There is something of a war going on, or at least there appears to be. Writing in hockey is a house divided between the Old School and the New School. On one side the experienced ink stained wretches who actually refer themselves as "Ink Stained Wretches" stand against the idea that analytics (even basic concepts) have a place in their articles or analysis of the game. On the other side the wet behind the ears know-it-all new wave of digital wordsmiths who consist all too largely of basement dwelling bloggers are trying to change the way we understand the sport. The problem is that I'm only convinced one side is actively trying to fight while the other side is simply trying to exist.
If you follow this struggle at all you'll know that the most staunch old schoolers use their considerable reach and established voices to crush and ridicule the stats crowd whenever possible for suggesting that Hockey can be predicted and calculated with a few key strokes in an Excel page. Of course you may also know that even the most staunch new schooler has never suggested they could do anything of the sort. With straw-man arguments in pocket the anti-stats group has done a punch up job of making themselves look like the side backed by common sense and expert knowledge.
Enter Steve Simmons and this article he wrote about how useless analytics in hockey actually is. It's...pretty special. I wont rip it to shreds because Tyler Dellow already did that. However I would like to note how ridiculous it is that Simmons' article (and entire position on hockey analytics) is premised around a potentially fake conversation with a single potentially fake stats guy that happened some time in the past and then a complete and total failure to comprehend the basics of the very thing he spends the length of an article to dismiss.
If I were to do the same thing I would be mocked and my integrity would be rightfully questioned. Maybe I'm just too dumb to understand how these things work at major publications but I'd like to believe that the guy on the crime beat of the Sun cant make up (or extremely alter) fake conversations to advance their verifiably false ideas about the happenings of the court room.
Ignoring that hot mess for a moment, let's get right down to what's actually going on here. There's a new group of writers pushing certain ideas that are gaining traction in the readership and the old guard doesnt want to acknowledge those ideas have merit and they definitely dont want to update their language or thinking. It's a strange combination of jealousy and laziness that only makes them appear as out of touch as they really are.
If it's been a while since you've watched the movie Arachnophobia then 1) get cable already and 2) maybe you've forgotten that the entire film is based on a big city doctor struggling against the old country doctor who knew more about schmoozing than he did about medicine. Take that film, throw in the Hanson Brothers and lose the creepy spiders, and you have the story of analytics' place in hockey writing. There's a folksy group of dismissive curmudgeons too set in their ways to even CONSIDER updating their craft actively trying to sabotage the upstart new guys just trying to survive.
Hockey journalism will never be replaced with a series of 1s and 0s. That much I am certain of. But nobody actually wants to be replaced with that either. Narrative and/or exposition will ALWAYS be important because readers want it. They want stories and quality writers will find ways to create those stories. It's just that maybe after years of the same platitudes the engaged reader (or in this case Hockey fan) wants a different story. Maybe we want to know something we didnt know before or simply lust for something different than the same thing we've been told for 30+ years.
There is a war going on, but only one side is fighting. The Old School is not going quietly, the only problem is that the louder they get the more irrelevant they become. Meanwhile the very existence of the New School can be taken as tacit proof that the fight is already over. Their ideas have already permeated into the MSM and you cant unscramble this egg. They are already the moderates and the only extremists left are the ones too blinded by their own ignorance to see things for what they are.
Hockey as a sport is barely the same sport it was 30 years ago. Why should we expect articles about Hockey would be any different?
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