Book: scorecasting

[ma-skis.com]

Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won

So if you've ever read freakonomics and you like sports, you should pick this up.

Looks at a whole bunch of old sports adages and tries to rationalize whether they are true or not. Pretty interesting read and interesting opinion on home ice advantage, feel like the refs late call on sarich was pretty much bang on with what the book suggested about home ice advantage.

Definitely worth a look if you're looking for something to read, or want to know if defense really does win championships.

[edn88]

I downloaded this for the kindle and blasted through it. Lots of NBA and NFL references, but some good stuff on NHL too.

The part that was most interesting to me was the concept of how people are so averse to losing that they over value security over potential gains (explaining why NFl coaches don't go for it on 4th down nearly enough).

[ma-skis.com]

agreed, it's like last nights game where if we had lost with the 3-0 lead we'd be dissappointed, while dallas probably feels good having at least earned the point back.

I liked the reference to the phoenix suns style of basketball play as well in terms of potential gains over an entire game.

[JayP]

Excellent book and worth a read for any sports fan. The best chapters were the ones breaking down home field/ice advantage.

It's nice to see a book challenge many of the lazy cliches that the sports media drones on about instead of trying to dig deeper and actually use the wealth of data at their hands.

[SeeBass]

If you like that you would also like Soccernomics

[Torture]

Heard them talking about this book on the FAN (maybe a week ago), probably going to buy it. Definitely sounded like Freakanomics about sports.