**********
**********
Before you look over the following NHL scores from January 2007, realize that this is the reality:
9 NHL Matches
Average Score: 5.2 - 2.8 or 8.00 Goals/Match (zero overtime goals)
1 Overtime Match
Note to the more detail oriented: as you consider the attendance figures, be sure to note how may of these Thursday evening matches were sell outs.
Now let's consider the results of Sunday November 2, 2008, which finished with:
7 NHL Matches
Average Score: 4.3 - 2.9 or 7.15 Goals/Match (zero overtime goals)
0 Overtime Matches
And most important from a statistical point of view, these results provide the basis for Kimbro's Third Theorem of Soccer Scoring:
As scoring increases in a sports match, the chances of a draw decreases.
*****
So, there you have it. There is a huge difference between scoring in ice hockey and soccer.
A soccer fan may watch a team for 2 years without seeing a seven goal game (ie: 4-3, 5-2, 6-1, 7-0).
A hockey fan often experiences as many nine goal games in a season as shutouts.
The commentators of soccer matches will call a 5-3 game defensively sloppy.
The commentators of ice hockey matches will call a 5-3 game very entertaining, but still might long for hockey the way it was played in the '80's when the offense really ruled the rink, and 7-4 games were very common.
A soccer fan experiences a shutout roughly 50% of the time.
A hockey fan sits through a shutout around 15% of the time.
Yes, outdoor soccer scoring and ice hockey scoring are world's apart. Across the board scoring in hockey is looked at as a good thing, whereas outdoor soccer scoring above the 3-2 level is viewed by purists as something which should be avoided.
Look people, Mario Lemieux has a lifetime average of 0.80 goals per game, plus a 1.16 assists per game average. Even my theoretical "Ultimate Striker" would be happy with those numbers. Let's take another look at the last line of that graphic from Britain's FourFourTwo Magazine (Feb. 2003, p. 76) which shows us that even the best offensive players in pro soccer average a goal every 2 or 3 games.
Hockey is all about scoring. OK, I do concede that our local boys in green, the Dallas Stars, did bring home a Stanley Cup while employing the boring "play hard defense and score a couple of goals in the power plays for a 3-1 victory" philosophy. But even playing in this kind of pro-defensive environment, Dallas' goalie -- the great Andy Moog, sporting a lifetime record of 372-209-88 -- retired with a 3.13 goals against average. Rest assured that if Moog can go on living with a 3.13 goals against average, any soccer goalkeeper can make the ego adjustment required to accept a 3-5 goals against average...if the money's right.
Most importantly, when was the last time a pro soccer match ended in a score of 8-6? How about a college soccer match? How about a club soccer match? How about a high school soccer match? Hockey has so many scoring opportunities in every game that an 8-6 game happens every year in most every hockey league on the planet.
But that's not really the whole story here, is it. How many soccer players are missing their front teeth? How many are proud of the fact that they are missing their front teeth? Factor in that each and every fight in hockey has as much entertainment value to the average American sports fan as does a goal.
For a real education, why don't you approach an adult hockey player and ask him what are the primary differences between hockey and outdoor soccer. I've done this and the feed back I got was:
A. That outdoor soccer has a pace of play which is closer to baseball than hockey.
B. There are are so few true scoring "opportunities" in outdoor soccer, whereas ice hockey may have 60 or 70 scoring opportunities in a game.
The 1994 NHL All-Star Game produced 102 shots, and ended with the Eastern Conference beating the Western Conference by the score of 9-8.
Bottom line...even the score of the most beloved of all hockey matches, The Miricle on Ice, the Olympic semi-final in which an inexperienced Team USA beat the vastly superior boys from the USSR, ended in a 4-3 score.
And hey, you can make a pretty fair movie about a 4-3 match, but I'll bet it's not nearly so easy to construct a screenplay around a 1-0 match, unless the match had 35 to 45 fouls, with 9 or 10 of the fouls earning yellow cards, and one red card to the defender who was earlier burned with the goal (played by Vin Diesel!) as he chooses to extract revenge by dropping from behind into a tackle around the legs of the team's only really talented striker (played by Paul Bettany), something like the following video...
Image Credit: Fox Sports World
...except that in the movie you could actually hear the snapping of the striker's ACL.
Intrigue could be increased with the revealing that the real motivation of the rogue tackle being the elimination of the striker from an upcoming World Cup qualifier match in which the defender's national team faced a must win situation against the striker's national team. Now that might be something I'd watch, particularly if it involved a hired assassin like Max von Sydow's character in "Three Days of the Condor", and of course I'd want Brad Pitt as Beckham and Denise Richards playing Posh Spice in the movie's requisite love scene. I'm thinking that Bruce Campbell (Army of Darkness!!!) would likely be an inspired choice for the chairman of one of the clubs, and Pierce Brosnon would play the flawed father character who bets a very large sum against his own son's team, with Ben Kingsley (remember "Sexy Beast"?) playing the bookie. I'd pay $8 to see that movie, even with a 1-0 score.
Anyway...no, soccer and hockey are not as similar as some might have you believe.
Mike Kimbro
To return, it's best to hit the BACK ARROW botton
or Visualize High Scoring Soccer
Skeptical about my summary of ice hockey scoring? Here's a few web sites you can explore for the straight story:
First, there's NHL's site which can give you a picture of scoring North American hockey today, and during the 2005-06 season.
But now take a second and compare the 'goals for' and 'goals against' in 2005-2006 against those same stats for the 2001-2002 NHL season. There's a great lesson here in what can be done when the league's owner's truly want to increase their sport's entertainment value.
Then check out a few college ice hockey sites, such as:
NHL Statistics Site: http://www.nhl.com/nhlstats/app
Boston College's Men Site: Boston College 2002 Results
University of North Dakota Men's Site: 2001 Men's Results
Niagara University Men's Site: Niagra U's 2005 Season Results
