Advanced stats in hockey need a makeover. My understanding (which could well be wrong) is that stats like Corsi and Fenwick are named as such after the trailblazers who devised those measurements and ways of combining numbers. Which is all well and good -- except that as far as names go, they do absolutely nothing for any newcomer to describe what they are or what they're measuring.
I'm a casual baseball fan. I didn't play close attention to the stats analysis revolution that happened there. But as a kid, I understood batting average, ERA, W-L, Saves, etc. So when I started watching telecasts and saw things like Slugging Percentage and WHIP and WAR, I was confused. What are these? Slugging Percentage isn't obvious, but is easily defined. WHIP is Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched? Got it, that makes sense. WAR is Wins Above Replacement player? OK -- I don't get how you calculate it, or how you define a replacement player, but I get the concept of the final number.
If advanced hockey stats were given some straight forward names (Shot Differential Per Shift, or Per Game, for one example), it would help people embrace them. Which is probably something the advanced stats gurus are against. I think they like the air of esoteric wisdom and opacity the current names have.
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