At 10:30 AM 12/28/98 -0600, Adam Wodon wrote:
 
>Tournaments are notoriously difficult to get boxscores from. Either that, or
>it's an HTML mistake.
 
Ahhh, now there's a great excuse from a member of the media. It's always
the fault of the tournament. I do see that the Gopher-Tiger box score is
present on USCHO -- what is the attitude, if they don't fax it or email it,
then USCHO won't bother trying to track it down?
 
Thanks to Kirk Ahlberg, I was able to find both a recap and a box score on
the Pioneer Planet website.
 
Mind you, USCHO still does a fantastic job. Considering that a site like
that constitutes full-time commitments from many people -- most/all of whom
have other full-time jobs -- I'm often impressed at the depth and quality
of information that it does provide.
 
Just the same, I feel that too often there are times where the root
information that drives the site -- scores and recaps -- cannot be found.
And every time I bring it up, I'm always told "well, some games are tough
to get boxscores from."
 
I've managed enough sites like USCHO in my day to know that there are some
unfortunate responsibilities that go with the territory. In this case, it
means making *sure* that you get all the box scores for these holiday
tournaments, especially after making such a big deal about them everywhere
else on the site. Why make the effort of writing a 4-plus page preview of a
tournament if you won't make the effort to get a box score?
 
Of course, the other responsibility, bite-in-the-ass that it is, involves
dealing with criticism from your users -- and I'm sorry, but making excuses
simply doesn't cut it.
 
 
 
>> I guess I shouldn't be too surprised at the lack of respect that USCHO --
>> or much of this list -- can give to many Eastern teams
>
>This is really quite comical ... There's actually more reporters from the
>East at USCHO, many of whom have been known to whine about the same lack of
>respect from reporters from major Western media outlets. :-) Not that it
>really matters - I guess if someone is hell-bent on a conspiracy theory,
>it's pretty hard to stop them.
 
Conspiracy theory? Not quite.
 
Reading through the "tournament preview" article, even the
writers/predictors themselves mention the western bias over and over and
over again. This is the biggest reason I picked up on that fact.
 
We've long discussed on this list how West and East don't really respect
each other; and there are definitely years where the East gets a nod in
terms of favortism.
 
It's still pretty clear though that the West is definitely getting a larger
share of the attention this year, whether from the major media, USCHO or
the list. But it's not entirely the fault of the parties involved in
discussion and criticism; I am curious as to the differences in how the
ECAC and HEA differ in their press releations and associated activies from
the WCHA and CCHA.
 
For example, it cracks me up to see ads on NESN that tout CCHA broadcasts
with the voiceover "CCHA... the best hockey, the best teams, the best league."
 
Now I know that the CCHA squared away a good deal with Fox Sports Net, but
why is it the other leagues -- especially Hockey East -- do such a poor job
in getting their games on the air?
 
And why the heck doesn't Minnesota, hosts of the Mariucci, make more of an
effort to get box scores to USCHO? <grin>
 
 
I shouldn't be complaining. It's Christmas time, and I get to drive 50
minutes to McNichols to see DU and BC meet in the Norwest Denver Cup
tonight. Too bad it's not CC-BC, but you gotta expect the organizers to
stack the odds just a tiny bit to get Denver into the finals...
 
greenie
 
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