HOH Top Defensemen - Round 1 Screening Process

overpass · Mar 1, 2012

Screening Process

Project administrators sent all Top 80 lists for Round 1 of the project to a group of screeners for approval. The purpose of the screening process was to screen out lists that demonstrated insufficient knowledge or care, or that didn't match the intent of the project according to the consensus of participants.

We had five screeners. Two were non-participants - hockey historian and sometime HOH poster Iain Fyffe and longtime HOH poster EagleBelfour. Three were project participants - Hockey Outsider, reckoning, and seventieslord. Three screeners reviewed each list, and the list was accepted with two votes for approval.

The screeners did not know the identity of the list submitter. Their verdict was given solely on the contents of the list. Project administrators TheDevilMadeMe and overpass knew the identity of the submitters of the lists, and for that reason did not participate in the screening process.

Project administrators informed list submitters if their list listed duplicate players or did not include 80 unique players before submitting the list to screeners.

Screening Criteria

Screeners used the HOH Top 100 Players list created in 2008 as a guide. Any lists that did not contain all defencemen from this list was flagged and was sent back to be reworked. While players from this list did not have to be included in the final list, we wanted to make sure it was for a good reason.

Screeners also rejected lists that, in their opinion, were heavily slanted toward or against certain eras or that failed to consider the full scope of hockey history.

Rejected List 1

Screeners rejected this list for giving insufficient consideration to pre-WWII defencemen and being too slanted towards post-expansion players for the scope of the project. They specifically mentioned that there were no pre-WWII defencemen in the top 10 and only 1 in the top 24.

Rejected List 2

Screeners rejected this list because it included no pre-NHL defencemen and no defencemen who peaked before the 1926 consolidation, including Sprague Cleghorn. King Clancy was the earliest player listed, and he started his career in 1921.

Rejected List 3

Screeners rejected this list for not including any non-NHL European defencemen, including Valeri Vasiliev who was listed on the HOH Top 100 Players list, and also noted that it lacked several prominent early era defencemen.

All three authors of the rejected lists revised and resubmitted their lists and participated in the project.

Administrators also provided some minor feedback on some of the lists submitted, based on feedback from screeners.

1. In several cases, noted that a player was listed twice.
2. Suggested that a list was a bit short on pre-1926 players (only three players were listed from that era.)
3. Suggested that a list was short on players born since 1960 in the second half of a list.
4. Suggested that there were a lot of active players in the final 10 places of a list.
5. Asked if Al MacInnis was an intentional omission.
6. Asked if Dit Clapper was an intentional omission.
7. Asked if Jack Stewart was an intentional omission
8. Asked if J. C. Tremblay was an intentional omission.

overpass · Mar 1, 2012

In hindsight we shouldn't have asked about the omissions of Tremblay and Stewart. While both were legitimate oversights, they weren't part of the HOH Top 100 Players list from 2008, and we didn't ask about the omissions of Eddie Gerard, Moose Johnson, and other players.

tarheelhockey · Mar 1, 2012

The third list is mine. I knew going into the project that I was weak on non-NHL'ers so it wasn't a huge surprise to see it get kicked back for revision. To be honest, it was probably a blessing in disguise as it allowed me some critical time to research and think about players who were less familiar to me.

Here's what I did in revision:

- Moved Lidstrom ahead of Potvin and Kelly -- note that this was around the time of the Bourque vs Lidstrom thread.
- Added Hod Stuart (#16), Eddie Gerard (#36), Vladimir Lutchenko (#49), Valeri Vasiliev (#53), Harry Cameron (#56), Alexander Ragulin (#64), Sergei Gonchar (#74), Brad McCrimmon (#76), Lennart Svedberg (#78), Jan Suchy (#79) and Joe Simpson (#80)
- Dropped Eric Desjardins, Steve Duchesne, Glen Harmon, Rick Ley, Gus Mortson, Doug Mohns, L-E Sjoberg, Ted Harris, Carol Vadnais, Syd Howe, and Andre Dupont.
- Promoted Guy Lapointe, Phil Housley, and Sergei Zubov.
- Demoted Jack Stewart, Larry Murphy and Vladimir Konstantinov.

I'm actually glad I got a second, more careful run at this list. Some of the ones in the 70s and 80s were just goofy because I was running out of ideas (Duchesne? what?) and some of the early-era and Europeans who had been left off were inexcusable.

TheDevilMadeMe · Mar 1, 2012

overpass said:
In hindsight we shouldn't have asked about the omissions of Tremblay and Stewart. While both were legitimate oversights, they weren't part of the HOH Top 100 Players list from 2008, and we didn't ask about the omissions of Eddie Gerard, Moose Johnson, and other players.

Those were specific cases where the two lists were getting sent back for minor revision for having too many (what looked like careless) omissions. We probably shouldn't have given the players by name, though. I don't think either decision affected the final product. At one point, there was a worry that flagging Tremblay that one time and not Gerard might have made him become available before Gerard, but they ended up becoming available in the same round. (When guys like Gerard and Moose Johnson were omitted, it was generally part of a trend involving all pre-NHL players).

TheDevilMadeMe · Mar 1, 2012

We had five screeners. Two were non-participants - hockey historian and sometime HOH poster Iain Fyffe and longtime HOH poster EagleBelfour. Three were project participants - Hockey Outsider, reckoning, and seventieslord. Three screeners reviewed each list, and the list was accepted with two votes for approval.

The screeners did not know the identity of the list submitter. Their verdict was given solely on the contents of the list. Project administrators TheDevilMadeMe and overpass knew the identity of the submitters of the lists, and for that reason did not participate in the screening process

To clarify on this, Iain Fyffe, EagleBelfour and seventieslord screened the first group of lists. Hockey Outsider and reckoning were added later after their own lists had already been accepted. Iain and EB both accepted seventieslord's list without knowing who it was, so we managed to avoid a conflict of interest in the screening process.

None of the screeners were told which list was mine and which was overpass's

Hardyvan123 · Mar 2, 2012

The 1st list was mine and while there are things I would, and did move around, I still feel there was too much effort to make the list "historical" , as opposed to purely "the best"and this had the affect of making the bar much higher for post integration 1992NHL guys to make the final list than pre integration players who played outside of the NHL and in an almost exclusive Canadian NHL.

It makes me wonder how players in the future are going to be treated with the emphasis on all stars and how a player did against his peers, which is obviously more difficult in a fully integrated league than a non integrated one.

Despite these concerns the project was both very enjoyable and informing.

kmad · Mar 2, 2012

Damn, I was hoping for some rejected lists with Scott Niedermayer top-3 or Phil Housley top-10.

Johnny Engine · Mar 2, 2012

Yeah, there was a distinct lack of entertainingly crazy.
Wasn't there a top 100 players list rejected in one project that listed all 3 of the big stars from the Isles dynasty in the top 10, and Jacques Plante somewhere in the 80s?
I guess everyone involved with this one was actually serious.

overpass · Mar 2, 2012

Johnny Engine said:
Yeah, there was a distinct lack of entertainingly crazy.
Wasn't there a top 100 players list rejected in one project that listed all 3 of the big stars from the Isles dynasty in the top 10, and Jacques Plante somewhere in the 80s?
I guess everyone involved with this one was actually serious.

Yeah, I think having to list 80 defencemen screened out anyone who wasn't serious.

VanIslander · Mar 2, 2012

tarheelhockey said:
Here's what I did in revision:

- Added Hod Stuart (#16), Eddie Gerard (#36), Vladimir Lutchenko (#49), Valeri Vasiliev (#53), Harry Cameron (#56), Alexander Ragulin (#64), Sergei Gonchar (#74), Brad McCrimmon (#76), Lennart Svedberg (#78), Jan Suchy (#79) and Joe Simpson (#80)
- Dropped Eric Desjardins, Steve Duchesne, Glen Harmon, Rick Ley, Gus Mortson, Doug Mohns, L-E Sjoberg, Ted Harris, Carol Vadnais, Syd Howe, and Andre Dupont.

Obvious moves in hindsight, eh?

Digging into hockey history sure is an eye opener. The HfBoards History Board and ATD sub-board are great places to spur on one's education into the past of this great sport.

Kyle McMahon · Mar 2, 2012

Interesting to see that Roman Hamrlik's mother submitted a list to the project.

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HOH Top Defensemen - Round 1 Screening Process

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