from Cathal Kelly of the Globe and Mail,
Hockey season kicks off Wednesday, and we’ll spend most of the next eight months arguing about math. Welcome to the mainstreaming of the Analytics War.
The (very reductive) analytics explainer: If you see more of the puck, and more of the offensive zone, you will, in all likelihood, win.
This sounds pretty sensible, which may be why it upsets people so much. When it comes to the canons of the country’s best-attended church, we aren’t prepared for quiet revolutions.
This will be positioned as a fight about the future of the game. Which it isn’t.
What it is is an attempt to make hockey make sense. Which it doesn’t.
At its best, the NHL is about the physical mystique of a few men doing things the rest of us can’t. Once you begin to pick apart that process, you’re no longer a fan. You’re a foot soldier in the ice Crusades.
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