Charlie writes:
 
> *Is* there a Hockey Encyclopedia?
 
Well, let me put it this way: there WAS one. Mine is from 1984 (which
is very convenient, because I can pretend that the Islanders go on
winning Cups forever). Its design is virtually identical to the BB
version, which strongly suggests that it's from MacMillan.
 
Every player has full statistics for every season. Full standings by
year, category leaders, award winners are included. Also full WHA
records (much like the BB Federal League records), and international
tournaments involving pro players (Canada-USSR, NHL-USSR, Canada Cup).
 
I have seen neither a more recent edition nor annual updates: I get
the THN and Sporting News hockey yearbooks, one of which (I forget
which) lists the post-junior B organized hockey records (college
included) for every active NHL player AND draftee.
 
Anyway.......
 
What we need, of course, is a College Hockey Encyclopedia. It would
be a labor-intensive nightmare to backfill all the years up until
now, but after that, I think it would not be a killer data storage,
retrieval, and formatting task.
 
And as for the labor involved, I'll bet the total keystrokes expended
per year by the members of this list exceeds the total required to
build a 90-95% complete database of Division I player and team
records. Assuming that there is not already an accurate electronic
compilation of the data (a safe assumption), the resources are there
(team and league records) to do the detective work and resolve the
hundreds of discrepancies which no doubt would come to light.
 
Why else would the gods have created computers, if not in the
service of college hockey?
 
 
Greg
Somerville, MA
Let's Go Red!