Calculation of ice time
I am intrigued by the players’ “ice time”. How do you calculate this ice time?
Daniel Gingras
Response from Guillaume Lefrançois
If we include technicians for computer equipment, there are 17 people who work on game night. Of the lot, there are six minor NHL officials who keep tabs on the stats. Four deal with the data you constantly see: shots on goal, blocked and off-target shots, body checks, turnovers and face-offs. Two more are assigned exclusively to playing time, one for each team. The data collection makes quite a spectacle in the arenas where these officials sit near reporters. This is the case in Buffalo, for example. The soundtrack looks something like, ” 43 white! No, 48 white! With presences that last about 45 seconds on average, we understand the extent of the challenge of these officials.
This data collection will be automated after the holidays. Players have been wearing microchips for two years, but this was a testing phase. The idea was to compare the chip data with that collected by officials. After the holidays, a person will stay on the job in order to validate the data and correct errors if the chip reads incorrectly.
First choice
What does a top pick – and subsequent picks, if any – in NHL hockey provide financially to the amateur team this player played for? What about the amateur league?
Pierre Rheault
Response from Katherine Harvey-Pinard
Hello, Mr. Rheault. Teams that see some of their players selected in the NHL Draft do receive a sum of money, which varies from year to year. For the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), the Ontario League (OHL) and the Western League (WHL), the sum depends on the total number of players selected from the Canadian Hockey League ( LCH). According to the information I have obtained, it is around $ 20,000 for a player drafted in the first round and it drops considerably for the players selected in the following rounds. I’m not in a position to tell you the other amounts, however.
Note also that there is an annual financial agreement between the NHL and the CHL. This covers, among other things, the development of players and officials, the school component as well as the various programs (anti-doping, mental health, etc.).
The sixth skater
What is the use of adding a sixth skater during a delayed penalty, especially since in recent years, the face-off has been in the zone of the penalized team?
Sylvain St-André
Response from Guillaume Lefrançois
Removal of the goaltender goes without saying, since play is stopped as soon as the penalized team touches the puck. There is always the risk of a goal in his own net, however, as happened to Ryan O’Byrne in 2008 with the Canadiens. There are no statistics on these game situations: you can find data on goals scored six on five, but these numbers include goals scored late in the game, when a team tries to draw a tie. In the absence of statistics, however, we can console ourselves with this compilation of goals scored by players in their own net.
The info to reveal
We learned, a few years after the transaction that sent him to Dallas, that Mike Ribeiro did not have a good reputation and could have consumption problems. During a trade, should a GM have to inform the other party of a player’s off-ice problems, or is it up to the other GM who wants to acquire a player to “do his research”? (!) to obtain information on its behavior?
Jean-Francois Lauzon
Response from Guillaume Lefrançois
There is no black-and-white obligation. Two caveats, however. First, the NHL is a world of gossip. If a player has problems that are known to his team, word will pass quickly, whether through teammates, agents, coaches … A few years ago, when I was interviewing a employee of another NHL team about a Canadiens player, he replied that “the whole league [était] aware ”of his off-ice problems. Obviously, if the player has issues that are not known to anyone, that’s another matter. But if not, we can guess that the general manager accepts the risk that comes with the player and hopes to find his account in spite of everything. Second, in a league of 32 teams, it is never good to burn bridges with a colleague, especially since many players have no-trade clauses that limit the possible partners for a transaction. If you are a GM and you get passed on a player with a “hidden defect” that was known to your counterpart, would you still want to do business with him? To ask the question, is to answer it.
Love for the tennis score
Thank you for the clarification of the score 15-30-40 … And the “love”? Where is he from ? I had an uncle, a tennis fan, who explained to me that when tennis was born, Monsieur’s closest and most available partner was Madame, his wife. And Madame was less gifted than Monsieur. So when the latter won the points one behind the other, so as not to add insult to defeat, he announced: 15-love, 30-love, etc. Plausible, right? Does anyone have another explanation?
Clotilde Seille
Response from Jean-François Téotonio
I really like your uncle’s explanation. But in truth, we do not know the origin of the word “love” in tennis to designate a zero score. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary website reports the hypothesis that this expression, which has been used since the 1700s, refers to the simple act of playing “for the love” of the sport when lagging behind. Tennis would then become an act of love (labor of love).
Still according to the same source, the word “amateur” would have a similar origin. Word amateur comes from latin amare, which means “to love”. When an athlete is in difficulty during a tennis match or plays a sport without financial gain, then he is playing “for the love” of it.