My First Ever Hockey and Soccer Post

So congratulations to the Carolina Hurricanes. I guess. I'm sorry, but I just can't get in to the NHL. I enjoyed the one time I went to see a Washington Capitols game, but I find hockey on tv basically unwatchable.

But I love watching a team hoist the Stanley Cup. I didn't actually watch any of the NHL finals, but I'm always impressed by the pictures of the champions hoisting the cup. The Stanley Cup is pretty damn majestic. Best trophy in all of sports. So I guess the best part of the hockey season for me is after the games are over but the team is still on the ice celebrating.



See, for instance, the World Cup just doesn't compare to the Stanley Cup. Look how small it is! But it does provide a nice segway for me to talk about soccer, and once again link to my favorite sports columnist, King Kaufman.

Today King returns to one of his favorite topics (and mine), lazy use of statistics.

"After Ukraine scored in the fourth minute of its game against Saudi Arabia Monday, ESPN2 flashed a graphic saying that, to that point, teams that had scored first in this World Cup were 20-2-3," King says.

He then goes on to point out the pointlessness of this statement, as ANY goal is important in a low scoring sport such as soccer. Later in the column, he shows that it's really scoring the fourth goal of the game and the sixth goal of the game that have more correlation to victory (but oddly enough, no the fifth).

But King sums it up best....

The message is that in soccer, if you want to win, a good strategy is to try to score a goal. You can't get this kind of analysis just anywhere.

Indeed, you can't.