What is .500 hockey?

[DeluxeMoustache]

I interpret .500 as points percentage.

Also for practical purposes, when looking at the standings, I look at W vs L (excluding OTL). That is how many games above or below .500 a team is. And that is the order in which they appear in the standings when equal number of games have been played.

Last year the cutoff in the east was 11 games over .500 and in the West it was 5.
Generally you expect 10 to be the minimum cutoff.

And for people who complain about .500 itself not being an indicator for the playoffs now, during the 80s there were 21 teams and 16 made the playoffs. So it was more meaningless then.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by belsarius

Then winning % was to be even more useless. If teams can play over .500 and finish lower than teams who play under .500 then what use does it have?

It's a feelgood line. Wins make me feel good as a fan. .500 is a pretty good baseline on how I feel about the season. Around that mark I feel pretty good. Better than that I feel great. Worse than that and I feel like the team sucks.

Personally I don't see why we need to add an extra layer to talking about points. If you want to talk points, just talk points. "You need about 92 points to make the playoffs" (or what ever it is these days) Why complicate that by saying something like "we need to get about this many points over about that many points".

[FlamesFan68]

Originally Posted by Itse

It's a feelgood line. Wins make me feel good as a fan. .500 is a pretty good baseline on how I feel about the season. Around that mark I feel pretty good. Better than that I feel great. Worse than that and I feel like the team sucks.

Personally I don't see why we need to add an extra layer to talking about points. If you want to talk points, just talk points. "You need about 92 points to make the playoffs" (or what ever it is these days) Why complicate that by saying something like "we need to get about this many points over about that many points".

.500 is a feel good line, but deceptive. 16 out of 30 teams make the playoffs. So more than half the teams get in. However, you need far more than .500 hockey in points to get in. You need about .579 in point percentage to get in or about 95 to pretty much guarantee a spot. You max at 164 points but there are more points up for grabs even if you only win half your games. So when the radio comes on and players are "relieved" to be at .500, it tells me they should not be at all. .500 is subpar.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by FlamesFan68

.500 is a feel good line, but deceptive. 16 out of 30 teams make the playoffs. So more than half the teams get in. However, you need far more than .500 hockey in points to get in. You need about .579 in point percentage to get in or about 95 to pretty much guarantee a spot. You max at 164 points but there are more points up for grabs even if you only win half your games. So when the radio comes on and players are "relieved" to be at .500, it tells me they should not be at all. .500 is subpar.

I think you should read my message again, because I'm talking about wins, not points

In other words, I'm in the win% camp, not in the points% camp.

[squiggs96]

Since school has been mentioned, I think I figured out a quiz that should help clear some things up. It will also help me see why people voted where they did.

You are writing a math test with 10 questions. Each question is worth two points. If you get the right answer you get 2 points on each question. If you get the wrong answer on a question, but you show your work, and make enough sense, you get 1 point. On the 1st five questions you get the right answer, and get 2 points for each question. On the last 5 questions you get the answer wrong. On 4 of these questions your work was sufficient and you got 1 point on each of these questions. You get 14 points on the quiz. What is your percentage?

A) 50%
B) 70%
C) Any other answer

[FireGilbert]

Not sure if I should bother with a response but lol at comparing an OT loss to showing your work on a math test.

[PugnaciousIntern]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

Since school has been mentioned, I think I figured out a quiz that should help clear some things up. It will also help me see why people voted where they did.

You are writing a math test with 10 questions. Each question is worth two points. If you get the right answer you get 2 points on each question. If you get the wrong answer on a question, but you show your work, and make enough sense, you get 1 point. On the 1st five questions you get the right answer, and get 2 points for each question. On the last 5 questions you get the answer wrong. On 4 of these questions your work was sufficient and you got 1 point on each of these questions. You get 14 points on the quiz. What is your percentage?

A) 50%
B) 70%
C) Any other answer

Doesn't clear things up unfortunately. The root of the issue is in the definition of what 'percentage' means. Everybody knows that on a math test, your percentage is calculated by however many marks you get, out of total available marks. This is obviously the relative to the points 0.500.

The reason people are attracted to the definition of games 0.500 is because it makes more sense, but isn't properly represented in your example.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Yeah I'm not really sure what that example proves. Are you actually arguing that winning percentage doesn't exist?

You could easily say he person got 5 right, 1 wrong and 4 partially correct. Which could be written as 5-1-4.

So you could say his total mark % was .700 but his correct answer % was only .500.

It is almost as if there are two different ways to measure things depending on what metric you are using. Just like winning % and points %.

Is anyone actually arguing that these things don't exist? Hasn't this debate always been about which one is used when hockey players and/or media and/or fans say .500?

[FlamesFan68]

Here's a portion from SN writer Jonathan Willis describing the Flames situation...

"Entering the November 15 road game against the Minnesota Wild, Calgary had lost four straight contests, their fourth multi-game losing streak of the young season. The Flames were just 16 games into the schedule, but were already six games under .500 and five points out of the playoffs; no team in the league was on pace for a worse finish."

6 games under .500 and 5 points out of the playoffs. Sure sounds like SN uses game Wins/(Losses+OTL) as a .500 measure.

[Yrebmi]

poll words it too vaguely as it would have to for it to be a debate.
.500 wins or .500 points have been different animals since the introduction of 3 point games.
Hell just calling it 500 hockey could even refer to the number of games played in a season won or lost.

What really should be asked is if you prefer to consider a team 500 on wins or on points - because that's all it is - preference.

[IamNotKenKing]

Originally Posted by FlamesFan68

Here's a portion from SN writer Jonathan Willis describing the Flames situation...

"Entering the November 15 road game against the Minnesota Wild, Calgary had lost four straight contests, their fourth multi-game losing streak of the young season. The Flames were just 16 games into the schedule, but were already six games under .500 and five points out of the playoffs; no team in the league was on pace for a worse finish."

6 games under .500 and 5 points out of the playoffs. Sure sounds like SN uses game Wins/(Losses+OTL) as a .500 measure.

That doesn't tell anything unless you know the actual record, and the points of the last team in the playoffs. At that date, according to dropyourgloves.com, we were 5-11-1, so wins to losses without OT as the measure.

[V]

Originally Posted by PlayfulGenius

...it makes the league look like a joke

...give a false impression of parody

I'd really like to know if this was on purpose.

[Alberta_Beef]

Originally Posted by StrykerSteve

If you're 5-5-6, you aren't .500. You've lost eleven times and won 5. This isn't rocket science.

You've won 16 of 32 points. It's not rocket science.

[squiggs96]

One guy has a toonie in one hand and his other hand is empty. A different guy has a loonie in both hands. I've learned that people think these guys have diffeeebt amounts of money and that some think the guy with two loonies has no money. I think they both have the same amount of money.

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Yeah I'm not really sure what that example proves. Are you actually arguing that winning percentage doesn't exist?

You could easily say he person got 5 right, 1 wrong and 4 partially correct. Which could be written as 5-1-4.

What the example shows is that you got 4 questions partially correct and earned part marks. It is completely different than getting full marks and/or getting no marks. All three columns must be evaluated when determining a .500 mark. You can't lump two columns together for a winning percentage. 5-1-4 is a .700 winning percentage as they won 14/20 points and/or 7/20 games. A partial win is just that. You partially won and partially lost, so you get half a point. It is as incorrect to treat the OTL exactly the same as a Lisa as it would be to treat it exactly the same as a win. 5-1-4 is not .500 hockey.

I've seen on mentioned that .500 won't get you into the playoffs. It wasn't designed to. On the same test you could get 14/20, but if the class average was 80%, you didn't do that well. If you got 10/20, sure you were .500, but you did poorly.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

I've seen on mentioned that .500 won't get you into the playoffs. It wasn't designed to.

It was "designed" - or rather it was used to indicate that a team is doing reasonably well. "Well, we're over .500", "We need to get back to .500", "We're X games over .500". It's a measuring stick. In the current NHL points system, however, it's an utterly useless measuring stick. It has no value whatsoever in describing how well a team is performing. On any given day, more than 85% of the league is above .500 by points percentage.

So change the meaning to win percentage, whereby which about half the teams in the league are above .500 on a given day (thus providing a measurement that's at least sort of useful in indicating whether a team is above average or not), or stop using the term because it serves no purpose at all. Those are really the only viable options.

[The Fonz]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

So change the meaning to win percentage, whereby which about half the teams in the league are above .500 on a given day (thus providing a measurement that's at least sort of useful in indicating whether a team is above average or not), or stop using the term because it serves no purpose at all. Those are really the only viable options.

Are you arguing that point% doesn't have value, or that the ".500" point% doesn't have value?

Perhaps that's the disconnect. The win% crowd believe ".500" should have value; it should mean you're competing for a playoff spot. The point% crowd don't place value on ".500", as they're well aware it typically requires a .585 point% to make the playoffs (see: Snake Thread).

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

One guy has a toonie in one hand and his other hand is empty. A different guy has a loonie in both hands. I've learned that people think these guys have diffeeebt amounts of money and that some think the guy with two loonies has no money. I think they both have the same amount of money.

They both have the same number of dollars. But they have vastly different numbers of toonies.

Win percentage, not possible points percentage. A win percentage of .500 usually gets you into a playoff spot. A possible points percentage of .500 does not; unless the win percentage is also over .500

So when discussing being over .500 as being a mark to achieve for (something positive), it doesn't make sense to refer to one that really doesn't mean anything.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by The Fonz

Are you arguing that point% doesn't have value, or that the ".500" point% doesn't have value?

Perhaps that's the disconnect. The win% crowd believe ".500" should have value; it should mean you're competing for a playoff spot. The point% crowd don't place value on ".500", as they're well aware it typically requires a .585 point% to make the playoffs (see: Snake Thread).

The latter is what I'm saying... this is a thread about what ".500 hockey" means, not whether point percentage is a useful metric in general.

If you're right, then the point percentage people are essentially accepting my argument that the term ".500 hockey" has no value and isn't worth using anymore as long as it's tied to point percentage. But I don't think that's the case, either in this thread or generally, because people still use that term more or less ad nauseum.

[FlamesFan68]

Originally Posted by IamNotKenKing

That doesn't tell anything unless you know the actual record, and the points of the last team in the playoffs. At that date, according to dropyourgloves.com, we were 5-11-1, so wins to losses without OT as the measure.

That would be 7 games out from my math if using win/loss ratio, you must include the OTL in a win/loss ratio. In a point .500 you would need 6.5 wins to get .500

Right now the Flames are 16-15-2. I would say that the boys down at 770 and on SN would say the Flames are 1 game over .500 I say they need 3 wins to be at .500 If we're looking at points then the Flames are 2 points over .500, shouldn't be stated as 1 game over .500 We all know that a game win can get 2 points, but it is a misleading statement.

The teams that have a .500 W/L are usually doing better than the teams that have a .500 possible point total.