Well, I really liked this format. It really only works if you get a good number of people willing to submit lists - and we did.
I would like to try it again. I don't think I can give up the AAA, and obviously not the MLD, but once those two competitive and highly important drafts are complete, we should again move to this non-competitive, cooperative project - a way to truly identify the collective "all-star teams" of players not selected in prior drafts. Sub-AAA drafts positioned as serious, competitive affairs have been farces for a few years now so it's not like we have anything to lose.
It was a GREAT idea by VanIslander to start the single-A draft (and then the "B" draft) that way.
It works as a format, as long as you don't have someone using it as their forum to just throw crud at the wall to see if it sticks. We did have one of those, and this format would severely limit the "damage" that they could have done, had they participated (they didn't). And I don't use the word "damage" lightly. Picks should already be thoroughly researched, not presented to us to yea or nay it.
Side note, I think we could try improving on this even further. If this is a collaborative project, then why submit lists in secret? We could have a preliminary thread where we all discuss the merits of the players we had shortlisted (or longlisted) as the AAA wraps up, and use that as a way to campaign for the inclusion (or exclusion) of players. I would have liked to look at the lists before doing mine, and question why I had, or didn't have, a couple of dozen players.
All that said, I don't feel we were all on the same page. A perfect example is the final pick of the draft. I am giving VanIslander all the credit in the world when I say
I know he is not stupid and couldn't have possibly believed that picking Claude Lapointe was the right move for Moose Jaw. Why do it? I suspect it was because he was determined to get him onto one of these teams one way or another because he's one of his "guys". Is it a big deal? No. But we should work as a team, as we are all putting our names on this project. Do the right thing for the teams.
On the topic of VanIslander, one other thing I feel the need to point out to the only other person as passionate as I am about drafting players to pick #1300 and beyond, is that you should stop rebuffing attempts to make this an academic endeavor. What do I mean? Go back to treating this like hockey history university, like you used to. Criticize. Analyze. Stop with the anti-stat nonsense. Accept that statistics are the results of important on-ice events. (you don't mind stats; you have them in every single bio you post; they are just the kind of stats you like - simplistic, superficial, making little to no effort to go deeper, but when someone else does that, "stats be damned!!!!") RESPOND TO CRITICISM. ANSWER QUESTIONS. This draft was laced with comments that begged a response from you, that received none.
(examples:
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=111895207&postcount=25
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=111898911&postcount=32
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=112045553&postcount=82
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=112105885&postcount=152
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=112119155&postcount=164
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=112125251&postcount=168
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=112142369&postcount=195
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=112144149&postcount=204
this includes requests for more information on your players that could have helped us draft them)
I respond to all criticism, even deleted criticism
This is non-competitive; there should be no oneupsmanship, no keeping cards close to your chest, no getting pissy at critical analysis. You've gotta work with us here. Respond, take part, and make this a better place. How does this place get better? As we approach the limit of how "accurately" we can rank the finest hockey players of all-time. I will always take a knife to
all questionable picks, and please note that questionable doesn't mean "bad", it means you should question them, and if there's no reasonable answer,
then maybe that does mean they're a bad pick. Bad picks should be drafted with greater restraint in the future. If they don't fly at 1300, try them at 1500. But you have continually done the opposite. Some of your "guys", you will draft one year, fail to earn the pick appreciation (and in many cases earn the exact opposite), then pollute a higher draft the following year by taking the player even higher. You need to join me in being a "gatekeeper" of the MLD/AAA/AA drafts and keeping weaker picks far down where they belong, and stop promoting players out of place because
you like them.
As the person who headed this project, I had to make a few executive decisions - the good of the team was always the one and only consideration; egos were not.
- Andy Blair was drafted early and placed on the first line by default, but turned out to not be among the best offensive centers in the draft; luckily he has hints of intangibles (he played on the pepper boys line) that suggest he's cut out for a 3rd line role nonetheless.
- Bob Kelly was drafted to a team that only had two LWs but that does not mean he's automatically a third liner; that team later on drafted a LW with a better defensive reputation (assuming you buy into the early retro selkes) and who has been celebrated as a defensive player in this section in the past. One is much more of a "defensive" (3rd line) player, the other more of an "energy" (4th line) player. I've drafted Kelly recently and very much like what he brings to a 4th line, but the guy never killed a penalty in his life (yes, I realize that says more about whether he should kill penalties or not, but it does hint to hwhat kind of defensive ability he had).
- Ilya Byakin was drafted early and in all honesty shouldn't have been, but I couldn't help that. In the end, this team drafted two offensive specialists on the blueline (so did each team) and I had no choice but to conclude that, because at age 29-30 he was only a replacement level NHL player (
if that), he was the less qualified player than the more mysterious Karel Gut.
- I believe the only other case of lineup tinkering of any significance was after we had completed all eight scoring lines and briefly mused about how three of them possibly lacked grit, and then Mark Napier was drafted inexplicably. I asked if he could check, the answer was no, and it was suggested he get traded to another team, replacing a grittier winger,
thus exacerbating the problem we had just finished discussing. Napier sat on the 3rd line by default until a suitable replacement was drafted, and he was sent to the only logical place for him to go when he's drafted to a team with already full scoring lines - the bench.
Basically, there is no rule that says you have to "fill up" a line before starting the next. Haven't we all drafted a stud third liner we want, even before a space-filler first liner? I did the best I could with the way we drafted.
We inducted almost every HHOFer It would have been nice to fit in Steamer Maxwell and Jack Ruttan... or would it have? See the comments from Iain Fyffe, twice the researcher you and I are combined:
http://hockeyhistorysis.blogspot.ca/2012/01/meritorious-men-of-1910s.html
1910s Players Who Likely Do Not Merit the Hall of Fame
Rank Player Seasons Position Score Hall?
35 Patrick, Frank 1904-1924 37 76.3 No
36 Loughlin, Clem 1911-1926 32 75.8 No
37 Crawford, Rusty 1911-1926 6 75.3 Yes
38 Smaill, Walter 1905-1918 24 75.0 No
X Rankin, Frank 1911-1915 4 62.1 Yes
X Baker, Hobey 1912-1916 4 60.3 Yes
X Davidson, Scotty 1912-1914 72 55.8 Yes
X McNamara, George 1907-1917 17 47.1 Yes
X Ruttan, Jack 1909-1918 2 46.8 Yes
X Maxwell, Steamer 1910-1915 4 6.7 Yes
Fred "Steamer" Maxwell had a short and unremarkable senior career in Winnipeg. That he coached the Winnipeg Falcons to the very first Olympic hockey gold medal surely had nothing to do with his presence in the Hall as a player, right?
I've never been able to find the reason that Jack Ruttan was enshrined. He had a short, decent senior career in Winnipeg, won the 1913 Allan Cup as a player, went to war and coached and refereed in Winnipeg for a few years after his playing days were done. He's not the worst selection ever made, but he could be the most puzzling. There's no easy explanation for why he was picked out of any number of senior players from his day.
(Layer on in a conversation with me) : I think it's because his leagues were very high-scoring, and he was not. Especially for a forward. Dick Irvin in the same years that Maxwell played scored over 3 goals per game. Maxwell scored just over 0.5 goals per game. His offensive output was pretty abysmal, and there's just no way his defence could make up for that.
As I recall Ruttan actually scored more goals than Maxwell did, playing cover instead of rover.
This is coming from a guy who's read just about every game report for major games before 1910, to the point where he can tell you what percentage of the time any player played what positions.
Ruttan and Maxwell were both inducted into the HHOF in 1962 - 47 and 48 years after they had last played a significant game of hockey. Do you know who was on the selection committee at the time? I don't. It would be interesting to see their ages and backgrounds. But, given the fact that they had played a combined 70 recorded games, the time that had passed, the availability of resorces such as newspaper reports in 1962, the locations Maxwell and Ruttan played at (manitoba and winnipeg senior and amateur leagues), and the state of transportation and telecommunications in 1909-1915, it would not surprise me if not a single member of the selection committee had seen them play live even once, nor had they read a first hand account of their play since the 1910s (if they even had at all).
I listed both of them on my lists, and had plans to see that they were both drafted. It didn't happen. When it came down to it, I was just more confident in the quality of Ed Carpenter, and VI was more confident in the quality of Frank Eddolls, Luke Richardson and Gerald Diduck. We shouldn't look at it as some tragedy or travesty or revisionism.
It's quite possible that the fact that they're in the HHOF to begin with is the actual revisionism.
Do we know better than those who saw them play? We need to start by ensuring their inductions were even facilitated by such people, and even still... yes, it's quite possible that we do.
Best of luck to everyone in ATD2016. i am very proud of the strides we made in ranking the best, next-best, and next-next-best players in hockey history in 2015. It was the best yet.
