 5, the chance of our team winning the series is
f(x) = x³(6x² -15x +10)

In a 4 out of 7, it's the same process, this time we can win in 4, 5, 6, or 7 games. In a 4 of 7, the chance our team wins is
f(x) = x⁴(35 - 84x + 70x² - 20x³)

Remember x is the chance that we win any given game.

With the formulas, we can plug them into a spreadsheet and see how much if any the longer series helps the better team.

This table shows the percentage chance that our team wins the series of that length for a given x.

x	1 game	5 game	7 game
0	0.0	0.0	0.0
0.50	50.0	50.0	50.0
0.55	55.0	59.3	60.8
0.60	60.0	68.3	71.0
0.65	65.0	76.5	80.0
0.70	70.0	83.7	87.4
0.75	75.0	89.6	92.9
0.80	80.0	94.2	96.7
1	100.0	100.0	100.0

So the longer series in fact does help the stronger team and there are fewer upsets. This is especially true when the better team is 60% or more to win a given game. There are a couple of things to note about this table.

Going from a 5 to a 7 game series doesn't help the better team a whole lot. Only about 3 times more per hundred series than they would win a 5 game series. So basically when the NHL and NBA made the first round 7 games it was just greed to have more games, not to help ensure that the better team advanced.

Also we can see why baseball changed the world series from 9 games to 7. The extra games don't materially affect the "discovery" of which team is actually better.

We can quick check the equations with the known cases of x= 0, 1, ½. When x is 0 the team has no chance and f(x) is of course 0. When we plug in x=1 the team is a lock and of course wins every time and the chance to win the series is of course 100%, as they win every game.

When x is one half, then each game is a coin flip. Playing extra games doesn't change anything. The result f(x) for the 1, 5, and 7 game series is exactly 50%.

--

From this we can see that there are cases such as x=0, that the chances in a 5 or 7 game series is the same as a 1 game series. that is f(x) = x.


Now for f(x) = x then f(x) - x = 0. For the 3 of 5 series this is

x³(6x² -15x +10) - x = 0

This is a quintic equation so there are 5 roots. I was wondering about the other two roots. Since we know 0, 1, and ½, we can factor them out and with not too much work determine the remaining quadratic. It comes to

x(x - 1)(x - ½)2(3x² -3x -1) = 0

The quadratic formula can be plugged in to yield the other two roots (3 ± √21) / 6. The roots are all symmetrical about x = ½.

These other two roots are in decimal approximately -0.26 and 1.26. So real numbers, but outside the defined probability range [0, 1].

No Canadian teams in the NHL playoffs this year

Well another regular season wraps up this weekend. Drama-free for the Canadian teams, none of them came close to making the playoffs and all were eliminated some time ago.

Well what to make of it? Is it a fluke or are the NHL teams from Canada systemically underperforming?

It's not difficult to calculate the random chance of no Canadian teams making the playoffs. There are 30 teams in the NHL and 7 Canada teams. 16 teams make the playoffs each year.

So there are 30C16 or 145,422,675 ways to randomly select playoff teams. There are 23 American teams so 23C16 or only 245,157 ways to select just American teams for the playoffs.

So the random chance of all 7 Canadian teams missing the playoffs is 0.001685824, or about 1 in 593.

hmmm 1 in 593. Well that's unlikely but not astronomically unlikely. So was this season really this crazy 600-to-1 longshot or is there other evidence of underperformance by the Canadian teams as a whole. There is a bit of data. If the Canadian teams as a group are underperforming then the odds of all of them missing the playoffs in a season is a lot better than 592-1.

The current 23-7 balance traces to 2011-2012, when the Winnipeg Jets became Canada's 7th team. So 5 seasons now. In a given season 16 of 30 teams get in the playoffs, so in general each team has about a 53% chance to make the playoffs. With 7 teams the expectation then would be about 3.7 Canadian teams in the playoffs each season. Over 5 seasons then we would have expected to have 18.67 Canadian playoff teams. Let's check the data.

Season	Canadian Teams in NHL Playoffs
2011-2012	2
2012-2013	4
2013-2014	1
2014-2015	5
2015-2016	0
Total	12

So we can see that Canada is well below expectation. In the 4 years before this season the expectation was 15 playoff teams, so 12 of 15 is about 80% of the expected amount. Including this season we are now off by a third of where Canada should be. So it's a concern that the Canada NHL teams are systemically uncompetitive.

silliest saying in hockey. 2 goal lead is bad

A while back at work this guy was talking about a hockey game one of his children was in. They were in the lead but the other team came back and beat them. He said about it "two goal lead, the worst thing in hockey". or something like that. and it is kind of a conventional wisdom. even a couple of weeks ago on TSN, who ought to know hockey, an announcer referred to a "dreaded two goal lead".

but if you think about it at all you realize how wrong that saying is. it's certainly not universally true. consider this. there's 20 seconds left in the game. would you prefer to be ahead by two goals or down by two?  that actually generalizes to "is there any time in a game where you would prefer to be down two than up by two". hmmm we can see the saying doesn't hold water.

if it was true then that would greatly affect strategy. suppose a game starts and after a few minutes one team scores. if a 2 goal lead is "bad" then the scored on team should then attempt to shoot the puck into their own net to then gain the "advantage" of being down by two. it just shows what a silly and obviously incorrect saying it is in hockey yet people still believe it.

Olympic hockey semi finals

Like quite a few I watched the Olympic semi finals today. work from home can be useful at times. of course I'm glad Canada won over a very good USA team.

I overheard a guy at the fish and chips place said the game was boring. I wouldn't call it that, but the game was a bit different than in 2010. it didn't seem as fast or intense as the 2010 showdown. it had more the feel of a preseason game. except for Phil Kessel who was flying around. it might as well have been a women's game for how little checking there was. also as Don Cherry pointed out a defenceman let a USA forward blow past him on the outside in the first period, something that never happens in an NHL game.

I got thinking there may have been a couple of factors in the reduced intensity.

first the John Tavares injury is such a shame. but it's a reminder these guys are here as volunteers and they need to stay healthy for their real jobs in the NHL. so the players may have been motivated to take a bit off, avoid collisions and stay safe

after the 2010 gold medal game which was a generational event and incredible dramatic game it's pretty hard to follow that. so this was possibly a very good game which happened to be the match after the memorable 2010 tilt

there's a bit and switch element. in 2010 we were told this was the last time the NHL players would be in the Olympics. the final time it would be the best versus the best, nation versus nation, a place in history on the line. so that added a lot of intensity to the 2010 event. and yet here we are only four years later and the NHL players are already back. and they'll be back in four years. the players were scammed four years ago and now they see it for what it is. another tournament.

NHL hall of fame inductees 2000-2012

Following my previous post I went over the modern NHL hall of fame inductees. I focused on the modern era of inductees 2000-2012.

Yes I know it's called the hockey hall of fame but I only care about the recently retired NHL players. So from the list I deleted Soviet, women's players, and old time veterans category.

This is the list from the 13 induction classes.

Joe Mullen
Denis Savard
Mike Gartner
Dale Hawerchuk
Jari Kurri
Bernie Federko
Clark Gillies
Rod Langway
Grant Fuhr
Pat LaFontaine
Ray Bourque
Paul Coffey
Larry Murphy
Cam Neely
Patrick Roy
Mark Messier
Al MacInnis
Scott Stevens
Ron Francis
Glenn Anderson
Brett Hull
Brian Leetch
Luc Robitaille
Steve Yzerman
Dino Ciccarelli
Ed Belfour
Doug Gilmour
Mark Howe
Joe Nieuwendyk
Pavel Bure
Adam Oates
Joe Sakic
Mats Sundin

That's a fine list and certainly any hockey fan would have heard of all of these and recognize them all.

One thing I noticed is the size of the list. In 13 years there were 33 inducted. That's over 2.5 per year. So for any given decade the NHL believes there are over 4 full starting units of Hall worthy players. Which leads to the big question.

Is it the Hall of Fame or the Hall of Very Good?

This is a question baseball has also struggled with. "Who is a hall of famer?" Well in my previous post I showed that it can be approached systematically which would strip off a lot of the subjective bias and popular "feel good" inductees. By setting a "quota" of say 2 active retired a year then the overall integrity of the Hall can be preserved while ensuring that no major injustices occur about anyone being left out. The NHL has chosen the more inclusive path.

The current process is the selection is done by committee and face to face in a group meeting. This creates a couple of issues which could lead to an expansionist trend in Hall admission. One is the "slippery slope" type argument. It goes something like, If Joe Mullen is in, then Bernie Federko is in, then Ron Francis is in, then Glenn Anderson is in. While there's some value in comparables in setting a bar, it can set the lower bound too low if one time a single bubble player gets through.

Another possible issue would be horse trading. Suppose there were two hypothetical HOF voters in the 2000s. One likes Ron Francis but is against Glenn Anderson. Another is the opposite, for Anderson but against Francis. It would be pretty easy for a side conversation something like this to occur. "I'll vote for Francis this year if you will vote for Anderson next year. Deal."

Now with a quota both of these weaknesses go away, as the line is drawn somewhere and perhaps somewhat arbitrarily some will be on one side and some on the other. But it would force hall voters to make tough and probably unpopular decisions but it would probably be for the best for the HOF.

I'm pretty sure 2.5 per year is too high for hockey and the NHL would be better cutting back to a range of 2 - 2.25 inductees per year. From the list above I could cut 4-7 names without trying too hard and the Hall would be no worse off.

NHL hall of fame worksheet

An interesting subject my older son likes to discuss is who among today's NHL players will eventually make the hockey hall of fame. The interesting part to talk about is the players who are or might be on the bubble. Lock players like Martin Brodeur or Nicklas Lidström aren't interesting because they are basically already in. Players like Tim Thomas or Vincent Lecavalier are good because it's a bit more subjective where they will fit in.

I got thinking it could be looked at or projected more systematically. The way is by setting a "number" of active players who will make the hall of fame each season. Suppose the number is two. Then each decade 20 players will make the hall. Now that fits well with hockey as a starting unit is six players, goalie, two defence and three forwards.

So in a given decade it should roughly fall to three full units plus two floaters from any position should be about right. So 3 goalies, 6 defencemen, 9 forwards, and 2 worthy extras from any position.

Now from this start the guesswork can actually be largely be taken out using a spreadsheet and publicly available seasonal information. Create a spreadsheet for the 2000s decade which will be the players under discussion. Create slots for the 20 inductees by position.

Now for each season 2000-2001 through 2009-2010 get the major data from that season. The major trophy winners, all stars, scoring leaders (esp. 50 goals and 100 points), goalie leaders such as wins, GAA and shutouts, scoring leaders among defencemen, playoff leaders. also notable achievements such as the captain and starting goalie of the Stanley Cup winning team, and career milestones such as 500 goals, 1000 points, or setting a record or positional record.

By showing this category data side by side for the 10 seasons the leaders will quickly jump off. Use those to fill the slots by position. There's a bit of judgment involved as some players like Brodeur belong to the 1990s decade so leave them off. Still after going through it that would make it a lot clearer among the bubble players. This would be a good exercise for my son or any hockey fan interested in a do it yourself Hall of fame projector.

The main driver among these bubble players is the crucial "per year" number. In this example I set it at 2 which I feel is fair and no truly worthy player is left out of the Hall here (especially with the two extra floater slots). In my next post I'll use the actual NHL numbers and draw some conclusions.

Congrats Bruins

Very well done Boston Bruins. They just took it away in games 6-7. A talented and character team that overcame a lot to win it.


Well I guess everyone has heard of the riots after the game. Here are my comments.

first of all there is no difference between the Vancouver and Toronto G20 riots. None at all. It's the same perps, criminal opportunists, ne'er do wells, trash and lowlife, drunks, people who enjoy the thrill and excitement of being in a riot. I'm sure there were people who even participated in both G20 and Vancouver. As expected they targeted the shops with jewelry and high end cosmetics for their "anger" and "protest".

at least the Vancouver regular folks learned a bit from Toronto and actually tried to intervene (a little bit at least) and disrupt the criminal rioters. good move, it's your city take it back, it's worth fighting for. what the spineless Toronto citizens did to passively stand by and do nothing (except take pictures, encourage the rioters, and impede the police) was the real national disgrace and embarrassment. there's still work to do but when the good guys outnumber the bad 50:1 then with any will or courage at all then the evildoers can be stopped

3-3

Remarkable that Vancouver got to here. They score 8 times in 6 games, have their own goalie yanked 3 times (well he should have been yanked in game 3), and still they managed to somehow win 3 of the games. Are they the team of destiny or is their luck about to run out?

Like Boston going into game 6 I don't think the Canucks are in terrible shape going into #7. Back home they have been invincible. They wisely got Luongo out early in #6 so he will probably be fresh and focused for #7. When he's on he can be superb, as good as Thomas. Game 6 was closer than the score when you consider soft goals at their end, Thomas making some big saves to keep them from getting back in the game, plus clanging the post a couple of times, that could have easily been a very tight 4-3 type game.

I'm not going to make a prediction. Just hoping for an exciting game.

Bruins power play

The announcer just said the Boston power play is 5 for the last 105. hmmm that's about 4.8% success rate.

Now at regular strength the Bruins are getting around 3 goals a game. Now 3 / 60 is 5%. But it's actually higher as they aren't even strength the full 60 minutes.

My point is the Bruins score more frequently at regular strength than they do on the power play! So mathematically their strategy becomes obvious. Just do the exact same thing on the PP as you do at regular strength. Don't put on a PP unit. Use your regular lines, even the 3rd and 4th lines. Don't run set plays or attempt anything you wouldn't do at regular strength.

So even if you do nothing at all different Boston would still score more often on PP then regular strength because with only 4 defenders over time they will inevitably score more often.

Vancouver luge track safety revisionism

So now there's a possibly lawsuit driven attempt to bring up the tired old - discussed to death issue of the Vancouver Olympics luge track. At the time the top lugers had it right. That track was indeed dangerous for amateurs and non-elite lugers.

That was the real problem. This IOC politically correct "no country left behind" mentality that has led to the rise of underqualified exotic athletes in order to be inclusive so that as many athletes and countries as possible can be there. So this is what you get. Increased risk results and the expected value of increased accidents and tragedies. Strangely the earliest Yahoo article comments are pretty good and mention how dangerous and irresponsible it was letting Eddie the Eagle out there back in 1988 which is a root of this exotic athlete trend.

The solution was and still is to assure safety by filtering unqualified performers out of the competition. If that means a given country can't be in the Olympics well then deal with it. At the time in Vancouver after the accident they shortened the luge track which damaged the competition. The correct move would have been to let the qualified elite compete on the original design which they liked; and send the pretenders home for their own safety. It was wrong to water down the competition and bring down the level of the very best in order to accommodate those that didn't even belong there.

super bowl

I'm looking forward to the super bowl as usual. It could be a good game. The Steelers are the wild card who knows which team will show up. They were terrible at times against both Baltimore and the Jets but also so strong at times they still managed to win.

They will need to be more consistent through four quarters to beat Green Bay. The Packers offense looked unstoppable at times but the Steelers have a good D. They have some film too it seemed the Bears had a good handle on the GB offence for chunks of that game.

I have a kind of "bet" on the game. It's a freeroll. At work there was some intranet site. There was a poll there with a prize a $50 amazon gift card. The poll was to pick the super bowl winner. I went over to bodog and the vegas sites and I saw that Green Bay is the favorite. So with nothing else to go on I picked Green Bay in the poll. After I picked it showed there was 25 votes; 17 for Pittsburgh and 8 for Green Bay. So I had around $3 of EV at that point. I'm not sure how many voted since. hmmm oops I forgot to mention to my coworkers about the freeroll poll. oh well you know what they say about overlay ...

I don't have a plan for where to watch it. I wasn't invited to any parties and haven't spoken to anyone about it. Maybe go to my parent's place and watch it there.

What's the deal on Arizona and the bowl. First it was the Kurt Havelock thing. Now out of Arizona we have a guy inserting porn into a super bowl broadcast.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Is Gino Odjick in shape? Can Georges Laraque be available? How about Tie Domi.

The Penguins need to bring in someone to restore order out on the ice. The brazen running of Crosby, cheap shots behind the play, has gotten out of hand. This goes back at least to game #7 of the stanley cup finals rematch.

They should have brought in Jody Shelley or Todd Bertuzzi when they were available.

ball hockey season is over

The winter ball hockey season came to an end last night. We lost in the semi finals. It was a close game, tied early in the third period. But the other team was very strong and they pulled away and cruised to the win.

It was a difficult winter season. The team went winless, 0-10, in the regular season. Then remarkably we beat the first place team in the quarter finals last week.

That's pretty disappointing, winless regular season. The way the league works is there's a draft each fall [September - December] and winter [January - April] season. The team captain just had a bad draft and the team didn't really gel. Oh well the nice thing is that in the fall the rosters will be reshuffled and it's a fresh start for everyone.

About the fall. In fall 2009 there was around 25% turnover in the players in the league. A result of this was that the league became younger, faster, and more skilled. Unfortunately my trajectory is in the opposite direction. So for this September I need to decide if I'm going to return for another season or retire. If I had to decide today I would retire. But I'll reevaluate in August and decide then. It's enjoyable at times but there are other activities I'm interested in too.


Speaking of other activities. I bought a can of tennis balls last week. I picked up some Wilson which were among the few not made in China. I mentioned to a couple of facebook friends who I played with in the past we should get out and hit this year. They both responded positively so hopefully when it warms up a bit we can follow through and make it happen. I haven't played tennis since around the late 90s so I'm looking forward to it.

our game

Exciting hockey game yesterday! A classic. Great to be on the winning side.

Crosby scored a historic generational goal. Right up with Paul Henderson's goal in 1972, and the Mario Lemieux goal in 1987.

Congratulations team Canada - hockey and all of the Olympic competitors.

Ball hockey started again

Another season of ball hockey is now started. This is the 2009 B season September to December. They had another draft and it's new teams.

As usual I was a late round draft pick. I played with the team captain last season though. He's a very good player. Like last year we lost our first game this year. Hopefully we'll get untracked and pick up some wins.

I picked up some new shoes for this season. My old sneakers were pretty beat up. Cross trainers are pretty expensive. They seem comfortably into the 3 figures. After some looking in Bayers Lake I found some Reebok at the Shoe Company for $64. They should be fine for this season and 2010A in the new year. I keep them with my gear and only use them for hockey.

One thing different about this season is I've now agreed to do the game stats and timekeeping for the games I don't play in. Usually the team captain does this but he can't make it to enough games. The league organizer who I know asked if I would do it for my team. I agreed to. So now I'll be attending both games on Mondays instead of the one. The timekeeping and score sheet is a challenge to keep up with and I hope to get better at it.

I hadn't played any sports since the 2009A ball hockey season wrapped up in the spring. I should try out some summer sport next year.

Steve McNair RIP

A great man. Among the toughest players in the NFL. Courage.

I remember a Titans playoff game years ago a fan had a sign which said something like


Sacrifice

Courage

Blood


Something like that. The fan was sitting just behind the Titans bench among the first few rows. The cameraman zoomed in on the sign and the fan. Then the announcer noticed that the person holding the sign was McNair's wife! That was a great game. In that game McNair was playing through some brutal injury that would have sidelined almost anyone else.

We fans will remember you fondly. RIP Steve McNair.