Probably old news, but posting to alert anyone that may have missed the topic.
I placed a futures wager on the TB Lightning to win the Stanley Cup on 10/31/19. +750. $500 to win $3,750. Since that time, I've given up sports betting entirely. However, this string hasn't yet been tied up, so I've checked in from time to time to see if it will cash.
Now that TB is up 3-1 on the Isles, and Vegas is down 3-1 to the Stars, TB is a -140 favorite to ship the cup.
5Dimes announced on or around 9/8 that they are closing up shop, and all tickets will be graded/voided on 9/21 and cashouts must occur at this time. I contacted customer service to determine if they would pay out the 'expected value' of the ticket (which is now ~$2,500). I'm being told that the ticket will be voided unless I request a refund. I'm clearly disappointed by this. But if all futures tickets for unresolved outcomes (presidency, NHL, NBA, MLB, etc.) are being refunded, that would at least be fair.
I've read countless posts on various forums that futures wagers on teams that have already been eliminated may still be "pending" in their accounts, but those tickets won't be offered a refund. Can anyone confirm this?
It is critical that 5D treats the futures markets fairly. If they grade even one ticket a loser for a team that won't win the NHL/NBA title, then the remaining tickets that are live should be paid out at 'expected value' or something close to it. I suspect that if you request a refund for a futures ticket that has an eliminated outcome, you will probably be given the refund. But 5D is praying on those customers that don't know any better.
Thoughts?
submitted by The story of the Hartford Whalers is a particularly interesting one to me. From their very beginnings in the WHA, to joining the NHL, to being the perennial underachiever, to finally being moved to North Carolina. Obviously there is a lot more to this story than "they were bad and they moved", much, much more. The Hartford Whalers started life as the New England Whalers, a franchise in the World Hockey Association, a rival league to the NHL, that challenged the NHL's hold on Hockey and their reserve clause(basically meaning: You play with us, until we trade you or you retire). Over 67 players jumped to the WHA, including names such as Gordie Howe or Bobby Hull, with the WHA also going onto sign more European players and having young stars such as Wayne Gretzky. The New England Whalers started playing in 1972, led by ex-NHLers, Tom Webster(Red Wings), Ted Green(Bruins)(Inaugural Captain too) and many others, the Whalers first season was an incredible one for them, finishing First in their division and winning the Avco Cup. At the same time though, they had to play around the schedules of every other team playing in the Boston Garden, which led to scheduling issues for the Whalers, they essentially got the shortest end of the stick, because they were seen as a joke.
Enter Hartford, Connecticut, one of the richer cities in North America, they had just finished building the Hartford Civic Center, a multipurpose arena in the heart of downtown Hartford. The City had been hoping to attract an ABA Franchise to the city, but when that failed they had settled on the Whalers, giving them a home for their rest of the franchises existence(...ish). On January 11, 1975 the Whalers played their first game at the Civic Center, in front of a sold out crowd, where they defeated the San Diego Mariners 4-3 in Overtime. The next few seasons were pretty good for the Whalers, although they never quite achieved the success they had in the first season, they made It back to the Avco Finals in the '78 season, losing to the original Winnipeg Jets, although this came at the cost of losing their new arena, due to a roof collapse they were forced to play 26 miles up the road in Springfield, MA at the Big E Coliseum and the Springfield Civic Center(home to the AHL Thunderbirds and NCAA Yellow Jackets), for the remainder of their two WHA Seasons.
After 8 years of operation, the WHA merged with the NHL, with most of the clubs outright folding, save for the Whalers, Oilers, Jets(final Avco Cup winners) and Nordiques. Unlike the other clubs, the Whalers were allowed to keep the NHLers they had on their roster, rather than sending them back to their original team, as the other “new” teams had to do. This allowed the Whalers a slight advantage over many of the other NHL Teams, especially being able to keep players like Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe and Andre Lacroix(WHA All-Time Leading scorer). This advantage helped them become the first expansion team in NHL History to make the playoffs in their first year, a feat which would not be broken, until the Vegas Golden Knights joined. This merger was far from smooth however, as the Bruins who held a firm grasp on the New England market came close to(or did?) suing the league over admission of the Whalers, finally settling allowing the New England Whalers to join on the condition they change their name to the Hartford Whalers.
- Attendance for the Whalers was never great, the only time it was really full was during Rangers or Bruins games, because of how close in proximity they were to NYC and Boston(5 hours..ish combined) and how well both fanbases traveled, it was usually a guarantee that you would see a sea of Blue / Gold. Hartford was a smaller market, but had the potential to be something incredible. Hartford for all of their existence were bottom five in attendance, it was always just a smaller arena, at their lowest they drew around 9854 fans, in their first NHL season, even with the improvements it wasn’t enough, Hartford just wasn’t a big major league market.
- It was around this time that “Brass Bonanza” was introduced. Originally a B-Side on an album of team radio-broadcast highlights, it was composed by Jacques Ysaye under the pseudonym Jack Say. It gained popularity pretty fast, becoming the team’s theme song, being played during warmups, the team walking out, goals and victories. It is the one thing people think of when you say “Hartford Whalers”. It’s still used today by the Hartford Wolfpack of the AHL(more on them later). During Brian Burke’s short tenure(literally a season), he got rid of the song saying “the players are embarrassed by it." It came back the next season, after Burke got fired.
Their first NHL season was one of their best ever, finishing with 73 points, the best of the former WHA Teams. In the first Round of the Norris Division playoffs however, the Whalers fell 0 Games to 3 Games, to the Montreal Canadiens, the reigning champions went on to lose to the Minnesota North Stars. That however proved to be their only playoff run for about 5 seasons, as they lost their stars in Howe, Lacroix and Lacroix, all announced their retirements, although this was not Howe’s final time playing professional hockey as he later signed a contract to play 1 game, 1 shift, with the IHL’s Detroit Vipers(the IHL was the NHL’s previous farm league before the ECHL). Losing their stars, combined with the aging WHA roster and a management making bad trades to try and stay afloat, led to a 5 season long drought. Despite the drought, attendance rose at the Civic Center and would continue rising until the 88-89 season, where attendance finally began falling off.
The 1981 Draft was a great time to be a Whalers fan, they had just missed the playoffs, but had gotten Fourth Overall, leading them to draft Ron Francis. Francis made almost an immediate impact, with multiple point per game seasons, though it wasn’t enough to lead to the Whalers to a playoff berth, that wouldn’t happen until the 85-86 season. 85-86 was a magical time to be a Whalers fan, things began looking up, which seemed fair. In Game 1 of the season, down 3-0 to the Buffalo Sabres, Kevin Dineen led the Whalers in an incredible comeback, scoring 2 goals, which ultimately led to the Whalers winning 5-4. The following night was their home opener at home against the Rangers, with goals by Francis and Ferrao, the Whalers decimated their opponent with a score of 8-2, in front of an incredible crowd of over 15,142 fans. October was a pretty good month for them, beating the Canadiens 11-6 and going 6-4-0 for the month of October, leading to them sitting in third place in the Adams division. It cannot be stated enough how much these Whalers seemed like they were a playoff team, goalie Mike Liut was having a spectacular first few months, after being acquired late last season from the Blues for Greg Millen and Mark Johnson.
November was a different story! Their first three games they lost by over 20 goals total, scoring only 7 total in this time. After trading for Defenseman Dave Babych, they looked legit for at least one game, against the Jets where they won 8-1, with Francis getting a hat trick. The fun didn’t stop there though! They went onto win their next two games with a combined score of 25-6(and 1 shutout of the Kings). After falling to the Oilers though, things went back to normal, they fell out of their playoff spot, dropping it to the Canadiens, who also were barely holding on. November ended with a record of 5-7-0.
The rest of the season had its ups and downs, Francis was incredible, Dineen was an incredible player, while goaltending could be better, it could be much worse. They barely got into the playoffs, but it didn’t matter to the fans, they were going to the Adams Final this year! ...Where the Canadiens proceeded to destroy them in 7 hard fought games. All in all it was considered their best season ever at this point and to be fair, it was the best the Whalers would ever get, even though they finished 1st in the Adams the following year, they lost in the first round to the Nordiques(Hartford was cursed to lose to Quebec), this was the first and only season the Whalers had finished above Fourth in the Adams. To be honest, they were never “worldbeaters”, they were a smaller market team, which meant it was harder to attract great players, let alone trade for them, in many ways it’s the curse of location.
The 80’s Whalers didn’t bring us much playoff victories, but they brought us...
Whaler Mania. Sung by the one and only “Whaler Maniacs”. This video features a Hall of Fame cast, inspired by the likes of
"the Bears Shufflin Crew’ Crew or the LA Rams “
Ram It”, this summed up the 80’s in a nutshell, music videos from sports teams.
The next few seasons were about much of the same, making the playoffs only to lose to Montreal, minus the two years where Boston beat them, it was usually just Montreal kicking them out of the first round. The 80s came and went, in what could be considered semi-successful, they got out of the first round once, they made it to the Adams Final, finished 1st in the Adams, but just couldn’t beat Montreal, Quebec, or Boston, to make a real run.
Their best playoff run ever was celebrated with a Whalermania Parade, where over 40,000 fans attended. You might be wondering why a parade? Honestly who knows, it was probably to get more eyes on the product.
- March 4th, 1991, the trade that in effect killed a franchise:
The Hartford Whalers, trade forward Ron Francis Defensemen Ulf Samuelsson and Grant Jennings to the Pittsburgh Penguins, in exchange for Forwards John Cullen, Jeff Parker and Defenseman Zarley Zalapski. You may be asking “Why did they trade Francis!?” Well, so did the fans. The Hockey News reported the Whalers got the “
better end of the deal”, leading many fans to question what these writers were smoking and where to buy some of that shit. To their credit though, Cullen was the Penguins leading scorer and the other two were no jokes, they were good players the Pens gave up, Mario wasn’t that great at the time, he needed someone like Francis to compliment his abilities.
The Penguins went onto win the next 2 Cups, cementing Mario's legacy as one of the top five players to play in the NHL. Francis cemented his legacy as one of the best as well, not top five, I don't think though. Francis even had a hat trick in the '92 playoffs against the
Rangers. (I can't find anything with Francis from the '91 Finals, so enjoy this
clip! of him scoring on the Caps!)
- Why was Francis traded? Well let’s rewind a bit back to December of the previous year, the Whalers stripped Francis of his “C” and gave it to Forward Pat Verbeek(current AGM to the Wings). Why did this happen? Well, Head Coach Rick Ley felt that Francis was too “laid back”, while Verbeek was seen as “more intense” and he had been the team’s leading scorer prior. It seems Francis was traded, because he was seen as expendable, they needed help with the Defense and decided Francis could go. Unfortunately, Parker had suffered a career ending injury months after the trade, leading fans to just shake their heads and sigh. The Whalers were falling apart, their GM had no real power and was basically a figurehead to the shitty owner. Ley left the following season to join the Canucks as an Assistant Coach, before becoming their Head Coach later. The Whalers hired Jimmy Roberts as his replacement.
Penguins GM Craig Patrick was asked about this trade, responding with: “Certainly, we weren’t a championship-caliber team, in my opinion, until we made that deal to get Ronnie and Ulf and Grant Jennings,” also saying, “We had made a lot of changes that whole season, but that was the icing on the cake.”
- The Penguins needed help and this was the trade that got made them into a Dynasty and helped further cement Mario Lemieux as one of the greatest players ever. Funny enough, Whalers GM Ed Johnston, left the organization two years later to join…The Fucking Penguins. From what I've read this wasn't so much a move Johnston wanted to make, ownership had more or less forced his hand. Gordon meddling constantly in hockey ops, meant Johnston had no real power. He later joined the Penguins(3 seasons later)
Despite this, they made in the playoffs in 91-92, losing to the Canadiens, who despite looking like favorites to sweep, blew it, the Whalers responded by winning Games 3 and 4, Montreal won Game 5 due to crease violations(these weren’t enforced at the time), but Hartford tied it in Game 6, 24 seconds in Overtime thanks To Yvon Corriveau. Heartbreak happened though as usual, as they lost Game 7 in Montreal. During the offseason Coach Jimmy Roberts was fired, alongside GM Eddie Johnston, who just took his talents(???) to Pittsburgh as a Coach instead.
- That same mediocre Summer:
The Hartford Whalers announce the hiring of Brian Burke, naming him the 5th General Manager in franchise history. Burke had most recently built the Vancouver Canucks who had gone onto a Cup Final(You know how that ended..). GM Brian Burke announces the hiring of Paul Holmgreen, the 10th Coach in franchise history. Holmgreen had most recently coached the Flyers, through a crazy playoff run, they had beat Lemieux's Penguins 4 games to 3, winning Game 7 in Pittsburgh. They then missed the playoffs twice, before he got fired. Holmgreen proceeds to name Pat Verbeek the team’s new Captain, counting the carousel of Captaincy. He got to play with up and coming stars, Andrew Cassels and Geoff Sanderson though, which was nice.
- The Whalers also introduce their newest assistant coach, Pierre McGuire(Yes, that Pierre, the annoying one).
Burke’s first trade as a GM came quick: The Hartford Whalers trade Forward Bobby Holik, a 1993 Second-Round Pick and a conditional draft pick in 94(I can’t find anything on the condition) to the New Jersey Devils for Goaltender
Sean Burke(no relation to Brian) and Defenseman Eric Weinrich. Burke had been playing internationally for Canada’s national team and for the Devils’ IHL affiliate. To say the least, he was a rookie sensation for the Devils, he had previously helped Canada(Junior) win a Silver Medal and from there went straight to the NHL, where he seemed...good. In the ‘89 season he was even named to the All-Star Game, being one of the few rookie goaltenders to make get named to the game. He was quickly becoming the face of the franchise, becoming the
first Devil to be on the cover for
The Hockey Digest. However by 1990 he became unhappy with the team and sat out 91-92, playing for Team Canada instead. So this was a seemingly good trade that Burke made, a change of scenery could do him well. He was even voted Whalers team MVP from 94 to 97, so it worked out for him, even though this team never even so much as
sniffed the postseason again.
Behind the scenes, things were...rough. Brian Burke didn’t last long in the role as GM, he quit after one season. Head Coach Paul Holmgreen stepped into the GM Role as well as staying head coach, until November 16th when he stepped down as coach, citing a “lack of effort from the players” and “wanting to focus on being a GM”. Pierre Mcguire(again
that Pierre) became the new Coach and...
he was pretty hated actually. To quote the
Hartford Courant: “He fancied himself two-parts Scotty Bowman and one-part Bob Johnson. It was a super-human leap of faith on his part.” Basically he tried to act like Scotty Bowman, being cold and distant to the players, while at the same time trying to be ``friends” with them, like Bob Johnson tried to do more of. He was so hated that Whalers Captain Pat Verbeek(amazing he lasted this long as Captain!) was quoted as saying: “the best thing that could have happened to the Whalers.” Yes, the
team captain is literally shitting on the ex-coach, because he was that goddamn awful. Nobody liked Pierre, he mocked other coaches and drove away players, even the fans were happy he was gone. He later went onto be the annoying guy NBC trots out to torture us, because they hate all of us.
You might be thinking, “Can’t get any worse than Pierre,right?” Well it does. March 30th, 1994(before Pierre got fired), GM Paul Holmgren was arrested for driving drunk in Simsbury, Connecticut. From there he went to the Betty Ford Center for treatment / rehab, where upon Whalers owner Richard Gordon tried to fire him, being stopped by Bettman himself and Connecticut Governor Lowell P. Weicker Jr, who convinced him to not. Aka Bettman told him “Do it and you’ll get a fine” most likely and Weicker probably say “Don’t do it please!”. He later became the coach again because the players were ready to either kill Pierre or hitchhike out of Hartford, if it meant not playing for him again. Seriously
nobody liked Pierre, he got the job because he was an assistant under Scotty Bowman.
The Whalers finished that year with only 63 points, 5 points better than last, but nowhere near good enough.
Summer of 1994. The Whalers announce the team has been sold to Compuware(They specialize in equipment for IT) CEO Peter J Karmanos, the cheap bastard himself, alongside partners Thomas Thewes and Jim Rutherford(Pens GM). Rutherford quickly became the new GM of the Whalers, succeeding Holmgreen, whom went back to being a coach. Karmanos wanted a winning team, which made Rutherford to get Jimmy Carson and Steven Rice, in Free Agency. During the draft Rutherford selected Right Winger Jeff O'Neill with their First Rounder, O’Neill was a highly touted player, who had put up over
329 Points in only 3 Seasons with the Guelph Storm, so this was a smart decision. He never really lived up to his potential though, especially in the early years where he bounced between the Pros and Minors. Among other trades Rutherford made, he traded Chris Pronger(they weren’t happy with him not developing fast enough) for Brendan Shanahan, who was incredibly unhappy about this trade. Did it matter? Hell no! He was named Captain before even skating a single practice, the whole time he wanted out of Hartford, he felt it was too small of a market and they had an “uncertain future”.
To Karmanos’ credit, he wasn’t new to owning Hockey, he had previously owned the OHL’s Windsor Spitfire, back in 1984 along with Thomas Tewes(longtime business partner) and Jim Rutherford. The Spitfires never won a Memorial Cup with Karmanos as owner, but they came close. Karmanos eventually sold them to someone who pledged to keep the Spitfire in Windsor, so long as the OHL granted him an expansion team in Plymouth, Michigan. It was that or he’d move the Spitfire to Plymouth, so he got the Plymouth Whalers.Karmanos’ group tried unsuccessfully to get an expansion team in St Petersburg, Florida. Eventually getting his hands on the Whalers.
That’s right, behind the scenes, the Devil himself, Karmanos was trying to move the Whalers out of Hartford, unless he got a shiny new arena built by the taxpayers. At this point, Hartford was starting on an economic downswing and the Government didn’t care
that much about the Whalers, to pay for a new arena. Can you blame them though? Karmanos didn’t want a new arena, he never wanted Hartford to begin with, he was eyeing another market. It was easy because the Whalers were bad, had they had good management, things might have gone differently.
The team was bad and it was even worse behind the scenes, but they had recently re-acquired Kevin Dineen who was a fan favorite and helped boost morale at the least, along with mentoring the young players. It...didn’t really help though, attendance was down and they had missed the playoffs yet again. Due to his comments, Shanahan eventually got stripped of the “C”(why give it to a guy who didn’t want to be there I don’t know), due to fans and the media attacking him for his comments. Dineen was given the Captaincy instead, but it was another season lost. Shanahan finally got traded to a big market though, Detroit. The Detroit Red Wings acquire Forward Brendan Shanahan from the Hartford Whalers in exchange for Keith Primeau, Paul Coffey and a first-rounder. It actually
helped the Whalers at first, as they started the 96-97 season with a winning record(that wouldn’t last).1996 was good for them, 1997 turned awful as losing kept happening, the playoffs slipped further and further away, until it was another season of no playoffs.
- More behind the scenes chaos: The 96-97 Season was horrible, Karmanos announced unless the team sold 11,000 tickets he would move the team. If that didn't make things hard, he also eliminated ticket package deals, so you couldn’t just buy a package for 4 games and be good, you had to buy Season Tickets. That was literally the only option and helped Karmanos’ case of moving the team. His reasoning for moving them? Poor attendance and no corporate support(this one is fair, it’s been said that could be an issue with a Quebec team. I am not smart enough to say if this is a real issue or not). Despite Governor Rowland publically saying the state will not use public funds to build Karmanos a new arena, they were negotiating just that behind the scenes and talks were going well, until Karmanos wanted an additional $45 million to cover the team’s losses during the three years it would take to actually build the arena.
To be fair here, it wasn’t all because of Karmanos that the team moved. Yes he ultimately is the one who pulled the trigger and moved him, but this tale goes back to previous ownership and people no longer in charge. A lot of this can be blamed on Richard Gordon, the former owner who bought Donald Conrad’s(the other owner) stake in the team, in the later 80s, but this story goes well into the 90’s. Donald Conrad didn’t have the money needed to equal Gordon’s investment and had to get the help of Benjamin Sisti and Colonial Realty. In the end, Conrad had to sell his share to Colonial Realty and Gordon got the control he ever so desired. It doesn’t end there, Colonial Realty then declared bankruptcy because it turns out,
they were a massive ponzi scheme. This gave a ton of uncertainty to the Whalers, since now it was they didn’t meet the financial terms of Conrad’s exit, which could also lead to Conrad being
back in the ownership picture. Gordon pressed the NHL to investigate Colonial Realty, but this was the 90s NHL, they let a broke guy briefly own a team, they didn’t do their due diligence. For the first time, the 90s brought the word “relocation” to the Whalers, with Blockbuster owner Wayne Huizenga trying to buy the Whalers to move them to Florida, he later got awarded an expansion team in Miami. (this is a complicated mess I'm still trying to understand)
To Gordon’s credit, he refused all relocation offers. But this was a long standing issue, people blame Karmanos, but it’s far more than just “Karmanos moved the team because he hated Hartford”, he did. Gordon’s micromanaging seems to be the reason for some of the baffling 90s trades, like trading Francis, or then trading Liut for Corriveau, who was nowhere near as good. Liut led the league in shutouts the year he was traded to Washington, while Corriveau was...bad, he bounced between the pros and minors constantly. Gordon was just as bad an owner if not worse in many ways, than Karmanos. It didn’t help that in 92, there was a player strike(it lasted 10 days) while Colonial Realty was going bankrupt. All in all it was a mess, I could write up a novel detailing all of this, but that would be boring. Gordon sold the team to Karmanos knowing Karmanos wanted to relocate a team, so please blame him more.
Fun fact: Dallas, Minneapolis(Well ok, Minneapolis never did, but Minnesota got another), Las Vegas, Anaheim and Miami all tried to get the Whalers to move to their city. All of these cities later got an expansion team, or in the case of Dallas, a relocation.
It
also didn’t help that former Mayor Carrie Saxon Perry(or Hat Lady) was anti-Whalers. Famously saying “Hockey is for White People”(She’s not totally wrong though, unfortunately) and this was in a time when concession sales were becoming a much bigger deal. She didn’t want to play ball with the Whalers, she didn’t want to re-negotiate on the lease, I think she may have just wanted them gone to be honest. She wasn’t well liked by many, Aetna(they previously owned the Whalers) threatened to leave Hartford if she won a fourth term as Mayor.
I won’t go into further details on who to blame, or it’ll be forever.
With talks of the Whalers leaving, fans were livid. A “Save the Whale” Campaign launched, buying up just over 8,563 tickets, in under 45 days, despite the Whalers doing everything possible to get people to not buy tickets, fans bought up tickets to save the Whalers. It wasn’t enough though, even with the people wanting to save the team, even with everything else, Karmanos announced they were leaving. Karmanos had discussed moving to Norfolk VA, but the only arena they had, The Scope, was too small to house an NHL Franchise and the city wouldn’t build them an arena. (Norfolk is a great minor league market I think, but I’m heavily biased). Rowland’s offers weren’t good enough for Karmanos, since he was trying to move the Patriots to Hartford(spoiler: that didn’t work), he wasn’t really trying to please the Whalers, but would have bent over backwards for the Patriots. It’s a lot of bullshit.
The relocation proposals: The Move. On April 17th, 1997, the Whalers played their final home game in Hartford, defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1, with Captain Kevin Dineen scoring the final goal. On May 6, Karmanos announced the team would be relocated to Raleigh, North Carolina to become the Carolina Hurricanes. Despite years of trying and the Government doing what it could, they left and that was the last time a major league team had come to Hartford. In many ways this was the final nail in the coffin for Hartford, they were beginning to struggle and the 2000’s made the cities downswing much worse.
On October 1st, 1997, the new Carolina Hurricanes played their first game in North Carolina, losing in front of a sellout crowd to the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-4. Unfortunately, things didn’t improve, crowds were regularly drawing below 10K, the new arena wasn’t ready yet forcing them to move to Greensboro, as it was the only NHL ready arena in the state. Triangle area fans didn’t want to drive down I-40 to Greensboro, as it was an 80-Mile drive, while fans from the Piedmont Triad refused to support a lame-duck team and one that displaced the popular minor league Greensboro Monarchs. This was for all intents and purposes a stupid move, the arena was still 2 years out and fans in the area refused to support it, Karmanos had effectively killed a team that was
at least getting 10k+ people to watch the games, in favor of an area that wanted nothing to do with them. It didn’t help the Greensboro Coliseum held over 20k+ seats for hockey, making it the biggest at the time in the league, but made it worse when nobody came to their games. It was so bad that sections had to be curtained off so that it wouldn’t look so awful on TV. It didn’t help only 29 TV Games were shown and radio broadcasts were often preempted by basketball, leading many to wonder “Why move them if nothing was ready?” Even Karmanos later admitted Greensboro was a mistake. The Whalers weren’t doing well in Hartford, yes, but moving them without a plan was just the best way to fuck up a relocation quickly.
- In the end there were many guilty parties for “what killed the Whale?” Karmanos, Gordon, Weicker(the Governor at the time), Sisti(ran the Ponzi Scheme), they were what killed the Whalers in the end. It wasn’t a “lack of fan support” or “corporate support”, yes the latter didn’t help with the Whalers issues, nor did them being in the smallest NHL market help. But to blame anyone but these three you would be crazy to do so. The Government was incompetent, they wanted the Whalers to stay, but they were looking ahead at getting the Patriots and spending taxpayer funds to build them a stadium, you would probably see the Whalers in Hartford still, had the Governor not tried to flirt with the idea of an NFL team in Hartford. But realistically the only circumstance a new arena should have been built was if there was a guarantee that the Whalers would stay and that Karmanos would fit good portion of the bill as well.
- After the Whalers left town, the Rangers moved the Binghamton Rangers to Hartford and renamed them the Hartford Wolfpack, playing in the same building as the Whalers played in, meaning NHL Hockey was gone, but AHL Hockey was here to stay. Unfortunately, even with hockey still in Hartford, not many attend Wolfpack games. But minor league teams are never that popular, so it makes some sense. For 3 seasons(2010-2013) the Wolfpack became the Connecticut Whale, paying homage to the former Whalers.
- The Carolina Hurricanes won the cup in 2005, with only one Whaler left on the roster, Defenseman Glen Wesley won his first and only Stanley Cup. I’ve always considered the Hurricanes one of the weirder cup winners, they missed before and after their win. 04-05 was cancelled due to the lockout, but they missed in 02-03 and 03-4, missing again in 06-07 and 07-08, before coming to a conference final, where they were swept by the Penguins. That was their last playoff appearance for a full decade. Why did they miss so much? It’s simple: Karmanos. He refused to spend on the team after the cap became a thing, he stopped spending, he was content with the Hurricanes being awful and being a laughing stock of the NHL. Calls to move them were more common because of Karmanos, because nobody went to games, because they were losing money.
- Could Hartford somehow get a new team? No, the answer is no. It’s too small of a market for the NHL to return to and the city is one of the poorer ones in the country as of now, with 1 in 10 citizens living in poverty, it wouldn’t be the right move to bring in a new team. Like the MLB, the NHL has a small market issue, free agents don’t want to go there, your gms can’t do much to fix anything, because nobody is giving up good players, unless it’s a cap dump and you get the picture. People in Hartford want a team, sure, but it’s mostly a minor league town, that’s what it can support, not every city can host a major league team. At the end of the day, Hartford just wouldn’t make any money for the NHL.
- Jim Rutherford is regarded by many Canes fans as a terrible GM, he didn’t help much. He eventually ran off to Pittsburgh, turning them into a back to back cup winner and then wrecking any momentum they had, by signing some mediocre players to long term deals. (Jack Johnson.) He was replaced by franchise legend, Ron Francis who got replaced by Don Waddell, Francis is currently GM for the unnamed Seattle expansion team.
- The Hurricanes are looking to rebound, after a decade of nothing-hockey, they look ready to make a comeback. The question is, was last year a fluke? or was it the start of something new? I hope it's the latter, I want this franchise to succeed, I want Hockey to succeed in North Carolina.
- The Hurricanes also honored their heritage with a Whalers throwback night, where they beat Boston,(a feat the original Whalers didn't manage to do much) in front of a bigger home crowd than the Whalers ever had. Dundon's philosophy seems to be honoring the Whalers, instead of treating them like something shameful.
- Karmanos finally sold the team in 2018, to Texas Billionaire, Tom Dundon who so far hasn’t done much of note, but enjoys talking about the Hurricanes. At the very least, it seems like he might be the owner the Hurricanes have needed.
The story of the Whalers isn’t a very happy one, in fact it’s pretty depressing when you realize this franchise never really had a chance, due to ownership, due to being a small market, due to a lot of factors. In the end, the Whalers are remembered for Brass Bonanza, for their run to the Adams Final, that had them a goal away from a Conference Final.
I'll probably cover the North Stars and everything that happened with them next, I dunno yet. I omitted a few things I know, like talking about the logo or mascot, but I covered the major events. Special thanks to the mods, who I
didn't have to harass this week, because the bot deleted a post. And thanks to
jacoobz for linking me to the Whalers article, I read through it and enjoyed it.
Good afternoon Redditors, hopefully your weekend is starting off right and your bets are getting those early dollars or just starting in the upcoming few slots. I'm here today as I begin to expand my audience.
A quick bit of information about me, I'm a computer science and statistics double major. I've combined my expertise/education with my `life-long hobby` 😉 to try and give myself the best possible advantages to predict games and produce money. I've been working hard on this (different algorithms) for years. My most recent one I began testing on 9/28/18 to this day (11/23/19). This model has been so successful (as you can see from my title) that this has become my full-time job. Some results from my `VIP-Model` in the little over a year: +$201,136 (based on a $550 bet), or ~$36,570.18 for the average $100 bettor 1,331 (Wins) - 877 (Losses) - 60 (Pushes) -108 Average Odds +16.13% ROI Not bad at all, but I'm always striving for better. I know there's no perfect in betting, but of course I want to be it.
Yesterday's VIP plays:
[NCAAB] BAYLOR VS. COASTAL CAROLINA OVER 146.5 (-115) (LOSS) [NHL] NEW YORK RANGERS (ML) (+106) VS. OTTAWA SENATORS (LOSS) [NBA] MIAMI HEAT VS. CHICAGO BULLS +4.5 (+103) (LOSS) [NCAAB] KENNESAW ST VS. MONMOUTH OVER 137 (-115) (LOSS) [NBA] HOUSTON ROCKETS VS. LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS -5 (-105) (LOSS)
There's 6 plays today, I'm playing on:
[NCAAF] UTEP VS. MEXICO STATE [NCAAF] FLORIDA ATLANTIC VS. TEXAS SAN ANTONIO [NBA] ORLANDO MAGIC VS. INDIANA PACERS [NHL] ANAHEIM DUCKS VS. TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING [NBA] SAN ANTONIO SPURS VS. NEW YORK KNICKS [NHL] NEW YORK ISLANDERS VS. SAN JOSE SHARKS
However, that's just an introduction to me and what I've been up to over the last year. As of late, after I publish my VIP picks I've been working on a new `Value-Model` where it's primarily focused on comparing Vegas odds vs. the projected `actual` value produced by this model on 10,000 simulated games. It'll be interesting because I'm focused on only ATS and ML games in NBA + NFL. My other model normally bets totals and all sports. So it'll be interesting to see how my new focused direction compares with my current `successful` model. I've already had them pick against each other a few times 😅
I will be testing this new model PUBLICLY (releasing the plays before the game(s)) and keeping track of the results for AT LEAST 1 week.
Yesterday's plays, posted in my Discord:
[NBA-ATS] Oklahoma City Thunder +4 (1 unit - $100) +$90.90 [NBA-ML] Oklahoma City Thunder @ +149 (1 unit - $100) -$100 [NBA-ML] Philadelphia 76ers @ -280 (1 unit - $100) +$35.70 OVERALL RESULTS: 2-1-0 (+0.266 units)
OVERALL NBA RESULTS: 2-1-0 (+0.266 units) NBA ATS RESULTS: 1-0-0 (+0.9090 units) NBA ML RESULTS: 1-1-0 (-0.643 units)
OVERALL NFL RESULTS: 0-0-0 (+0 units) NFL ATS RESULTS: 0-0-0 (+0 units) NFL ML RESULTS: 0-0-0 (+0 units)
I keep track of my plays in my discord (and other forum threads), I'm not sure if I'm allowed to advertise/link it in this post considering this group doesn't have rules on the right hand side. I'll leave it off this post, but if someone can let me know in the chat, that would be great. It's linked in my profile if you're interested.
Today's Value Algorithm plays:
[NBA-ATS] Charlotte Hornets +2 (1 unit - $100) [NBA-ATS] Cleveland Cavaliers +4.5 (1 unit - $100) [NBA-ATS] Memphis Grizzlies +7.5 (1 unit - $100) [NBA-ML] Charlotte Hornets @ +104 (1 unit - $100) [NBA-ML] Utah Jazz @ -230 (1 unit - $100)
It think the actual value of the Hornets today are -3 and @ -150 ML
Some other strong leads are Memphis +7.5 (thinks they're actually +2.5). Not betting it though, will see if I add it to the slate later, I'll update the post.
Good luck with bets today!
submitted by Hello
hockey As the title states, I have created a mathematical formula to decide what hockey team I will support. I will break up this post into a few sections to make it easier to read (aka casually skim through until the very end to see the results). There will be a TLDR at the end of each section.
WHY Let’s start off with a little background for this fun scientific experiment. I live in a little midwest state by the name of Indiana. You may have heard of us. We’re known for many things, such as basketball (yay!) and the Indy 500 (meh). Outside of Larry Bird, Tony Stewart, and casual racism from everyone’s grandparents, there’s not too much else here. Anyway, growing up in the mid-to-late 1990s, Indiana was a great place in terms of sports. The Indiana Pacers were a consistently great team, thanks to Reggie Miller & company (still sad no titles). The Colts were up-and-coming with the one and only Peyton Manning. Bobby Knight still coached IU basketball and there was still an air of success around the program. Like most kids in Indiana at the time, I gravitated towards basketball.
Fast forward to today. Here I am, nearly 26 years old. The Pacers heyday has come and gone, with our biggest star in 20 years now gone. IU basketball is the shell of a program it used to be, with the team flirting with relevancy during my days as a student there (2010-2014), before spiraling down to our current state of mid-tier in the Big Ten. The Colts, even though we secured a Super Bowl, felt like there should’ve been 2 or 3 more, and will forever be known as postseason choke artists of the 2000s.
Enter the 2017 NBA and NHL Playoffs.
The 2017 NBA playoffs was essentially a two month time period where some groups of guys tried to throw pebbles at a couple of Apache Attack Helicopters. Like when you’re playing Civilization, and you move your tanks into a group of crossbowmen. From day one of this NBA season, everyone knew the Finals would be the Warriors vs the Cavs. I love watching basketball, especially playoffs, but first three rounds of the NBA playoffs were hard to watch. Very few close, exciting games, with lots of blow outs. This left a void in my heart. I
needed to watch something sports related before we got to the worst time of the year (the time of year where basketball is over and football has yet to begin, and the only sport to watch on TV is baseball. In-person, baseball is fine. You get some fresh air, some hotdogs, and a couple beers with some friends. Good times. But who wants to watch a full baseball game on TV? 55 year old, white, recently divorced fathers, that’s who. Seeing as how I am only one of those things (I’ll let you guess which), I did NOT want to spend the last couple months before baseball-only season with no entertaining sports. So, as I was watching my Pacers give up the largest playoff lead in NBA playoff history, I decided to flip over to some playoff hockey.
It was so fun! I ended up watching Rangers vs Habs (Rangers won 3-2 in OT) and Sharks vs Oilers (Oilers won in OT). I struggled to understand some of what was going on, but it was EXCITING! So the next day, I watched the Caps beat the Leafs in OT, and Bruins beat the Sens in OT. And you know what, THOSE GAMES WERE EXCITING TOO (Well, Bruins - Sens was kind of exciting. More on that later). I barely even watched the NBA Playoffs that night, I was hooked. So I started popping into
hockey and lurking through some of the game threads. I saw some gifs of Fleury doing silly things like hiding the puck from the refs, pat the goal-posts when a puck bounces off the iron, and even jerk off his stick when the handle saved a goal. Charles Barkley started preaching about the NHL being awesome, and I’ve always admired Chuck for telling it like it is. I saw both the exciting side and the silly side of the NHL in this subreddit. I knew I could get into this sport.
Prior to those two nights of playoff hockey, my exposure to hockey was minimal. In 2002, when I was 11, I got the videogame Backyard Hockey for PC for my birthday. Martin Brodeur was my team’s goalie, and Jaromir Jagr lead my team in points. I chose the Flames as my franchise, because to an 11 year old, WHAT’S COOLER THAN FIRE!?! C is the letter of my first name, which as you know is also Calgary’s logo, so naturally, I had to pick them. I even renamed them the Calgary Caleb’s. What a fucking dynasty. 12 straight undefeated seasons. Wow, such an amazing run. One for the record books. That’s the only thing I remember from that video game. I didn’t play the game much after a month or so, because that is when I got sucked into Morrowind for hundreds of hours.
The only other exposure I had into hockey was during college. Like I said earlier, I went to Indiana University, and of course, that school was LOADED with Blackhawk bandwagoners. I hadn’t seen a single Hawks jersey on campus until they won the cup in 2013, and then they were everywhere. This annoyed me. So the following year, I was out at the bars and the 2014 NHL Playoffs had just started. It was game 1 between the Blues and the Hawks, and of course, the bar was packed with people wearing Blackhawks jerseys, not even watching the game. Me, being slightly intoxicated, started heckling everyone wearing a Hawks jersey. “GOOOOOOOO BLUE TEAM!” I repeatedly shouted. Finally, after 3 OTs, the Blues won the game, so I began heckling even more. I’m surprised I didn’t get in a fight, but after a while, I realized it’s because the Hawks fans there were just bandwagoning and probably didn’t really care. Fun Fact: The number of fights I got into that night is equal to the number of games the Blackhawks won this postseason.
Once I got sucked into the NHL playoffs this year, I knew I wanted to get into hockey for real. The problem was, I live in central Indiana. I can’t just support my local team, because I don’t have a local team. I thought about being a Blues fan (GOOOO BLUE TEAM!), but I didn’t really like the idea of supporting a team solely out of my disdain for the fans of another team (Hawks). I wanted to be fully invested in the team. I also considered the Golden Knights, but then I remembered
this article from fivethirtyeight. I could totally come up with something like that for my own. After an hour or so of tweaking and determining criteria, the algorithm was born.
TLDR: Channel Surfed to 2017 NHL Playoffs, games were awesome, no local team for me to support, time to create a (mostly) unbiased formula. METHODOLOGY Warning, some dry math-shit ahead.
I will be assigning a score of 1 to 10 for every single team against a set of criteria. Each criteria will be weighted. I decided to score every NHL team on the following 14 criteria.
1. Jersey and Logo Coolness. Very much a personal opinion here. I wouldn't want to support a team wearing the Mooterus Stars jersey or the Fisherman Islanders jersey. Granted, there really isn't anything quite as ugly as those currently but I will also try and factor in throwback uniforms and logos as well.
2. Quality of Best Player (Skill + Likability). It's important to have a marketable player, both via skill and personality. For example, Crosby would score very high skill-wise, but low on the likeability factor. Half the score here is skill, the other half likability. This was 1 of 2 criteria that generated a lot of internal argument
3. Geographic Closeness. The closest team to where I live is the Blue Jackets at 3 hours 20 minutes(drive time). They will serve as the baseline 10 for this criteria. Every additional 2 hours past 3 hours 20 minutes will result in a loss of a point. Google maps will serve as the utility for which time is measured
4. Quality of Fanbase. Are you fans classy, or are they all inconsiderate douchebags? Low score = hostile fans or fair weather fans.
5. Appearance of bandwagoning if supporting. Nobody likes a bandwagoner. Indiana University was filled with Blackhawk jerseys after they won the Stanley Cup. I hadn't seen a single Blackhawks jersey prior. I find this type of behavior extremely annoying, so I do not want to join a team that has a high bandwagon factor. A low score indicates a high bandwagon appearance.
6. Potential for next 5 years (Youth + Assets). I want to support a team that doesn't necessarily have to be a contender to win it all next year, but I would like to support a team that at least is considered to be a on the upswing. This was the other criteria that generated a lot of internal argument
7. Past Postseason Success. Self Explanatory.
8. Franchise Reputation. Is the franchise known for having a great GM, making savvy personnel decisions, being considered a model franchise by other franchises and other fans? Think the San Antonio Spurs of the NHL.
9. Quality of Goal Song / Power Play Song. A small factor that shouldn't be overlooked. A good goal song should be happy and joyful, a good power play song should stir excitement. I don't even know if all teams have a goal or power play song, but if you don't, you're wrong and I hate you. I concede, Chelsea Dagger is a great goal song
10. Entertainment Factor. I don't care if my future team goes 82-0 if they win every game 1-0 with a goal in the first period. I want to support a team that will excite, for better or worse. Kind of like the Capitals being a choke-hazard. Ottawa, on the other hand, is notorious for running a 1-3-1, which in layman’s terms, translates to “Boring AF”. (The first Sens - Bruins game I watched this post-season wasn’t that bad, but as the playoffs progressed, I started to get worn down by their style)
11. Disposition for City Based Upon Other Sport Fandom And Other Personal Experiences. I like basketball and football. I used to be a bigger baseball fan, but that has waned off in the past 6-7 years. I still pay attention, but not to the degree of the other two sports. Naturally, the teams I support (Pacers, Colts, Reds) have rivals. It would pain me to be a fan of the Bruins, because I know that a lot of Bruin fans are also Patriot fans. Same with Chicago because of Bulls vs Pacers. A low score here indicates that I do not like other sports teams in this city. I will also factor in personal experiences if I have ever been to the city in question.
12. Coaching. Nothing more infuriating in sports than having a great roster with poor direction from the coach. I have much experience with that feeling, unfortunately. (See the 2013 IU Men’s Basketball team, who was ranked number 1 in the nation, but couldn’t break a fucking zone defense from Syracuse in the Sweet Sixteen. Really, Tom Crean? Really? That’s middle school stuff right there)
13. Arena Quality. How bad is the arena in need of renovations? Is there a new stadium coming? Does the stadium kick ass? I plan on actually traveling to see a game in the next year or two, a nice arena would be welcome.
14. Strength In Advanced Stats. My friend Jacob, the advanced stats nerd of a hockey fan, suggested this criteria. He created a custom formula to rank every team in this area. Here is his write-up for the formula he created. Warning, even dryer math-shit ahead. Skip this quoted area to get on with the methodology.
No seriously, this shit is
dry. You have been warned
GOALIES
To summarize goalie performance, I wanted to use season-by-season goals saved above average (GSAA).
Basic formula:
GSAA=Saves-(Total ShotsLeague Average season save%)*
Summary: "How many more saves did this goalie make than a league-average goalie would have made on the same amount of shots?" (higher is better).
This takes into account ever-changing league average save% and weights for shot quantity. However, this alone does not factor in shot quality which in my mind is an important factor as well, to remove team defensive ability from the goalie’s performance. If a goalie pads his stats with saves on low-quality shots, what does that truly say about his ability?
To include shot quality, I pulled goalie save data from firstlinestats.com, which has shots categorized by low/medium/high danger. I computed the league average for each of these danger categories & calculated every goalie’s GSAA for each category. I then rounded all 3 up into one number, which was weighted as such:
Weighted GSAA=1.2High Danger GSAA+Medium Danger GSAA+0.8*Low Danger GSAA *
Validity sniff test:
In the 2016-17 season, the top 2 goalies by my calculations were Cam Talbot and Sergei Bobrovsky.
Talbot had a huge workload (started 73 games) and had an above-league-average overall save% at .919, all while facing the most high-danger shots of any goalie.
Weighted GSAA: 49.14
Bobrovsky had a big workload (started 63 games), had a historic overall save% of .931, also faced many high-danger shots, and won the Vezina trophy.
Weighted GSAA: 48.89
Though some may debate the order, in my mind, this passes.
I evaluated each team’s starter & backup by calculating each of their last 3 seasons’ weighted GSAA. To gauge their overall quality, I weighted their last 3 seasons 4/9, 3/9, and 2/9 (from most recent to least) to project ability & weed out outlier seasons as best as possible.
For overall goalie systems, I used starter quality by weighted GSAA, backup quality by weighted GSAA, and prospect quality to get an overall snapshot of a team’s goalie system. Prospect quality came from InGoal Magazine’s rankings from pre-2016-17 season, which admittedly is dated but was the best I could find.
Overall Team Goalie Quality=0.65Starter Quality+0.25Prospect Quality+0.1Backup Quality*
SKATERS
(note: in this section, when I say “shot” I mean “unblocked shot”, aka “shots on goal + missed shots”, aka “Fenwick”)
To summarize team’s skaters ability, I wanted to cover 4 aspects: even-strength shot generation, even-strength shot suppression, power play shot generation, and penalty kill shot suppression. As noted by Micah Blake McCurdy of hockeyviz.com, shot generation & suppression are mostly independent, so I reviewed those 2 parameters separately rather than in terms of Fenwick %.
Upfront, I’ll acknowledge the weaknesses in this section:
Ideally I would have used zone-, score-, and venue-adjusted Fenwick for these calculations, but with Corsica down I made do with the free analytics data I could find. I also only used last season’s numbers here...since there have been plenty of offseason moves, particularly with the expansion draft, I figured looking at only last regular season’s shot data would be the most representative going forward, though I admit it won’t be perfect.
To cover the 4 aspects mentioned previously, I pulled the following data, and weighted the numbers as noted:
- Even-strength shot generation (40%): 5v5 shots attempted per 60 minutes, score +-1
- Even-strength shot suppression (40%): 5v5 shots allowed per 60 minutes, score +-1
- Power play shot generation (10%): Shots attempted per 60 minutes on the power play
- Penalty kill shot suppression (10%): Shots allowed per 60 minutes on the penalty kill
I then ranked all teams based on this weighted criteria. For Vegas, I made a snap judgement call & rated them right in the middle of the pack. This was reinforced by their current signed roster; they have a mix of historically positive shot impact players like James Neal, average possession players like Cody Eakin, & negative possession players like Luca Sbisa. As far as I can tell, they’re aiming for right in the middle of the pack in terms of puck possession.
OVERALL
After all that, my overall ranking system was simple. 40% goalie, 60% skaters to give a one-stop estimator of team’s advanced stats strength.
Wow, I thought my algorithm was in-depth, but Jacob put his super complex shit inside of my kinda complex shit. And I thought I was a nerd.
But how did I determine the weight of the criteria? I didn’t want to just arbitrarily assigned values to each criteria. I wanted to be a bit more scientific. Using a website called
www.allourideas.com, I input the 14 criteria into their tool. The website then randomly pits one criteria against another, and I had to choose which I think is more important. I did this over the course of three weeks with 700 matchups voted upon. This “over time” approach help paint a more accurate picture as to what I find truly the most important. My opinions could change day to day, but across 3 weeks, this helped create a better overall picture. Once I reached the day I had planned to do the algorithm, I viewed the results. The website presented me with a 1-100% chance that a criteria would beat any other criteria. I then took the values and divided them by 50. This reduced the scale of the weight to be between 0 and 2. I felt that a criteria weight between 0-2 was a good number. I didn’t feel that any one criteria was more than 2 times more important than another. This would give me a much tighter spread on final point totals than if I had just assigned a 1 to 14 criteria importance. Also, a tighter point spread means more excitement for me and my friends as we filled out the algorithm. If Franchise Reputation is weight of 1.5, and I scored a team with a 10 for that criteria, then that is worth 15 points. Hopefully that makes sense. See screenshot in the final google sheet for the head-to-head probability results. This is pre-scaling of the weight.
I’m new to hockey, so how the hell am I supposed to know what team has a great coach, or who the hell has potential for the future, or a good reputation? To help me conduct the algorithm, I am relying on three of my friends who are hockey fans to help me determine point values for the criteria.
u/the_team_plug is a lifelong Bruins fan, so when it comes to the Habs, I’m not sure I will take his opinion into consideration. Otherwise, he played goalie up through college, so he actually has a pretty good knowledge base.
u/OsuJaws is a longtime Red Wings fan, and seems to believe the Red Wings won’t suck soon. Even though he went to school in Columbus Ohio, he could never bring himself to be a fan of the Blue Jackets. The other is Jacob (who won’t tell us his username, probably because he leaves creepy stalker comments all over porn subreddits). He’s the guy who came up with the advanced stats criteria above. He first got into the NHL when the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg and became a Jets, so he just sided with the newest team at the time. Because Jacob isn’t a
complete sadist, he jumped off the Jets wagon and has now been a Predators fan for all of 2 months. Convenient timing and totally not a bandwagon move.
TLDR: Math happened and an algorithm was made. Hockey friends will help me assign values that are somewhat in-between subjectivity and objectivity. The Stakes I am putting my money where my math is. Whatever team wins the algorithm scoring, I will purchase some fan gear at the end of the night. Maybe just a t-shirt, maybe a jersey, maybe a full blown mascot costume. That largely depends on how many beers I drink with the guys while scoring this. It also depends on how much I think my wife will harm me if I spend like $200 (Maybe I can make an algorithm for that as well. Beers consumed vs dollars spent vs doghouse potential, find the optimal break-even point). The two other guys are here not only to advise me in scoring of criteria I may not know, but also to keep me honest. I will buy merchandise and be a fan of whatever team wins,
NO MATTER THE RESULT. Would it pain me to be a Hawks fan based upon my past experiences? You bet your ass it would, but the numbers don’t lie. And let’s be honest, my friends would have a laugh seeing me wearing a Hawks jersey. So whatever happens, that’s what happens. No going back to fudge numbers. This is it. If I feel ambitious (ie, not lazy) I may even do the stereotypical write a letteemail to the team, explaining the situation, and
beg for merchandise asking for a letter back.
TLDR: Gonna buy some gear when finished, no matter who wins. Conducting the Algorithm At the start of the event, we decided that it would be better to hide to total column until the very end. Once a criteria had been fully scored, we also hid that column. This would help prevent bias by being able to glance at the totals as started tallying.
The Result and Closing Notes Before I share the results: I am certain that there will be disagreement on some of the scoring. I just want to take a minute and say that we scored everything to the best of our abilities. There was a lot of internal arguments for some of the scores, but all reached compromise. For things that we were uncertain, we researched between this subreddit and a few other hockey websites/forums. We know that these scores won’t please everyone. If you want to conduct this experiment on your own, I’d love to help you out!
You can choose to uncover the spoiler here, or you can open up the google sheet just below that.
I am pleased to announce that in my inaugural season of hockey fandom, I will be taking my talents to the Toronto Maple Leafs! Here is a link to the google sheet with league-wide results, sorted descending in final scoring. Be sure to hover over some of the cells to see detailed notes.
I hope you all have enjoyed this post, and I look forward to becoming more knowledgeable and enjoy this great sport!
EDIT: Whew, I struck a nerve huh?. Listen, I'm new. I know some of you had your team-pride hurt by my rankings. I can admit that some of it was inaccurate and this is not a perfect method. There probably is no perfect method to picking a team. I'm sure a lot of you are coming from a good place and are wondering on some of my scores. Even calling me stupid may be fair (I mean, I am new), but
sending me PMs from throwaway accounts wishing harm upon me is a bit much, no? EDIT 2: https://youtu.be/ryZJWLMe1ag EDIT 3: Is only game [ Removed by reddit in response to a copyright notice. ]
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