Quote:
Originally Posted by heep223
This post is exactly what discredits advanced stats. For some reason the majority of Corsi advocates think in terms of right vs. wrong and have this unwarranted defensive attitude. Why can't we just look at shot attempt differentials as another stat in the big conversation? It could be another useful stat in the big puzzle of stats, why does it have to be "if you don't care about Corsi than you don't have an intellectual interest in the game"? The truth is somewhere in the middle.
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This isn't what I said. That may have come across as a false dilemma but it wasn't my intention.
My point is that you can enjoy watching hockey without giving a god damn whether your team is being outshot, outhit, outpossessed, or anything else, and just have fun watching the good things they do, getting pumped for wins and frustrated for losses and cheering them on without ever considering a single number besides, I guess, the score.
You can also enjoy hockey by meticulously obsessing over these details to a borderline crazy degree, watch each breakout ten times to determine what seems to produce controlled zone entries, then track the controlled zone entries and try to figure out how those are generally best transitioned into scoring chances, while mapping out shot locations for your team, etc etc etc.
Both are legitimate ways to enjoy watching hockey, and yes, there's plenty in between. The article Haynes is writing seems to me to dismiss the second as a legitimate way to enjoy the sport. At the end of the day it's guys on ice knocking a rubber disc around with sticks; get enjoyment out of it however you like.
It seems like certain members of one group or the other take the view that the other type of fan is somehow a worse hockey fan, and then everyone just generalizes about "corsi people" or the "watch the games" crowd. Realistically, the phrase "worse hockey fan" doesn't make any sense <
insert Oilers / Canucks / Leafs fan joke at your leisure>.