the game77 theory: an htp original !!!

y'know what drives me crazy ? stats that don't matter.

while i'm interested in hockey statistics in general (like the stuff that got me to third in my fantasy pool like G/A/PIM/SOG/Sv%), and i'm HUGE proponent of advanced metrics (corsi, qualcomp, zonestarts etc --all definitions can be found c/o behindthenet), when you watch a hockey broadcast or read pregames in the MSM, they often toss around meaningless numbers that make me want to throw things.

the one that comes to mind immediately is that the flames haven't won a game in anaheim since january 2004. that's a lot of losses, admittedly, but let's also consider that the only players who have endured the entirety of that dry spell were iginla and regehr. on the night of december 10th, 2010, when the flames rolled into the pond and every sportscaster in the universe was announcing the aforementioned seven-year win drought, mikael backlund's record in anaheim was a perfect zero-for-zero. brendan morrison's record in anaheim, whilst displaying a flaming C on the front of his jersey, was also unblemished.... as were babchuk's and kostopolous'. ultimately, the 2010 incarnation of the calgary flames had never played in anaheim as a group, and therefore (to me, anyways) the factoid is rendered meaningless...

in effort to show how thoroughly inconsequential some of these media-regurgitated items are, i came up with the game77 theory. i intend to use it as a retort to peter loubardias proving to the world that he can read the game notes, and therefore is aware that miikka kiprusoff is undefeated in the month of september against teams that wear green (or something equally insignificant).

cause here's the thing: the flames have won game 77 every year since 2000-2001... that's like 9 straight years !!! so this obviously means that they'll probably win game 77 next year, and that prospect clearly makes the data thoroughly important for mass consumption. OR, the flames are about as likely to win game 77 as they are game 76, and even mentioning the nine year run is sortof foolish...

these are the things i do when i'm bored.
see here for the actual data (and if you can't read it, i can email you a bigger version).
:)