On Tue, 10 Jan 1995, Mike Machnik wrote:
 
> On HOCKEY-L, we have talked about the sometimes nebulous practice of
> awarding assists.  I noticed last night that our local paper is
> running a weekly column on high school hockey complete with stats of
> area teams and players.
>
> In response, the coach said something like, "I know those kids were
> out on the ice, and I'm sure they had to have been involved in the
> play somehow."
 
        We had a situation down here in high school basketball a few
years ago where some kid was racking a huge assist total. I went out to
cover one of the team's games and decided to keep my own assist total for
the player. I had him with 8 when the game was over, while the team
statistician had him with either 16 or 17.
        It was a situation kinda like the above, only the school was
trying to get colleges interested in the player. He was a Division I
prospect anyway, and did play major college basketball for 4 years.
        In either sport, assists are so subjective that we have never
paid any attention them. Same for tackles in football. If 4 people gang
tackle a player, I've known statisticians to credit everyone with 1 tackle.
 
 
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|                   Lynn Burke    Newport News, Va.                     |
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