Give It Away, Give It Away, Give It Away Now...

Time for some silly stats today - let's look at the leaders from the NHL 2005-6 Regular Season in terms of Giveaways. Who coughed up the puck more often than a cat with bronchitis? Let's have the envelopes, please...

**Top 10 in Total Giveaways (The Roberto Duran Trophy)**
Ilya KOVALCHUK, ATL	127
Ales HEMSKY, EDM	123
Chris PRONGER, EDM	110
Jaromir JAGR, NYR	109
Sergei ZUBOV, DAL	103
Joe THORNTON, S.J	102
Brian RAFALSKI, N.J	97
Marc SAVARD, ATL	94
Mike MODANO, DAL	93
Jason SPEZZA, OTT	93

**Top 5 in 3rd Period & OT Giveaways (The Bill Buckner Award)**
Ales HEMSKY, EDM	42
Ilya KOVALCHUK, ATL	39
Bryan McCabe, TOR	36
Patrick Marleau, S.J	36
Marc SAVARD, ATL	35
Chris PRONGER, EDM	35

As a further refinement, I could add in Time On Ice to try and get a handle on who's logging more giveaways per minute of ice time. And in light of the finding last week that Giveaways actual seem to be correlated with positive results, the impression I get is more that Giveaways are indicative of having the puck more often, and trying to do more with it. As a result, some giveaways occur, but positive offensive plays occur as well, if not more often.

Later today I'll post similar numbers for Takeaways...

How I'm Trying To Make Money Sports Blogging

To kick off this series of articles general sports-blogging articles here at OTF Classic, I think it's best to start with a comment that Brad left here last week, after I shared my goals for 2012, which include specific revenue targets:
I considered diving into the world of internet marketing myself, but I felt that my friends would hate me for bugging them about stuff. I mean, it's pretty low-risk high-reward, so it's tempting. I wouldn't mind reading about tips on how to maximize impact of blogging in general to make it a legitimate income source. Trying to make money at sports blogging can be a very touchy subject - for the vast majority of us, this is an activity we pursue to both exercise our creativity and share our love of the game, whether it's hockey, football, badminton, whatever, with fellow fans. Mixing that personal conversation with a commercial message can turn people off, especially if it becomes too intrusive for the reader.

It's not unreasonabl…

Canadian Baloney, starring James Mirtle

A tireless refrain from the Canadian media is that Nashville is an absolute failure as a hockey market, and failing to move the team north of the border is an exercise in folly by the NHL.

Our latest exhibit comes from James Mirtle, usually one of the more thoughtful hockey bloggers extant:
But Nashville, quite simply, has proven it cannot sustain an NHL hockey team. Even with the lowest ticket prices in the entire league (I know: I've looked into flying there for a game or two) and a ridiculously forgiving arena lease, the team has had attendance issues despite having one of the best records in the league.

It's not a matter of Canadians not wanting teams in the southern U.S.; I've argued time and again in favour of teams like Dallas and Tampa Bay that have supported their teams and really brought something to the table in terms of bringing news fans and new energy to the game. That's a good thing.

The Predators, however, are not that, not in the beginning and certainly no…

Get Your NHL Super Schedule 2008-9 Right Here!

Click here for the 2009-10 NHL Super Schedule, at my new site, www.ontheforecheck.com!

The NHL announced the 2008-9 Regular Season schedule today, so of course, it's time right here to publish my very own NHL Super Schedule 2008-9 as well.

For those unfamiliar with what I did last year, the NHL Super Schedule is a spreadsheet that I put together and make publicly available via Google Documents*. It includes an entry for each game in each team's 82-game regular season schedule, with additional information such as how far that team has had to travel since its last game, how many days have passed since that previous game, and various statistics relative to the opponent that evening, such as 2007-8 Winning Percentage, Goals Per Game, Goals Against Per Game, etc. For example, you can total the distance that each team will travel during the upcoming season, or find who plays the most back-to-back games. Check out which team faces the toughest opposing offenses, or which power plays…

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