Someone created the boxscore, and he should be shot

The virus that infected professional baseball in the 1990s, the use of statistics to find new and better ways to value players and strategies, has found its way into every major sport. Not just basketball and football, but also soccer and cricket and rugby and, for all I know, snooker and darts — each one now supports a subculture of smart people who view it not just as a game to be played but as a problem to be solved. - Michael Lewis, The No-Stats All-Star

Michael Lewis turns in yet another great read, this time about the emergence of stats in the NBA (Money Round-ball?). Lots of parallels here between the NHL and the NBA (trying to find value, the scarcity of low-contract high-performance players, and the emergence of new stats help inform player personnel decisions).

The five players on any basketball team are far more than the sum of their parts; the Rockets devote a lot of energy to untangling subtle interactions among the team’s elements. To get at this they need something that basketball hasn’t historically supplied: meaningful statistics. For most of its history basketball has measured not so much what is important as what is easy to measure — points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots — and these measurements have warped perceptions of the game. (“Someone created the box score,” Morey says, “and he should be shot.”)

What I wouldn't give for this piece to be about the NHL...

Read Michael Lewis' New York Times Magazine Article here.

It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

I don't mean to pick on Jeff Blair, but I was lured into reading his article about the Minnesota Wild this morning and am left rather puzzled as to why it was filed or what Blair's point might be. Of course, I could just be having reading comprehension issues this morning.

I'm an unrepentant fan of Money Ball the book (in fact anything written by Michael Lewis) and I also find the work of Bill James fascinating. I know I'm not alone in wondering what role advanced statistics have in the NHL and in helping GMs identify value (e.g. players performing higher than their cap hit) in an inefficient system (the NHL).

Given that the NHL is the only sport with a hard cap and guaranteed salaries, you'd think there would be an insatiable appetite for fresh insights and new approaches, especially now that several GMs (Howson, Gillis and Risebrough) are looking at new ways to build a team.

But back to Blair. He finds himself with the Leafs in Minnesota and he's got access to Wild GM Doug Risebrough and he turns in this little bowl of sadness:

MINNEAPOLIS — The epitome of the feisty player who makes the game's dinosaurs go all dewy-eyed, Doug Risebrough — who once ripped Marty McSorley's jersey to shreds in the penalty box in one of the more memorable chapters of the Battle of Alberta — now carries a backpack and talks in Moneypuck.

That's a great lede. The juxtaposition of the sweater tearing goon with the book reading, stat loving, GM is solid.

He will patiently explain the need to "react quickly in your own time." He will talk, as he did Monday, about how the Minnesota hockey market "understands the balance between defence and offence," and if you need to figure out what he thinks about the Minnesota Wild, all you have to do is go to the club's website (wild.nhl.com) and there you'll find a hockey operations blog and "Thoughts about our team at the all-star break, by Doug Risebrough, president and general manager." No need to have your message distilled by the media. It's all there. Not quite the thoughts of Chairman Doug, but a dispassionate analysis, in this case, of why his team is scoring less along with an obvious and repeated defence of personnel decisions made in the off-season.

Ok, first of all, there's way too much crammed into this paragraph. Secondly, Blair has several opportunities here to offer up something interesting and he whiffs.

1. Does he speak to any Wild Fans to see if they do indeed understand the balance between defence and offense? Can he contextualize the feelings of the Wild fan base writ large?
2. Whoa, a GM is adopting modern(ish) technology to by-pass media filters and speak right to his audience, this is cool isn't it? Are other GMs doing this? What does this mean for fans? For the media? Does Risebrough even write it or is it ghost written? Why the blog? Did Risebrough think the Wild couldn't get their message out? Was it being too filtered? Too much media reinterpretation? Sadly Blair doesn't weigh in, he's on to other stuff...

Blair continues...

The Wild do things like this, either Risebrough or director of hockey operations Chris Snow, a former baseball beat reporter with The Boston Globe. Three fewer wins than last year, an equal number of overtime losses, but six places lower in the standings and they can make it all make sense.

Um, that first sentence needs a bit of work (why the passive voice?) but that second sentence is a killer. How hard is it make sense of the Wild's current place in the standings? Seriously, in four words: "The West is tight." Who would have thought Phoenix would be in fifth?

When the Toronto Maple Leafs meet the Wild Tuesday night at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, they will face a team that on the surface appears to be one of the most nondescript in the NHL, without the type of identity crisis that afflicts the Leafs.

Blair mistakes boring with non-descript. Ask any hockey fan to describe the Wild in three words or less and "defence" "trap" and "low scoring" will be mentioned with more frequency than a Hab or Sens fan dropping "1967" on Leafs Nation.

It isn't exactly comforting, but the Wild know who they are: ninth place in the Western Conference; their best forward, Marian Gaborik, possibly due back in town Tuesday after a rehabilitation stint following hip surgery, but still weeks away from a possible return; and a simmering contractual issue with free agent to be and all-star goaltender Niklas Backstrom. This for a team that had Brian Rolston and Pavol Demitra leave to free agency.

No Mr. Blair, that's not who they are, it's where they are.

In the local media, some sniff about a "smartest kids in the classroom" thing that might segue into something resembling baseball arguments about Moneyball. It's not just failure that undermines being newfangled; so can treading water.

Some of the local media don't like Risebrough's attitude, ok. But what's the meat of these arguments? Who's on which side? What can we learn, if anything, from this new approach or it's detractors? Sadly, it's nothing that Blair wants to share...

Two first-round exits in consecutive playoff years require some spinning to constitute progress to the average fan.

Spinning. Really? GM gets a blog and suddenly Blair is re-living 1990 and the War Room. Is San Jose spinning after numerous playoff choke jobs? Are the Sens spinning? When is it spinning and when is it offering explanations? (I'd wager in the Wild's case it's spin as it attempts to go right to to the fans via a blog without the great big brains of sports journalists as intermediaries.)

Riseborough. points out that his team is 24th in goals for this season and second in goals against. And (all you dinosaurs look away): "As we must, we are taking fewer penalties than all but two teams and killing the ones we take at the second-best rate in the league."

Um, dinosaurs? What? Older hockey fans can't understand or don't want to understand that penalties hurt your team? These so-called dinosaurs don't get (or don't want to get) that it's good to have a strong PK? I have no idea what Blair is on about here.

The key is getting some goals 5-on-5, where the Wild have just 62 goals, tied for lowest in the NHL. "In the previous three seasons, no player in the league scored at a greater rate at even strength than Marian, 1.61 goals per 60 even-strength minutes - compared to 1.58 for Alexander Ovechkin," Risebrough writes.

That's a really solid insight from Risebrough. More than 2/3 of every game is played 5-5, it makes perfect sense that all teams should want to increase their scoring rates during 40+minutes of play. Be great if my local sports page could provide this type of insight and, most importantly, give it the proper context so all fans (including Blair's so-called dinosaurs) can enjoy it.

Risebrough believes that the key to success in the salary-cap era is spreading out risk. So he did that in the off-season, taking the $11.75-million that it cost other clubs to sign Rolston, Demitra and Mark Parrish and spreading it out (plus $1-million more) among five players who have outscored the departed.

Another great insight on team building, albeit buried past the mid-point of the article. Amazingly, Risebrough's approach looks like it's working too - he spreads the risk and gets better performance. Wouldn't it be great if we had a comparator here, like I don't know a few teams that didn't spread the risk and are near the bottom of the standings (Ottawa, Tampa). And as the local club is going through a re-build, why not ask Burke his take on risk management?

In the end, he believes it wouldn't matter if Gaborik was healthy, and it looks the same from the dressing room as from the executive suite. "All those 2-1 games add up," defenceman Nick Schultz said yesterday. "Any little mistake, you know? It's never just a matter of 'Oh, they got another one, so we'll get one and even it out.' "

A player and a GM on a different page? Stop the presses. A player who knows where it's deficiency might be and who'd like the talent to help, that's not exactly new. My beer league team would like our goalie to come out of the blue paint some time this year too.

Head coach Jacques Lemaire shrugged in response to a question about the lack of offence. "What do you do?" Lemaire said. "You have to be better somewhere, naybe the power play. The first 25 games or so, it was our power play that carried us. But you know, you can't keep that up all year. You have to start scoring 5-on-5."

I think Lemaire is absolutely right and it's a shame that Blair hasn't decided to explore the GM and Coach's insight of the importance of 5 on 5 play.

And this is who the Wild are. If you doubt it, check the GM's blog. Minnesota is "playing to its identity," Risebrough writes, without relying on hooey about grit or chemistry, to a fan base that apparently understands but might be prepared to ask hard questions about why that's the case. The guess here is Risebrough's ready for them, fingers poised over his laptop.

Yuck. Is this who Blair is? I don't doubt it but I won't be checking out much more of his stuff if he continues to phone it in. Talk about a missed opportunity...I'm sure Blair is ready for more, fingers poised over his laptop too.

It's autumn and my camoflauge is dying

Our Christmas tree went up on Sunday. It being only November 30th, I'm sure we broke some sort of seasonal protocol that will result in my sweeping up roughly 16 pounds of pine needles over the next four weeks and having a brown, skeletal tree by Boxing Day.

My Leafs ornament (a gift from my parents circa 1983) usually gets pride of place front and centre in the tree, but somehow this year it lost the prime tree real estate to more child-focused decorations.




My boy is three and has a little too much in common with Jarko Rutu. He delights in picking fights with my daughter yet runs away at the first sign of physical conflict, he whines a lot and he has a terrible habit of smiling and making faces after he's done something especially egregious. As long as Santa brings something with wheels, it will be a fine Christmas for him.

My daughter is five and can't decide on what she wants from Santa. In a somewhat refreshing approach, instead of asking for anything and everything, she's trying to focus in on the single, perfect gift. This year, she's also shown a real awareness and interest in gifts for others (a first) and she's been asking my wife and I what we want for Christmas.

Traditionally, Christmas gifts from the kids have been firmly entrenched in the paste, glitter and construction paper industries. And even though I've become completely addicted to the Toronto Public Library (I currently have five books out and 15 on order) there's something rewarding about finding a good book under the tree on the 25th, retreating to a quiet spot and disappearing into a great read.

With that love of books in mind and with just 23 days until Christmas (and 20 until Hanukkah) I thought I'd assemble a list of 13 (15 really, but who's counting) of my favourite sports related books that you can either pick up for the sports fan in your life or put on your own gift list...

13. Offside: The Battle for Control of Maple Leafs Gardens - Theresa Tedesco

Not to keep bringing up the Leafs' ugly past, but this is the quintessential book for understanding the mess that was the late 80s, early 90s Leafs and the seeds for what would become MLSE.

Financial Post reporter Tedesco wrote this illuminating book about the ugliness that emerged after Ballard's death and the financial fight for the Leafs that followed. There's a heavy emphasis here on accounting, law and the sports business side of things, but there's just enough good stuff to give anyone who reads it more reason to question what might have been had Stavro not stood in Fletcher's way (like Gretzky playing for the Leafs for instance).

Check availability here.

12. Fantasyland - Sam Walker

Like sports? Do you participate in fantasy drafts? Ever wonder what would happen if you took a year off your job just to manage your fantasy sports team? Maybe take your wife on holidays to catch a little winter ball down in the Dominican. How about a set of media credentials that gave you full access to the atheletes you drafted and the coaches who actually manage them? And to top it off, why not hire hiring a NASA scientist to crunch your stats for you and build predictive models.

If you think this sounds good, Sam Walker's Fantasyland is for you - a very fun read by a Wall Street Journal sports reporter who did all of that and more as part of Tout Wars, a baseball pool just for sports analysts and sports writers.

Check for availability here.

11.Great Hockey Masks and The Art of the Hockey Mask - Michael Cutler

This one is a bit unfair as I don't own either of these and I have been on the lookout for them for years. Each thin (16 to 22 pages) book offers a series of beautiful, simple, four colour plates of the goalie masks of the late 70s and early 80s. This book was on near permanent loan from my grade school library and I spent hours (maybe days, weeks and months) tracing these masks and colouring them in or coming up with my own designs. Just getting lost in the basic, paper-cut painting style.

I can only presume the publisher (Tundra) did very small print runs as these often retail for $60 to $100+ a copy and it's next to impossible to find scans or even images from these books on-line. Even the Toronto Public Library only has a single copy in their reference collection.

If ever a book needs to be re-published, this is the one. If you know anyone with a fascination for goalie masks, especially if they were born in the late 60s/early 70s this book would be an awesome addition under the tree (and if anyone owns a copy, please email me!)

Check for availability (good luck with that) here.

10. Lights Went Out / Future Greats - Gare Joyce

Future Greats and Heartbreaks is the type of book I wish was written every year, a detailed look at the NHL draft class and the execs who will them.

In part one, Joyce gets to sit in on meetings with the Columbus Blue Jackets scouts and team management, including taking part in prospect interviews, the player combine, and is privy to the official team draft list for the 2006 draft.

Part two features detailed game-by-game notes from junior games and tournaments around the world as Joyce moves through the world of scouting.

Part three tracks the actual draft and many of the players who Joyce has met, interviewed and followed on the ice are chosen by NHL teams. Had this been published a year or two earlier, no one would have been scratching their heads as Esposito fell through the rankings like a stone down a well.

As the Leafs continue with their re-build this is an excellent and very timely read for all those Leaf fans who are dreaming of a lottery pick this summer.

Joyce's When the Lights Went Out is the story of the punch-up in Piestany at the 1987 World Junior Championships. A really fascinating look at the boys who made up that club, the conditions that led to the brawl and the strange fallout that followed. Treated horribly by Hockey Canada in the aftermath of the fight, the team found unlikely support from Harold Ballard. Several of the Canadians interviewed in the book admit to never knowing the names of the Russians they fought - many of whom would go on to be their teammates in the NHL. The comments about Pierre Turgeon in the epilogue (some of the most scathing and insulting quotes I've ever read) are well worth tracking this book down for.

Future Greats can be found here and When the Lights Went Out can be found here.

9. Ball Four - Jim Bouton

The famous tell-all diary from Bouton's 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and the Houston Astros. The only sports book to make the New York Public Library's Best Books of the 21st Century, Bouton was black balled from baseball for writing this book (want to know about your favourite New York Yankee's voyeurism habits? Pick up a copy).

Prime reading for anyone who wants an up close look at the inner life of professional athletes. Bull Durham, one of my favourite movies, owes a big debt to this book. Great stuff from the man that also brought us Big League Chew.

Check availability here.

8. Sittler - Darryl Sittler

Published in 1991, this book came out before the Leafs began to restore the team, the brand and the franchise's relationship with its alumni. It's a shocking look at just how badly Harold Ballard ran the team and how badly Leaf players were treated.

The amazing thing, and a testament to Sittler's character, is how unaffected he seems by this. Clearly, he's longing for the Leafs to recognize his contributions and for the organization to treat him the way that the Flyers do (when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, the Flyers send gifts; no reps from the Leafs bother to attend, even though the ceremony takes place just three subway stops from Maple Leafs Garden) but he's not embittered.

The book offers a very candid look at Sittler's relationships with former Leafs Lanny MacDonald, Roger Neilson, Harold Ballard, Jim Gregory and Punch Imlach. It's an enlightening read - especially for fans who might be too young to remember just how bad things once were. Here's Sittler describing an incident in 1974 when he tried to confirm if his contract included a no-trade clause:

We moved the conversation across the hall to Harold Ballard's office where The Boss was sitting behind his desk.
"What's wrong?" he growled. Ballard always anticipated the "best case" scenario.
I spoke up. "I thought I had a no-trade contract, I believe I do, and Jim Gregory is telling me I don't."
"Whattayamean a no-trade contract," he boomed. "Dontcha have any confidence in your own ability?"
"I've got all the confidence in the world in my own abilities Harold. But if the Boston Bruins offered Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito for me, I'm sure you'd make the deal."
He wasn't going to be mollified by common sense, and you could almost see the delicious thoughts of Orr and Esposito in blue and white scrolling across his forehead, like the electronic newsboards they have outside buildings to bring the latest news bulletins to passerby. Those thougths danced right out, exit stage left, when he had an agonizing thought of what he might have to pay these guys.
Harold was nothing if he wasn't practical. He turned back to me.
"Ya might think I'm whistling Dixie here, but it would take both of those guys to move you outta here."
"Yeah, you're right," I countered.
"I know," he smiled.
"I do think you're whistling Dixie."
His face changed for a second or two, the look of a kid with cookie jar right up to the elbow. Figuring quite rightly that I didn't mean too much disrespect, and not anxious to have a blow-up in his office over the issue, he got up and came around the desk.
Harold put one arm around my shoulder. Buddy to buddy. Blood brothers who share the same uniform. Together forever.
"Brian, we wouldn't trade you for love or money."
He thought I was Spinner Spencer.
Jim Gregory, always quick on his feet, jumped right in to rescue The Boss.
"Harold, it's Darryl!"

Check availability here

7. Tropic of Hockey - Dave Bidini

A travelog of sorts with Bidini going around the world to play hockey with the locals and get a better understanding of how various nations and cultures have adopted and adapted hockey. From northern China to a shopping mall in Hong Kong; from Israel and Dubai to the Czech Republic, it's fascinating to see how unifying the game of hockey can be (and how cheap stickwork can be found in the game no matter where or when you play it).

Check availability here.

6. The Rocket, the Flower, the Hammer and Me - Doug Beardsley (editor)

A long out of print collection of some great hockey writing from Paul Quarrington, W.P. Kinsella, Morley Callaghan, Hugh Maclennan, and others. This is the book Wendel Clark was reading in that late 80s literacy commercial so you know it has to be good...

Check availability here.

5. The Last Season - Roy MacGregor

While I'm not a regular reader of MacGregor's reportage or columns, I have to say this is a damn fine novel.

The story of Felix Batterinksi, a rural kid of Polish heritage from Northern Ontario, it tracks his time from junior through to his ascendancy playing for the cup as a goon with Shero's Broad Street Bullies of the 70s and his eventual decline that finds him playing out the string as a player-coach in Finland.

The material on Batterinksi's junior days and early coaches has stayed with me some 15 years after first reading the book. I'm glad to see it was picked up and re-published by Penguin as it really deserves an audience.

I looked up, startled by the accent. He was so clearly a Canadian sportswriter that he could have formed the mould: thick glasses over nervous eyes, balding, a too-eager-to-please smile, cheap clothes in need of a press and coordination, the kind of body that should say nothing but goes on forever about jogging and tennis and all those other bullshit words they invent to replace ability. The body of true athlete speaks for itself. When a true athlete says "tennis", he means the same thing as if he'd used the word "beer"- something social rather than beneficial.

Check The Last Season's availability here.

4. America's Game - Michael MacCambridge

I briefly wrote a blurb about this great book about six weeks ago. It's one of the best, if not the best book I've read on the marriage of business, marketing and sports.

Following the NFL from it's pre-war days through to the modern era, the bulk of the book emphasizes the innovations that Pete Rozelle brought to the game which are legion. From creating consistent logos, to licensing just about every product; from the creation of NFL films to the way the media were wined and dined, this book shows how the NFL has really set, and continually raised, the bar compared to the other professional sports leagues.

Even if you're not a football fan (I'm a casual one at best) there are so many amazing factoids in here that it will provide you with near endless cocktail party chatter for the holiday season.

Check availability here.

3. Moneyball - Michael Lewis

A fantastic look at finding efficiencies and value in any system, in this case Major League Baseball. Even though it's a baseball book, there is much to consider here, especailly as the Leafs attempt to re-tool under Brian Burke.

(Full disclosure: I am a total Michael Lewis fan-boy and would gladly read the phone book if he wrote it. Other great magazine pieces by Lewis include his defense of Moneyball in Sports Illustrated; an interesting piece on coaching innovations in college football; an amazing piece on Hurricane Katrina; and a stunning bit on the recent economic meltdown.)

Check availability here.

2. Salvage King, Ya - Mark Anthony Jarman

How this book isn't the epicentre of a Canada-reads debate every year is beyond me. Seriously. This is the book our nation should be reading (instead the debate will be between a short novel centering on a 1950s divorcee in small town Ontario wrestling with her families infidelities and a coming of age story set on the prairies of the 30s).

The story of a marginal defenceman at the end of his career, sliding between the A and the NHL. His former agent has embezzled most of his money, he's divorced, newly engaged and having an affair with a waitress. There is a kineticism and depth to Jarman's writing that has brought me back to it time and time again.

Laced with fantastic pop culture references and seeded with tiny perfectly crafted anecodtes featuring the likes of Messier, Chris Nilan, Gretzky, like this one:

Upstairs I knock on the hotel door and Normie Ullman answers naked. He's still in good shape, but I don't really care to see Normie Ullman naked. Normie also played for the old WHA Oilers. Curly is after puck bunnies and Dino is chasing anything. Yvan Cournoyer is tanned and grinning and chasing anything. No wonder they call him the Roadrunner. Maybe he's cashing his cheque from that big Zellers ad we did. They're fighting with fire extinguishers. Their ex-model wives are thousands of miles to the east. There are days it seems that all hockey men are pervs or nuts or stickmen. I'm sure several are normal but there's not a lot of evidence. You're away from home a lot, in decent shape, and for a brief while you possess money and youth. You try to rid yourself of both.

This may not be for those who like conventional story telling as the story is not chronological - it's really just a fragmented series of anecdotes, only one character has a proper first name, and there are big portions that take place far from the rink, but for my money this may be the greatest hockey novel ever written.

When I lay stunned and stunted in her old fashioned bed, the fingers of my hand unwrapping from the iron rail (the pail ceilings of post-sex, and her art, terrifying Inuit prints on her walls), when I saw manic Waitress X placing a long slip or soft bra on her cinnamon skin, when I saw her distracted at her dresser, readying her public self for the late afternoon tables of businessmen, for the glum screaming oilmen seeking attitude adjustment, well I confess I desired thing to stop at that stage -- not nude and not dressed, on the cusp, the edge, the two of us with tons of time and no particular place to go.

If only Jarman had a blog.

Check Salvage King, Ya availability here.

1. The Game - Ken Dryden
I would argue that this is the single greatest book ever written about hockey and is a must read for all hockey fans. When I pulled out my 1983 paperback edition (Totem press?) to write up this little blurb, I ended up spending an hour or so re-reading the book. Totally engrossed by the locker room banter, most of my morning dissolved away.

Following Dryden through the 1979 season, the book goes way beyond a simple year-in-the-life of a player format, providing substantial insights into the game, the men he played with, the demands of professional sport and the life of a professional athlete.

One of the things I love about this book, and the thing that brings me back time and time again, is the remarkable job Dryden has done in capturing the camaraderie and humour amongst the players.

Here's Dryden at the end of the book, his final Cup won, contemplating what it might mean to retire:

A few years ago, I called Dickie Moore to arrange an interview for a friend. Moore had been a fine player for the Canadiens in the 1950s, and after retiring with knee injuries (later, he returned briefly with the Leafs and Blues), had built a successful equipment rental company in Montreal. It happened that I called on the first anniversary of his son's death in a car accident. It had been a tough day was all Moore said. More for me than for him, he changed the subject. He asked me how I was, how the team was doing; then he turned reflective. He spoke of "the game." Sometimes excitedly, sometimes with longing, but always it was "the game." Not a game of his time, or mine, something he knew we shared. It sounded almost spell-like the way he put it. I had always thought of it as a phrase interchangeable with "hockey," "baseball," or any sport. But when Moore said it, I knew it wasn't. "The game" was different, something that belongs only to those who play it, a code, a phrase that anyone who has played a sport, any sport, understands. It's a common heritage of parents and backyayrds, teammates, friends, winning, losing, dressing rooms, road trips, coaches, fans, money, celebrity - a life, so long as you live it. Now as I sit here, slouched back, mellow, when I hear others talk of "the game" I know what Moore meant. It is hockey that I'm leaving behind. It's "the game" that I'll miss.

Check availability here.

Moneyball the Movie?

From Variety:

Steve Zaillian has signed on to adapt Michael Lewis’ nonfiction bestseller "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game," and David Frankel is attached to direct. Project is being developed as a potential starring vehicle for Brad Pitt.

Moneyball is an amazing book, hands down one of the best sports books I've ever read. I'd suggest that, in the NHL's capped environment, it's a must read for hockey fans, even those who hate baseball. But a movie?

In the Hollywood version Billy Beane will draft either a super talented chimp or an irascible golden retriever and Angelina Jolie will be cast as Jeremy Brown. (I kid. I kid. Zaillan penned American Gangster, which was a pretty great movie.)

Nine Tips for Media Types

I really appreciate the quality of the comments on this site, they often make me stop and think.

Case in point: The feedback on my Cox post deserved a response and my comment mushroomed into this (rather long) post.

I think we'd all agree that there certainly couldn't be much more Leafs coverage. There are upwards of 30 reporters covering the Leafs. To put that in perspective, the entire media contingent covering Queen's Park (the Province of Ontario's legislature) is just 31 journalists.

In addition to having their own TV channel, the Leafs are the lead item on each and every TSN and Sportsnet broadcast. Each paper has columnists and staff reporters covering the team. There are lunch time radio broadcasts devoted to all things blue and white. And then there's the comments at the Globe and Mail, filled by people who seem to spend more time complaining about the amount of Leaf coverage than they do cheering for their own teams.

So the quantity is unarguably there, but the quality side seems to be a bit lacking. How hard is it for a reporter or editorial staff to use a search function to scan the NHL CBA? How many times are reporters going to miss that both Tucker and McCabe have NMCs? If the media are unsure about a no-movement clause, why not phone the NHLPA, the agent or ask the player? Isn't that one of the benefits of being a trained professional with full access to sources?

That said, I do feel some sympathy for the media who cover the Leafs. There's so much media competition in this town (and with this team) that I can't imagine the pressure they're under from their editors and producers to cultivate sources and land big scoops.

I think this combination of editorial pressure and competitive media marketplace is the big reason that Cox has been publicly fellating JFJ in so many of his columns. Cox knows Ferguson will eventually land on his feet in the NHL and, if Cox has laid on enough adjectives, he may have cultivated an inside source in Ferguson - one that will be very helpful in fueling Cox with plenty of material for his faux-indignation-fueled tirades against MLSE.

That or Cox is looking to land his next book deal and has JFJ in his sites (admittedly, Cox did file a pretty solid piece in yesterday's paper).

Still, given the pressures and competition, it's hard to believe the amount of misinformation, poor fact checking and general lack of imagination that permeates so much of the Leafs media coverage. I'd like to think with their access, the reporters who file day in day out on all things Leaf might be able to come up with something more compelling then who's wearing the red jersey at practice, fake trade rumours or faux panic over the lack of formal job interviews conducted by MLSE.

Rather than just bitch and moan about the state of Leaf coverage and without much thought (like most of my posts) here are 9 ideas, off the top of my head, that I'd love to see followed-up by those who cover hockey and/or the Leafs:

1. More first person source reporting. This was one of my favourite articles last year - a Brian Burke first-person diary during the trade deadline. Could we get something similar from anyone at MLSE? Please? If not, I'd settle for any first-person insight at the GM level.
   
2. Use your access to really take readers behind the scenes. The consensus is the Leafs need to hold on to their draft choices and draft wisely. Can fans maybe get a profile (or two or three) of the Leaf scouts that will be helping make the decisions on draft day? What gems have they discovered? What do their peers on other clubs think of them? What's the hierarchy in the scouting department and how do draft day decisions get made? Maybe a day in the life of a Leaf scout...or a day in the life of a top OHL prospect. Gare Joyce's work on this was great stuff and surely demonstrated there's an audience for it. Wouldn't it be nice to get a bit more on these kids than Don Cherry and four or five of the top ranked 18 year olds passing around a microphone during a 45 second spot on HNIC?
   
3. Stop telling us what Leaf fans think. Leafs Nation is not a homogeneous entity and does not think with one mind. Even if Leaf fans did all agree, would anyone care? Moreover, it's a lazy literary device at best and completely misleading at worse.
   
4. Help the fans get insights from the coaches. The Leafs have the worst PK in the league and it's killing them. When was the last time anyone saw an interview with the special teams coach, or even with Maurice, where the Leafs approach to the PK was analyzed? What's working, what's not? Compare and contrast the Leafs' approach by interviewing special team coaches on more successful clubs. (And it doesn't have to be just the PK. There's the whole issue of zone v. man-to-man defence; team toughness/ use of enforcers; the shoot-out; power play; adapting to opponents; etc.)
   
5. Less of the trade rumour BS. Before the trade deadline there were, what, maybe 4 trades in the NHL? Yet every columnist weighs in with trade rumour after trade rumour, none of which come true and none of which advance a story of any relevance. (And can someone fine Dreger every time he uses the questionable at best "Sources are saying..." approach. If he had to put a twoonie in a jar for every time he used it he could make a hefty-donation to a worthy cause.)
   
6. More long form player profiles please. Joe O'Connor has being doing this masterfully with retired players over at the National Post, why not do it with the current or retired Leafs? (Or how about an update on Boyd Devereaux's record label?)
   
7. Help demistify the CBA. This is one of the best posts I've seen on the matter, it's by a blogger and it's over a year old. Why can't newsrooms create similar content? How about top 10 CBA myths (e.g. players with NMC can't be bought out; injured players don't count against the cap; etc.). Since the signing of the CBA has the frequency of offer sheets to RFAs increased? What steps can clubs take to protect their RFAs (e.g. team initiated arbitration)? With Wellwood and Stajan as the Leafs main RFAs, what odds do agents and other insiders give that another club will tender them a contract? How does the fact that the Leafs traded their second round pick to Phoenix for (gulp!) Perreault, limit their ability to tender RFA offer sheets?
   
8. More on the Big Picture. Where does Leafs management sit on the the Moneyball vs. "Intangibles" spectrum? I've read great stuff about the San Jose Sharks and Columbus Blue Jackets innovative use of statistics. What are the Leafs up to? What do they make of this? On another topic: how does player development work, why is Buffalo so amazing at it and what are the Marlies doing to help develop Leaf prospects?
   
9. More on the Business of Sport: What has the impact of moving the farm club to Toronto been? What do players who played both in St. John's and at the Ricoh think of the move? Crunch the numbers - what has it meant for the salary cap being able to send guys across the street? Has it had any impact on the Leafs ability to recruit and retain management? With precedents in Chicago and Philadelphia is this a model we should expect to see more of? How does the Leafs system compare with clubs that don't have their own AHL affiliate? On-glass advertising, are the Leafs for or against? Same goes with advertising on jerseys, where does MLSE stand?

As Leaf/hockey fans, I'd love to know what stories do you think we're missing out on and what type of coverage would you like to see more of?

If you were the editor/producer for a day what would you tell your reporters to work on?

Are there any guys out there who stand out? Anyone a must-read for you?

Sixteen Wins in 43 Games - Bring on the Draft

The way the Leafs have played so far this season the most compelling story line – perhaps the only compelling story line left – is that the team is looking more and more like they’ll have a solid shot at a top pick in the 2008 entry draft.

If the Leafs hold on to their first round pick (don’t laugh) odds are they will be in the draft lottery and have a chance at drafting 1st overall.

Sixteen wins in 43 games will do that.

Despite the well known cycles of ineptitude this franchise has gone through, the team is not known for its high draft picks (unless you're referring to trading them).

In the past 15 years, the Leafs have not drafted higher than 10th. The only pick that would have cracked the top 10 was traded to the Islanders for the return of Wendel Clark (the Isles picked up Luongo).

Year, Prospect, Rank
2007 – Traded for Toskala
2006 – Tlusty (13)
2005 – Rask (21)
2004 – Traded for Leetch
2003 – Traded for Nolan
2002 – Steen (24)
2001 – Colaiacovo (17)
2000 – Boyes (24)
1999 – Cereda (24)
1998 – Antropov (10)
1997 – Traded for Clark (4)
1996 – Traded for Yushkevich (15)
1995 – Ware (15)
1994 – Fichaud (16)

Wendel Clark remains the Leafs only 1st overall pick in the last 40 years.

Given that a draft is really all I have to cheer for, Gare Joyce’s new(ish) book Future Greats and Heartbreaks couldn’t have come along at a better time.

The book chronicles a year behind the scenes with NHL scouts, with Joyce having unprecedented access to the Columbus Blue Jackets.

In part 1, he sits in on meetings with the scouts and Blue Jackets team management, takes part in prospect interviews, watches players work out at the combine, and is privy to the official team draft list for the 2006 draft.

The middle section of the book includes detailed game by game notes from junior games and tournaments around the world as Joyce moves through the world of scouting.

The book closes with the 2007 draft, as many of the players who Joyce has met, interviewed and followed on the ice are drafted into the NHL.

I enjoyed the first and third sections of the book the most.

In the first section it's what so many of us would love - a chance to be a fly on the wall as GMs discuss their plans for the club. Who hasn't wanted to sit on a meeting with the GM and his staff or to listen in as scouts and team management plot strategy for an upcoming draft? My only piddling complaint about the first section is Doug MacLean has a few big trade offers on the table and we never find out what teams or players were in play...

Much of the middle section is comprised of Joyce’s game notes and interviews with junior players, coaches and others appeared on his old blog 100 Games a Season.

As someone who’s interested in many of the same aspects of the game that fascinate Joyce, I was really surprised at the lack of deep info compiled by teams and their scouts (much of what the scouts gather is no better than hearsay, there’s no fact checking or searches for a second qualifying source). I was also surprised that the same scouts who are so interested in combine results (cardio, body type, oxygen levels, bench press) have no interest in seeing a payer practice.

The final section wraps things up, bringing the scouts and the players together one final time at the 2007 draft.

One of the most fascinating insights in the entire book comes to the fore in this section and that’s how little the traditional hockey media know about these prospects. Yes, the Hockey News may have run a few profiles and many reporters may have filed something based on the final rankings from Central Scouting and others – but the scouts have their lists, have seen these players on the ice countless times and many of these scouts talk openly (though off the record) about players whose stock is falling like a stone. None of the scouts, or Joyce, are remotely surprised when team after team passes by Angelo Esposito.

This runs so counter to my experience watching the draft live last year (yeah, I'm a geek). The soundtrack of day one of the NHL draft was pretty much Pierre Maguire bellowing about Esposito’s being passed over by team after team, like it was some sort of huge travesty. With Esposito putting up terrible numbers in his second year in the Q, it looks like the scouts were on to something and Maguire was nothing more than a belch in a whirlwind.

With the exception of a continuing misunderstanding or misrepresentation of Michael Lewis’ Moneyball (another middling complaint) I really dug this book. As the Leafs drop through the standings like some passed over prospect, it’s a solid and very timely read for all those Leaf fans who are dreaming of a lottery pick this summer.

For those who'd like to read more, Joyce has a blog that has some updates and out-takes from the book. James Mirtle also filed a nice interview he did with Joyce (the comments from that post do a nice job with the whole Moneyball thing too).

Michael Lewis' New Book

Michael Lewis' Moneyball may be the best book I read in 2005.

Fantasyland is hand's down the best book I've read so far in 2006.

I never would have guessed two non-fiction books about baseball would be my top two book picks from the past few years. (And Jim Bouton's Ball Four is threatening to crack the top 5. It's odd to think that baseball, a sport I'm rather impartial to at best, would represent 60% of my best books list.)

Now Michael Lewis is back with a book that's ostensibly about College football, a sport I know next to nothing about. The New York Times ran an excerpt on Sunday, which you really should read here (free registration likely required). Fantastic stuff. (Lewis also wrote a very intriguing piece on Mike Leach the coach of Texas Tech in the New York Times in December, 2005.)

All this great sports writing makes me wonder where the great books on hockey are (I should say non-fiction hockey books, as Mark Anthony Jarman's Salvage King, Ya! more than qualifies as a great read).

No Man's Land

I'm not sure what to make of the current composition of the Leafs.

Defensively, I can't recall the last time the Leafs could ice a top 4 that compares with this year's group.

Up front, well let's just say there are some serious gaps.

The short-term success of this club is clearly going to come down to their ability to compete better in five on five situations. The Leafs definately need to find some players that can generate offense outside of special team situations if they're going to have any success.

Considering the challenge facing the composition of the Leafs' forwards, I wonder if JFJ may have mis-allocated his prime trade bait in the Raycroft deal. Given the absolute over-supply of goalies on the market and the complete lack of impact forwards that are available, it likely would have made more sense for the club to deal Rask (or combine Rask in a package) for a forward and scoop a goalie off the free agency/fallen starter/disgruntled player pile.

JFJ's activities since the trade deadline made me think of this Billy Beane quote from a Fast Company interview:

"The key," Beane says, "is identifying the moment" -- the time when continued success with incremental change has become impossible, when you have to cast off existing talent and start fresh.

"The worst is when you try to do it halfway: when you think you can compete and you also think you're trying to rebuild. Then you're stuck in no-man's-land. You either do it or you don't."

I have a bad feeling we're stuck in no-man's land...hopefully, JFJ will do something with the forward corps and prove me wrong.