[ah123]

Originally Posted by BACKCHECK!!!

I'm starting to buy in to the conspiracy theory that Burke actually keeps up with the leading edge of hockey analytics, but keeps it on the down-low by trash talking "fancy stats"... trash talking them when he is attending a fancy stats conference as an invited speaker... along with his daughter who IIRC is also employed in a fancy stays capacity.

You might be right on that one...this is a post by someone on another flames board, but I found this interesting regardless (post #25 in this thread on FN)

The second was a conversation I had with one of the Flames scouts a month or two ago. We were talking, I asked what he did for work, and when he told me I showed interest in his process, beyond the obvious "he skates fast" and "he hits hard". I mentioned I was trying to educate myself on some advanced stats, and he nodded knowledgeably. I told him that I wasn't sure how big it was in his line of work, and he said that I would be surprised.

Then I said something to the effect of "Yeah, but with you scouting for the Flames, you probably don't get to apply it much. After all, your boss only cares how big and truculent someone is!"

He looked at me, and said "Have you ever noticed that every time there's one of those conferences, Brian Burke is there. Yeah, outwardly he's shooting down the concept, but he's always present, soaking it up". Then he gave me a wry smile. "Maybe this is one of those occasions where you should pay more attention to what Burke does, than what he says"