Mike Burger writes:
>One slow day when I was at the CCHA, I went through past records and
>figured out team assists per goal.  This varied from 1.3 to 1.7, which
>should be beyond statistical significance.
 
I wonder if Hockey East is the only conference that stipulates that
goals shall be called by referees and assists by SIDs.  It is
certainly to be expected that when the home SID is calling the
assists, he will know his team better than the opponent and may
inadvertently award more assists to the home team.  What counters this
is that the visiting SID is almost always present, and you tend to
defer to the visiting SID in scoring matters concerning their team
unless there is a conflict - then home SID makes the call.
 
The advantage of doing this is that the officials can concentrate more
on the action instead of who gets the points, and the SIDs usually
have a better view of who's who from up above.  The disadvantage is
the possible hometown scoring as well as not being as close to the
action as the officials (so you might miss small deflections here).
That's where videotape comes in. :-)  Yet, generally, teams will
change assists to their own players based on the video but almost
never take them away if video shows they weren't earned.
 
>Another area that Mike did not expound on was shots on goal.  This is
>also very inconsistent across the board.
 
VERY true!  I have done shot charts for 7 years - 2 at Northeastern,
and this is the 5th at Merrimack.  However, this season we have
Heather picking it up so I can concentrate on radio more.  But it's
true, I have sat next to opposing shot keepers in the press box before
and watched them mark down saves for their goalie on shots that were
clearly wide (run up that save % for the home goalie).  I.e. a shot
was headed wide but the goalie gloves it clearly outside the net, yet
he's given a save.  And there are many more ways in which it can vary
from team to team.
 
BTW, I do think the people (often volunteers) who put in their time to
do scoring for teams should be commended, and my intent isn't to take
shots at them.  I just want to see more consistency.
---                                                                 ---
Mike Machnik                                          [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                  *HMM* 11/13/93
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