Around the League Thread part V

[Raccoon Jesus]

If anyone ever needs to know how little media outside LA know about the LA Kings, just take one glance at the statue discourse that's still somehow ongoing.

 

[johnjm22]

Older video, and kind of OT, but I was reminded of it from all the mascot talk.

 

[lumbergh]

Shoulda gone with the Wheedle on the Needle. Too much like Gritty, I guess.

Wheedle on the Needle

Deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest lives a quiet old creature named the Wheedle. When humans move into his forests, bringing their loud city noises, Wheedle flees to the rocky peaks of Mount Rainier, and then to the very tip-top of Seattle's Space Needle.A national bestseller, the...

books.google.com

 

[King'sPawn]

I can say I'm totally fine with it as a mascot. I'm sure the kids (who the mascots are more for, anyway) will have plenty of fun with it.

 

[kingsholygrail]

Penner had 3-8-11 in 20 playoff games that run. That’s good production. Penner-Richards-Carter was a fantastic line in the playoffs.

No one is saying he was prime Alex Ovechkin.

Still remember his buzzer beater in 2013 against the Blues.

 

[KingsFan7824]

Penner had 3-8-11 in 20 playoff games that run. That’s good production. Penner-Richards-Carter was a fantastic line in the playoffs.

No one is saying he was prime Alex Ovechkin.

Yes, in that run. Prior to the run, Penner had 7g that year. I'm just trying to imagine what we'd say if the 2LW had 7g this year. Poised for a deep playoff run? I don't know.

I like to try and remember what the likely sentiment was at different stages that year before the playoffs, because the Cup masks everything.

 

[YP44]

Anybody see this?

I honestly do not get the hate out there for the Brown statue. Guy has played more games as a king than any other player and was first player to ever host the cup as a King. Anybody who does not think he deserves doesn't know what he has meant to the kings. I am not a big statue guy, but if you are doing them I cannot think of a more deserving king.

 

[All The Kings Men]

I honestly do not get the hate out there for the Brown statue. Guy has played more games as a king than any other player and was first player to ever host the cup as a King. Anybody who does not think he deserves doesn't know what he has meant to the kings. I am not a big statue guy, but if you are doing them I cannot think of a more deserving king.

It's just lazy "content" creation and it's innevitable in a marketplace where everybody gets a voice and there's no editorial gatekeeping.

I've been asked as a guest on two "season preview" episodes focusing on the LA Kings and both shows brought up the statue.

They didn't know the roster, don't cover the team and didn't have particularly detailed questions but gosh darn it they can have an opinion on a statue!

Nobody really cares it's just an easy subject to have your voice heard on.

 

[Steve Zissou]

What the hell is this devil sorcery!?

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

What the hell is this devil sorcery!?

Focus on the chest, not the puck, put him on his ass.....

But yea, great moves

 

[Steve Zissou]

Kings gonna get out-sauced by Seattle, apparently.

 

[johnjm22]

Kings gonna get out-sauced by Seattle, apparently.

Yeah I saw this and posted it in another thread.

I think this is last year's projections:

The analytics really love Seattle.

 

[kingsfan28]

Kings gonna get out-sauced by Seattle, apparently.

Well thank god its not final!
Yeah, like both Vancouver and Seattle got 10+ points better this off season, with the Kraken + 27.

Looks like Vegas misses the playoff again too!

 

[Chazz Reinhold]

Hockey Viz's model is much higher on the Kings:

His had the Kings pegged to finish the best out of all their placing in all the public models last year. I think it had them in the low 90s for points. One distinguishing feature of his model this year is that he attempts to account for the effect of passing before a shot (which is not easily accounted for based on the public data the NHL produces).

This interesting article speaks to that to some extent: Charron: What I learned working in an NHL front office

As hockey statistics have gained popularity and more mainstream appeal, we’re beginning to see the proliferation of all-in-one measures like GAR in an effort to rank a player’s total contribution to his team. I’m not convinced there’s enough publicly available data to be able to do that. What the NHL publishes officially is dwarfed by the amount of data provided to teams by independent services, which not only includes data like passing, zone entries, or puck retrievals, but has more accurate location and time stamping. It makes it easier to get a clear picture of the game when you’re looking at thousands of data points as opposed to the 300 or so published by the NHL in each game. The public works with what they have the best they can.

This is also a fundamental flaw of current, publicly available expected goals models: shots that are preceded by a pass are more than twice as likely to go in as those that aren’t. Omitting pre-shot movement data (not by choice) makes a huge impact on these measures, underrating or overrating certain players based on what is publicly available.

 

[kingsholygrail]

What the hell is this devil sorcery!?

Low quality league.

 

[DrHansReinhardt]

last week I was in seattle. my friend took us to see that freemont troll. pretty lame. I was at the Kracken oilers on monday when they announced they would unveil the mascot soon. I was hoping for more tentacles lol
not exactly the spitting image either

 

[FSL KINGS]

Yeah I saw this and posted it in another thread.

I think this is last year's projections:

The analytics really love Seattle.

Phi 1st in metro. This isn't even 2 ply

 

[KingLB]

last week I was in seattle. my friend took us to see that freemont troll. pretty lame. I was at the Kracken oilers on monday when they announced they would unveil the mascot soon. I was hoping for more tentacles lol
not exactly the spitting image either

Lol my exact reaction to that troll.

 

[bland]

It's just lazy "content" creation and it's innevitable in a marketplace where everybody gets a voice and there's no editorial gatekeeping.

I've been asked as a guest on two "season preview" episodes focusing on the LA Kings and both shows brought up the statue.

They didn't know the roster, don't cover the team and didn't have particularly detailed questions but gosh darn it they can have an opinion on a statue!

Nobody really cares it's just an easy subject to have your voice heard on.

Thing is, it really is considered to be absurd by a lot of folks. Because it kinda is. We don't really explain it to people, we end up justifying it.

 

[KINGS17]

I honestly do not get the hate out there for the Brown statue. Guy has played more games as a king than any other player and was first player to ever host the cup as a King. Anybody who does not think he deserves doesn't know what he has meant to the kings. I am not a big statue guy, but if you are doing them I cannot think of a more deserving king.

To be honest, I wouldn't have a statue of Robitaille or Gretzky in front of Staples Center. Neither one of those guys won anything here. Once they put those up, one of Brown hoisting the Stanley Cup was inevitable. Coffey can pound sand and go suck a bronze knob in Edmonton when it is -10 degrees F for all I care.

Brown is fine, because for me it is more a tribute to the entire team and finally winning the Stanley Cup. If they had wanted to wait until they could make one with Brown, Kopitar, Doughty and Quick together with the Stanley Cup, I would have been fine with that as well. Some day I fully expect Bob Miller to be there right along side Chick Hearn. Two would have been enough.

 

[All The Kings Men]

Thing is, it really is considered to be absurd by a lot of folks. Because it kinda is. We don't really explain it to people, we end up justifying it.

Thing is... just because you're right doesn't mean I'm wrong.

It's the cheapest laziest trick in the "I don't have anything to talk about so I'm gonna burn time on THIS" bag.


EDIT:

BUT... it's only "absurd" if you live in a world where you take yourself and your sports takes ENTIRELY too seriously.

Honestly who cares? It's a statue that will bring happiness to people and allow for social gatherings and fond reminiscences. What EXACTLY is so offensive about the idea of building a statue to a dude that won public service awards and made people happy?

Because he didn't score enough goals for the Grand Universal Statue of Athletic Excellence Committee to deem him worthy?

Shut up.

 

[johnjm22]

It's just lazy "content" creation and it's innevitable in a marketplace where everybody gets a voice and there's no editorial gatekeeping.

When there was editorial gatekeeping, the "content" was just as lazy and lowbrow.

 

[All The Kings Men]

When there was editorial gatekeeping, the "content" was just as lazy and lowbrow.

You're probably not wrong... but at least there was less of it.

Let's just take something like that $1.5M in cap space that I saw multiple people quoting as the Kings available cap space BEFORE the Kings signed Anderson and Durzi.

That was never a meaningful number and was a completely inaccurate reading of publicly available information.

BUT

I saw at least half a dozen outlets of varying degrees of "legitimacy" repeating it and repeating it and repeating it because everybody has a voice and nobody is double checking anybody's work and there's almost zero institutional accountability.

If someone on a blog says something wrong... there's no retraction. There's no consequences. There's no accountability.

So people say whatever they want and it gets repeated and repeated and repeated and then it just becomes the truth.


OK I'll get off my soapbox now. Particularly since I started independently with no oversight or consequences for the things I said and wrote.

 

[johnjm22]

You're probably not wrong... but at least there was less of it.

Let's just take something like that $1.5M in cap space that I saw multiple people quoting as the Kings available cap space BEFORE the Kings signed Anderson and Durzi.

That was never a meaningful number and was a completely inaccurate reading of publicly available information.

BUT

I saw at least half a dozen outlets of varying degrees of "legitimacy" repeating it and repeating it and repeating it because everybody has a voice and nobody is double checking anybody's work and there's almost zero institutional accountability.

If someone on a blog says something wrong... there's no retraction. There's no consequences. There's no accountability.

So people say whatever they want and it gets repeated and repeated and repeated and then it just becomes the truth.


OK I'll get off my soapbox now. Particularly since I started independently with no oversight or consequences for the things I said and wrote.

I can't help but roll my eyes when the access media (which you are now, no offense) laments the social media/YT/blogosphere not having editorial standards.

Mainstream media, news, analysts and broadcasters are lazy too and get stuff wrong all the time. Always have.

If you've ever seen a subject that you know intimately covered in the news, it's usually inaccurate to a degree. Gell-Mann Amnesia - Epsilon Theory

I don't mean to come off like a jerk here (I've been listening to you and enjoying your content for years), but the reason it gets on your nerves when a YouTuber says the Kings have 1.5M in cap probably isn't because he's wrong, it's probably because he's competition.

 

[bland]

Thing is... just because you're right doesn't mean I'm wrong.

It's the cheapest laziest trick in the "I don't have anything to talk about so I'm gonna burn time on THIS" bag.


EDIT:

BUT... it's only "absurd" if you live in a world where you take yourself and your sports takes ENTIRELY too seriously.

Honestly who cares? It's a statue that will bring happiness to people and allow for social gatherings and fond reminiscences. What EXACTLY is so offensive about the idea of building a statue to a dude that won public service awards and made people happy?

Because he didn't score enough goals for the Grand Universal Statue of Athletic Excellence Committee to deem him worthy?

Shut up.

Well, yeah, and you just did what I described. We have to build a defense for it when the subject comes up because yes, it is a low-bar threshold thing because Brown just doesn't have the "esteem" that the general public thinks should be reserved for that kind of honor. Honor means different things to different people, and those who get nutty over these sorts of things likely still place value in statues like that having more prestige - and Brown ain't held in that regard outta town.

I agree with you, its just picture fodder for those who care and for those out of towners to deride at their leisure. So what. But nobody is "wrong" here, its like giving Adam Sandler an honorary Oscar. Sure, lots of fans and a ton of ticket sales, but... that guy? That's how it comes across, the decision caused a reaction and to the folks out of market it was a kind of peculiar choice and strange enough to talk about.