ASBOlutely Statalicious

ASBOlutely Stat-alicious

The off-season blogosphere has been lit up from within and without with the hiring of many of our best and brightest away to team positions due to their statistical analytic prowess. Excited by the prospect of being hired away by an NHL team, many bloggers rushed to fill the void caused by the sudden dearth of talented writers with analytic knowledge, some with the hopes of also being added to a team's analytic division.

Then there were those were keen to create a new generation of Fancy Stat. Those who wanted to crest a new wave and be ahead of the curve of the next Corsi, the new Fenwick.

The #FanciestStat movement was born out of Rogers SportsNet, where John Shannon, Ken Reid, Jeff Marek and John Garrett, as they invented new and amusing ways to track irrelevant statistics. The original is PIDs: Pucks In Deep. This was quickly followed with SHTs: Short-Handed in Transition.

@generationxwing and myself on twitter over the course of many months then crafted a group of them around these two, and we present the first ten of them to you here.

They are the Appropriate Stats By Order. And the ASBOs are The Truth.

We'll start with the first among equals, PIDs, and SHTs.

PID - Pucks In Deep: The raw count of the number of times a team flips a puck deep into their offensive zone. Now, raw PIDs don't directly lead to wins, but they're necessary to achieve..

PID Turnovers: Technically a subset of PIDs, but they get their own category as they're quite important. Getting a PID, then forcing a turnover, giving your team possession in your offensive zone.

SHT - Short-Handed in Transition: Creating a turnover or otherwise that forces the defense to skate madly back in transition to defend a short-handed chance.

The next was the third original ASBO:

OHSHIT - Offensive Holding the Stick, Holding, Interference, Tripping: A stupid, bone-headed play in the offensive zone. Also known as the Benoit Pouliot stat.

To follow we have a suite of stats:

GOB - Good Ontaria Boy: A player's GOB number is made up of an amalgamation of the following stats...

FIST - First In Scrum Tendency: As it sounds - how likely a player is to be the first into a scrum.

CC - Cal Clutterbucks: A hit causing a turnover. So named for the Minnesota player and his notoriously overinflated hit stats by the local stat-counters.

Next are some of the younger ASBOs.

PIKEYS - Passing In KEY Scenarios: Passing % When the score is within a goal and there are ten minutes or fewer in regulation.

OT-OT - On Target/Off Target: Colloquially known as "Walkers" - this tracks a players ratio of shots on target to off target. 3 total shots, with one on goal is a half-Walker. You only get to be a full walker if at least half your shot attempts make it to the goal/tender.

WSQ - Will Smith Quota: This is a teams' ability to utilize Will Smith puns with the names of their players. Colorado has been a recent strong player in this metric, as "Gettin Jiggy Wit It" made way for "Gettin Iggy Wit It".



The ASBO movement is still in its infancy, and as we explore new ways to study this beautiful game of ours, no doubt the collection of ASBOs will grow. But for now, let these ten stand as the Original ASBOs. Learn them, know them. They are the future. And the ASBOs are The Truth.

Replacement-Level Humanity

"They should get rid of him, he's crap."

Words to this effect have come out of the mouth of, and I don't think I reach when I presume to say, every sports fan in the history of everything ever.

Snap judgments are made as to the current, future and in some instances past worth of a player to his team, his club, his country, the greater society. These judgments, along with a confident assertion that the replacement-level player would perform better with ease usually follow a poor performance, or perhaps even an admirable performance with an untimely end. As is the case of the tenth wicket to fall with mere overs remaining in a days' play, or the footballer who gets red-carded on the grandest of stages at the most inopportune moment. And we judge them. We label them for their failures, and as research has shown, because we recall more rapidly the poor performances than the heroic ones we often label them for life. Sometimes it requires technology such as YouTube to resuscitate the career of the terminally maligned.

Heard in the Grandstands 22/February/2014

Heard in the Grandstands

22/February/2014

Heard in the Grandstands is our quick-fire wrap around the sports world, where we make observations from what's taken place over the last little while.

• Good to see Jeremy Lin hitting midseason form, shooting 6/19 over his last two games.
• Sometimes the beauty of half pipe snowboarding is that it doesn't impress you. There are some people out there making flipping through the air look shockingly easy.
• Has anyone checked on the guy who crashed out allowing Victor An to win gold when he basically forgot to start the race? I am fairly sure someone from State Security shot the poor guy from the stands.
• Speaking of that, I haven't seen or heard from a member of the Russian men's ice hockey team since they lost to Finland. Please send word if Putin hasn't shot them for their failure.
• Garth Snow wants the NHL to withdraw from the Olympics after his New York Islanders lost their best player John Tavares to a season-ending injury at the tournament. Poor Snow is confused, they don't own the players. This isn't Association Football.
• And on that note, a tournament scheduled to lead into the next football season called the "International Champions Cup" will feature English Premier League clubs Liverpool and Manchester United. Both fans were heard saying "at least they'll get to play in some Champions Cup" about the other club.
• Domestic violence is never OK, but I can't help but compare the level of outrage represented in the allegations against Ray Rice compared to the allegations against Semyon Varlamov. ESPN.com, I am talking to you.
• "How is it that Graeme Smith has won two coinflips but lost both tosses? - An Australian when South Africa were 2/11 early on Day One of the Second Test. Whoever said that is feeling pretty...pretty...foolish right now.

The Great Individual

The Oval, September 12, 2005. England, needing a draw to claim the Ashes for the first time in nearly 20 years, have a slim second innings lead and are 3 down, having lost two in two deliveries to the exacting Glenn McGrath. Kevin Pietersen, a shock of peroxide blonde spat down the centre of his hair, walks to the crease in his fifth test. He is lucky to survive his first frenetic 20 runs, most famously being dropped on 15 by Hampshire teammate Shane Warne. Following his reprieve, he plays one of the most remarkable Ashes innings in living memory. Swatting one of the best bowling attacks ever assembled (Warne, McGrath, Lee) for a record breaking 7 sixes on his way to 158. Seemingly unaware of the pressure, or the steady precession of wickets at the other end. The draw is achieved.

The MCG, December 27, 2013. England are limping toward yet another subpar total at 7 for 231. Pietersen, on 71, represents their last chance of achieving a respectable score. He plays an ugly swipe at a rampant Mitchell Johnson and is bowled. A fourth consecutive England defeat already looks nigh on inevitable.

These two events serve as illustrative bookends of his career – the giddy euphoria, the limitless sense of possibility of his beginning, and the muted, oddly distracted sigh of his end. In between, he provided plenty of euphoria and plenty of sighs.

Personally, I think the decision to end Pietersen’s career is bad one; England do not look like a side that has the luxury of dropping their best player. Think of Old Trafford, 2013, Headingly and Wankhede 2012, Lords and the Oval 2011 or Adelaide 2010. I could go on and on - no test playing nation escaped a bludgeoning.  All the talk of a terrible influence on team morale, of a disruptive ego and churlish anger was conspicuous by its absence in those instances. But then, we’ve never been especially consistent in our take on sports peoples personalities – we could cite dozens of example that show the difference between, say, gifted tearaway party boy and sad substance addicted embarrassment depends seemingly entirely on how many wins one contributes to.

And perhaps that’s what it comes down to – England were losing, badly, and Pietersen wasn’t bringing anything to the table but that ego and that insecurity. His bad qualities had ceased to have any surplus value. Perhaps it’s just sentimental fandom on my part that makes this all feel slightly wrong. That feels that Pietersen (and Graeme Swann, while we’re at it) helped redefine what English cricket saw itself as capable of and, as such, deserved a little more.

Regardless, this decision, given the timing (England start a transitional period where quality and experience could be useful) and his recent form (hardly stellar by his standards but still the best England mustered on that woeful tour), this decision can be only be interpreted as decidedly personal. With a great individual like Kevin Pietersen, it was always going to be.