Where art thou, VoteBots?
Where art thou, VoteBots, that thou forget'st so long, To speak of that which gives thee Pacific all its might?
- William Shakespeare
And boy was he right. Let me tell you about a little poll on NHL.com right now. Our VoteBots, which so valiantly got 3 of our players into the All-Star Game, are failing us. And the rest of the Pacific is getting rammed too, but their fanbase voted honestly VoteBots suck, apparently. And to think San Jose is like right in Silicon Valley, hacker central. Where's Noah Wyle when you need him?
Anyway, so there's this poll which asks fans:
What is the strongest division this season?
Not as elegant as Shakespeare, certainly. I can't help but call this East Coast Bias, but it's on the part of fans, so I can't blame the NHL for it. But I can blame them for asking it, I guess. Either way, we all know the true question it is asking is probably "Which Division is your favorite team in?"
Anyway, I've put together some stuff graphs to help visualize the results. And just to make things easy (meaning I think it randomly worked out this way) the Western Conference makes up the left side of the pie, and the East makes up the right side.
As you may or may not be able to tell, the Atlantic division is winning the poll, with the Northeast close behind. The Pacific is at a mediocre 4th place. But I'm a skeptical person, and I wanted to see if these poll results were what Penn & Teller would call "Bullshit."
So I added it up, and carried the two, and decided to take a look at which division had the highest number of Points per Games Played. These were the results.
Why, that's weird, the Pacific on this graph appears to be... 2nd place? And it got a measly 4th on the last graph? BULLSHIT! And then there's this asshole.
Actually I have no asshole to show you, but it follows any statement so well.
Now the Sharks do tip the scales a little bit in favor of the Pacific, but even if they were a team of mere mortals, they probably would only have 10 points less or so, and to take them out of the equation we'd also have to take the Bruins out because they're really good, and Detroit out because they're Detroit, etc, etc. So don't cry to me that the reason the Pacific is 2nd is because of the Sharks.
Then I took a look at something the poll doesn't ask about, but which could be a related question. Which division is the tightest? Ugh, that is going to get annoying fast, so I'll avoid the word tightest as much as possible.
As is stated, bigger slices of the pie are "looser" divisions. The results were determined by taking the Standard Deviation of the Points earned, per team, divided by the number of games played. Basically the Standard Deviation of the 2nd graph's results. As you may or may not be able to tell, in this scenario, the Pacific actually is 4th. The Northwest achieves 1st here because it simultaneously has the worst #1 team and the best #5 team out of all of the divisions.
Damn Eastern fans... Notice the Atlantic. Voted by most to be the strongest division, but is actually one of the worst. You could say that the fans might be talking about inner-division competitiveness, but as the third graph's results explain that away easily.
I guess if there's something we can learn from all of this, it's that we can all agree that the Southeast is terrible.
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7 comments
Comments
Nice piece, Brokenyard, but I think there’s one measure by which I can’t in clean conscience call the Pacific Division the “best” — the race for the top spot. Right now here is the points-margin for each division leader:
Sharks — ahead by 20 points over the Coyotes
Red Wings — ahead by 10 points over the Blackhawks
Flames — ahead by 7 points over the Oilers/Canucks
Rangers — ahead by 1 point over the Devils
Bruins — ahead by 11 points over the Canadiens
Capitals — ahead by 12 points over the Hurricanes
So while in a lot of these cases, the division leader is largely decided, in no division is it as clear-cut as in the Pacific. So on that basis (drama, I suppose), I’d have to cede the “best division” race somewhere else — likely the Northwest. For one thing, they have the highest last-place team of any of the divisions.
http://www.battleofcali.com/
by Earl Sleek on Jan 21, 2009 9:30 AM PST reply actions 0 recs
I know the Northwest has the highest last-place team
I mentioned it above. They also have the worst 1st place team, so I wouldn’t give them too much credit.
As I stated in the post, the Sharks might be making it lean in favor of the Pacific, but even giving them a record with 10 points less, it only drops the Pacific to the third strongest division, still above the Northwest.
People who save up for a rainy day are like milk. And milk goes good with cookies, so you should have those people over for cookies.
by brokenyard on Jan 21, 2009 1:20 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
Also, that was the point of the “tightest division” graph, to show how far between the teams are, on average, in each division. So even though the Sharks have this huge lead, it’s even more spread out in the Atlantic and Northeast.
I’m sorry, but I simply think your criticism is moot.
People who save up for a rainy day are like milk. And milk goes good with cookies, so you should have those people over for cookies.
by brokenyard on Jan 21, 2009 1:29 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
Yeah, but there’s still some subtle differences between “what’s the average gap” for teams 1-5 in a division, and “what’s the meaningful gap” between teams 1-2 in a division. If for no other reason than it makes for a better story.
The Atlantic gets dragged down by the Islanders, for sure, but it’s still the toughest division to call at this point. I dunno — it may not lend itself to a neat pie chart, but that is still a reason that I think it should get some votes.
http://www.battleofcali.com/
by Earl Sleek on Jan 21, 2009 1:50 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
Well sure I can understand why it would get some votes
But if the Pacific looked like that I don’t think it would be doing as well.
When I took statistics in high school I used to know the formula for determining if something was an outlier. If I still knew it, or maybe if I can find it online, I might remove those from the equations. But otherwise I don’t like to say “Well the Islanders are bad so let’s ignore them… and the Sharks are too good let’s not count them… and nobody likes the Predators so let’s not count them”. Surely you can understand.
Though I do take back calling your criticism moot. I shouldn’t have said that, you do have a point.
People who save up for a rainy day are like milk. And milk goes good with cookies, so you should have those people over for cookies.
by brokenyard on Jan 21, 2009 2:09 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
And really, I don’t have any real strong point, other than (a) it’s tough to define what makes one division “stronger” than another, and (b) I’ll argue pretty much anything to get out of voting.
http://www.battleofcali.com/
by Earl Sleek on Jan 21, 2009 2:18 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
Wow...
That’s a really nice analysis [nice graphs too, lol] that came out of one poll on NHL.com lol
Reread the entire thing more than once!
Actually I voted Pacific, just because of the Sharks :)
I’ve no clue how in the world those votebots work, really… it’s totally insane.
And unfair, and…
Blah, blah… seeing as I’m sure it’s been discussed loads of times.
by AppleSweetRose on Jan 21, 2009 7:37 PM PST reply actions 0 recs































