So I’m watching Bobby Orr highlights

[Eisen]

I don't dispute that. I've actually pointed this out myself. Strategically, football will always have more ways to go. Pitch size requirements are much less strict, I think the legal length of the soccer field is anywhere from 90 to 120 meters, and the legal width can run from 45 up to 90 meters. That itself makes football much more variable and "polymorphic". Not to mention the number of players.

This is also why England always struggles adapting at WC and Euro tournaments, as the EPL is generally played on narrow and short fields which encourage physical contact and fast end-to-end action rather than shifting gears and mastermind CMs controlling the pace for entire minutes.

Anyway, since equipment is such a crucial part of hockey, I believe hockey has been evolving in bounds and leaps, whereas football is relatively slow and conservative. I mean, they have just given in and implemented the VAR. Some twenty or twenty-five years after hockey.

Agreed. If the VAR is an approvement to the game is up for debate, though.

 

[BobbyAwe]

A player is only as good or great as the guys he plays with and against are NOT as good or great. The average player skills in any era in question have to be evaluated, relative to other eras, before the particular player in question can be evaluated as to HIS greatness. My general opinion is that the great players of yesterday would be all-stars today but not AS dominant as they were in their day. Hockey "Gods" like Gretzky and Lemieux would probably still win the scoring title most years but would NOT come anywhere near 200 points in a season. Similarly, Orr might still be the best D-man but would NOT be HEAD AND SHOULDERS above every other top blueliner. IOW - it would NOT seem like he was from another planet, as it seemed in his day.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Between the 50s and early 90s, the average height of an NHL player increased by two inches.

That is largely a function of nutrition in the general population, not evolution. You'd be laughed out of a biology course for trying to push the idea that humans have changed in any significant way over the past few generations.

There can sometimes be a more pronounced effect in sports (as you can see where the NHL diverges from the averages) when teams select for certain body types. Basketball is the best example. Even hockey players were being selected for size over talent in the late 90s-00s when they were heavier on average than now.

However, size has very little to do with hockey ability. Have a look at the top scorer in the NHL so far this season..

 

[David Bruce Banner]

Skating-wise, I see a lot of similarity between Orr and McDavid. Both can make some of the best players of their time look as though they’re standing still.

 

[Troubadour]

That is largely a function of nutrition in the general population, not evolution. You'd be laughed out of a biology course for trying to push the idea that humans have changed in any significant way over the past few generations.

There can sometimes be a more pronounced effect in sports (as you can see where the NHL diverges from the averages) when teams select for certain body types. Basketball is the best example. Even hockey players were being selected for size over talent in the late 90s-00s when they were heavier on average than now.

However, size has very little to do with hockey ability. Have a look at the top scorer in the NHL so far this season..

Me: The game got faster.

Them: Human beings have not changed at all!

Me: At all? They have grown taller.

Them: That has nothing to do with evolution! That's nutrition! And it has nothing to do with hockey ability!

Me: Too brainy.

 

[Dingo]

Without clicking the link I suppose it points towards Mike Gartner?

I realize his ASG record really was long-standing, and without immersing too deeply into the fact those events were held and tracked at different rinks in a rather spartan fashion (didn't Fedorov beat Mike in 1996 while losing because Gartner touched the timer with his stick?), let's just say that All-Star Game skill competition results would still be a strange counter to the iffiness of the eye test.

Skating and stickhandling are the two departments that have advanced to a crazy extent in the last couple of decades. It's not just that today's athletes are better. It's that they are often good beyond comprehension.

Do you watch what Kucherov does? What Connor does? They began where last generation stopped and moved forward with it.

I don't understand why people even dispute this. Someone like Bure would still be an awesome watch today. It's just that he wouldn't look as otherworldly as 20 years ago because the world has caught on and even advanced.



Between the 50s and early 90s, the average height of an NHL player increased by two inches.

As fort the rest of the world:

The average height between the 50s and early 80s increased by around...

2 inches!

Basically, yes, people evolve and change all the time. And NHL players are people you know.

I'm like the last person on earth claiming the 80s goalies sucked and today's players are genetically re-engineered supermutants, but please, don't deny the obvious.

Every time I watch a game from the nineties, be it the early part, middle nineties or even Nagano Olympics, I'm shocked how slow the play was.

It was always gonna happen because without us noticing, it's been always happening. Twenty years from now, today's NHL will look dated. In thirty years, it will look outdated. In 50 years, ancient.

Using your own graph, it’s two centimetres between 50s and 80s for Western offshoots, which I assume is us. It’s only a centimetre and a half worldwide.

 

[Dingo]

That is largely a function of nutrition in the general population, not evolution. You'd be laughed out of a biology course for trying to push the idea that humans have changed in any significant way over the past few generations.

There can sometimes be a more pronounced effect in sports (as you can see where the NHL diverges from the averages) when teams select for certain body types. Basketball is the best example. Even hockey players were being selected for size over talent in the late 90s-00s when they were heavier on average than now.

However, size has very little to do with hockey ability. Have a look at the top scorer in the NHL so far this season..

On top of that he is calling centimetres inches.

 

[Dingo]

Please share.

Orange Slices by Twin Sails. Big, citrusy double IPA. 8.2%.... might help explain some of my post.

 

[Dingo]

Another sport that didn’t magically get better with human super evolution was boxing. As a teenager I remember watching an old, fat George Foreman come really close to being the actual, unified champion. He didn’t have anything on young George. It only stands to reason that boxers didn’t need magically morph in those twenty years. Not soon after George was the run of the zklitschkos, which only came to an end.

Money has been huge in that sort, and fundamental training hasn’t changed that much. However, before Ali made the sport a big money game, fighters were in fact regularly under 200lbs.

Admittedly, they are enormous now, but I’d suspect George would still be putting jaws into orbit if he were prime.

On the other hand the difference between the athlete in MMA now compared to the 90s is laughable.

It’s money. Money produces desire, which produces training, and a larger foundation of a pyramid of talent. You don’t get to the top unless you go through a ton of hopefuls when there is money.

CrossFit is another sport that was bushleague and has gotten deeper as money and notoriety have increased.

 

[Troubadour]

Using your own graph, it’s two centimetres between 50s and 80s for Western offshoots, which I assume is us. It’s only a centimetre and a half worldwide.

Oh I'm sorry! This is the one I intended:

It's indeed two inches in the same span. But of course, you can ignore that and red-herring your way out of facts.

Americans, specifically:

It does not really matter how many inches. It's obvious that human beings have been changing in relatively short time spans, albeit not morphing from seaweed to apes in twenty years. It's not a matter of opinion you can decide to ridicule. It's a fact.

 

[Troubadour]

Another sport that didn’t magically get better with human super evolution was boxing. As a teenager I remember watching an old, fat George Foreman come really close to being the actual, unified champion. He didn’t have anything on young George. It only stands to reason that boxers didn’t need magically morph in those twenty years. Not soon after George was the run of the zklitschkos, which only came to an end.

It didn't get magically better with human super evolution (the mere fact you have to resort to this ridiculing hyperbole that's devoid of any substance is pretty telling), but it definitely did get better from Corbett to Jeffries, from Jeffries to Johnson, from Johnson to Dempsey-Tunney, through Joe Louis, from Ali on to Tyson and then to Lewis and Klitschkos.

Can you imagine peak Tyson going against a "feinting" Bob Fitzsimmons?

Money and nutrition are part of the changes human beings undergo. So you guys going "money incentive!" and "nutrition!" are not really putting up a good argument against the fact that human beings have been changing, little by little, year in, year out -- all along. As a matter of fact, more money and better nutrition only underline this.

 

[Troubadour]

For anyone who wants to see:

This is the 92 finals:



(I chose one of the wildest passages in the game, so people actually enjoy it and the difference is not as abysmal as to make me look nitpicking and biased.)

This is last year's finals:



And I'm not trying to prove that the 92 players were bad (they were not). Just that the game indeed got faster, today's players are generally way more agile and thus they're capable of reaching any part of the ice quicker. They look like dancing all over compared with the folk in 92.

The fact that more time and space allowed for a more interesting game sometimes is an altogether different topic.

 

[Mr. Fancy Pants]

I really don't see it as much difference. Believe it or not, I think the higher TV quality has more of an effect in thinking that the game is faster than it used to be. Maybe I'm the only one but I'm always surprised when I go watch an NHL game in person. It seems slower than watching it on TV.

The Canada Cup 1987 finals doesn't really seem that much different from today in terms of speed especially when you consider that the players were using poorer quality skates, wood sticks and probably the ice quality was also worse back then compared to today.

The equipment, technology, rule changes and coaching changes have more to do with the pace of the game today rather than the skill of players IMO.

 

[Dingo]

Oh I'm sorry! This is the one I intended:

It's indeed two inches in the same span. But of course, you can ignore that and red-herring your way out of facts.

Americans, specifically:

It does not really matter how many inches. It's obvious that human beings have been changing in relatively short time spans, albeit not morphing from seaweed to apes in twenty years. It's not a matter of opinion you can decide to ridicule. It's a fact.

Did you seriously give me the wrong graph and then just pre-emptively accuse me of ignoring the information from this newer graph?

Lol.

I’m still seeing an inch from 1950-1980 in the second of your new charts, and uhh, various measurements in the first. A near flatline since 1960 for the Netherlands, for one.

I like that dip from about 1830 to 1890 where evolution decided it was time to drop an inch or so.

Yes, Scrawny Bob in his speedos would have gotten murked by any real heavyweight, like, probably 220lb Jeffries, or 6’2 210 Jack Johnson...

Why was Bob even at the top of the pile... small pile, like shitty 70s hockey.

 

[Troubadour]

Did you seriously give me the wrong graph and then just pre-emptively accuse me of ignoring the information from this newer graph?

The reason players are bigger is due to to more training, and more of a worldwide talent pool. It doesn’t reflect on humans. You just get to pick from a bigger litter.

The bolded is the point you've mistakenly argued to begin with and you have forgotten by now (which I only partly blame you for).

It's totally irrelevant whether average height of American male increased by an inch, inch and a half or two inches in that same time span.

(In reality, none of those average height among general population charts I have posted go beyond 1980, and up until then, they're perfectly in line with the average height increase among NHL players up until 1980 which is the key here, as it proves your theory wrong. Not to mention, those charts deal with the average height based on the birth year, unlike those NHL ones, which is yet another important detail you've missed out on.)

Before you forget it again, a reminder of what you argued (but did not bother to remember ever arguing):

The reason players are bigger is due to to more training, and more of a worldwide talent pool. It doesn’t reflect on humans. You just get to pick from a bigger litter.

The truth is, the height increase among NHL players perfectly correlates with the average height increase among general population in the same time span (my two-inch blip and your failure to grasp those charts notwithstanding).

The fact is, human beings changed in terms of height, just like the NHL players (who are, surprisingly, human beings).

Now, the only mystery here is why you even argue anything if you don't bother remembering it a single post later and instead focus on ridiculing people who actually have something to say, desperately clinging to every little error which is completely irrelevant to the discussion you pretend to have. Because really, all you do is digress at all cost.

I'm flabbergasted because reading you up until now, I thought you were more on the intelligent fella side rather than your typical dorky sport fan side.

That's the only thing I was really wrong about as it seems.

 

[Troubadour]

The Canada Cup 1987 finals doesn't really seem that much different from today in terms of speed especially when you consider that the players were using poorer quality skates, wood sticks and probably the ice quality was also worse back then compared to today.

I'm pretty much in agreement with the "speed and agility difference is mainly caused by new equipment". That's what I think myself. On the other hand, if the equipment allows to skate faster and with more agility, it definitely stimulates the growth of players in terms of quality. I don't really care what you attribute the change of pace to, as long as you at least acknowledge it's there.

I mean, it's a painfully slow process anyway.

 

[Troubadour]

I like that dip from about 1830 to 1890 where evolution decided it was time to drop an inch or so.

Lest I forget! This oh-so-sarcastic remark is another proof you got completely carried away and forgot your own argument.

The point is, had NHL been played from 1830 to 1890, the average height of NHL players would have dropped as well, which is the point you have completely failed to understand (albeit arguing the nonsensical opposite of it).

Yes, even between 1830 and 1890, human beings changed. Congratulations on finally realizing it and discovering that we've been getting larger post WW II (which I thought was the common knowledge). Ironically, even now, learning all that new information, you change a little for the better. Unless you forget it right away.

 

[The Panther]

Troubadour, I'm not getting what point you're trying to make here. Are you saying that humans have evolved in the past 25 years? Because that's absurd.

Are you saying that North Americans are taller than 25 years ago? That's possible, but what does it have to do with speed in the NHL?

Today, we see Patrick Kane (5'10") and John Gaudreau (5'9'') near the top of the scoring race. Those kind of players would have faced more size-discrimination in the mid-90s than they do today, when it's almost irrelevant.

In other words, just because players might be one inch taller doesn't mean that the game is faster.

Also, what does it mean to say the game is faster? I don't think the players are any faster in one direction (as the "fastest skater competition" proves over and over). I think the thing that is faster now is that the puck moves from end to end quicker. Now, why is that?

Improvements in equipment (forwards) are part of the differences, but the main factors in the (illusion of) speed being increased are (a) no red-line, allowing stretch passes, and (b) slightly shorter shifts, meaning players don't pace themselves as much.

Going all the way back to 1986 (33 years ago), here's highlights of the Edmonton-Calgary game 7:


Does anyone think this is slower than today? I don't. Now, this game is not typical of 1986, as we've got two stacked teams with a lot of skill, but it's probably typical of c.1992, such as the playoff clip you showed, above.

I'm certain that if you took the red-line out and then made everyone's shifts 25 s. shorter, that the 1992 clip you showed would have puck movement at exactly the speed of puck movement today.

To put it another way: Go back and watch that 2018 playoff clip again, and see how many passes over the red-line result in fast zone entries. Then, take all those away as plays that were impossible before 2005.


EDIT: I might also add that one of the guys in that 1992 clip you showed was still leading an NHL team in scoring in 2016, at age 43. Your theory probably has to account for that.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Without clicking the link I suppose it points towards Mike Gartner?

I realize his ASG record really was long-standing, and without immersing too deeply into the fact those events were held and tracked at different rinks in a rather spartan fashion (didn't Fedorov beat Mike in 1996 while losing because Gartner touched the timer with his stick?), let's just say that All-Star Game skill competition results would still be a strange counter to the iffiness of the eye test.

Skating and stickhandling are the two departments that have advanced to a crazy extent in the last couple of decades. It's not just that today's athletes are better. It's that they are often good beyond comprehension.

Do you watch what Kucherov does? What Connor does? They began where last generation stopped and moved forward with it.

I don't understand why people even dispute this. Someone like Bure would still be an awesome watch today. It's just that he wouldn't look as otherworldly as 20 years ago because the world has caught on and even advanced.



Between the 50s and early 90s, the average height of an NHL player increased by two inches.

As fort the rest of the world:

The average height between the 50s and early 80s increased by around...

2 inches!

Basically, yes, people evolve and change all the time. And NHL players are people you know.

I'm like the last person on earth claiming the 80s goalies sucked and today's players are genetically re-engineered supermutants, but please, don't deny the obvious.

Every time I watch a game from the nineties, be it the early part, middle nineties or even Nagano Olympics, I'm shocked how slow the play was.

It was always gonna happen because without us noticing, it's been always happening. Twenty years from now, today's NHL will look dated. In thirty years, it will look outdated. In 50 years, ancient.

For all the keystrokes accompanied by bumps in the road errors(inches/centimeters) your position suffers from major flaw. The inability to connect multiple individual attributes to show "Better".

In isolation, added height does not makes players faster.

Going back to pre NHL days, the original burners, Ken Mallen,Hec Kilrea, both trained speed skaters were never confused with the best players of their time. Today or the last generation, the "Big" players Zdeno Chara, Hal Gill, are far from the fastest.

Even the fast players today, McDavid, Hagelin, etc are app six feet tall but lack the ability to generate the fastest/hardest shot. Similar to 1990s burners, Gartner, Fedorov, few others, whose shots did not keep goalies awake at night.

Orr was closest to being the total package - speed,mobility, strength, ability to process the game, high rankings in all attributes, but barely 6'0" tall,under 200lbs. None of the other modern players, two or more inches taller, come close.

Unless you can show that combined modern skills are better and produce positive results you will continue to spin your wheels.

 

[Troubadour]

How about track and field sprinters, how about speed skating competitions?

List of world records in speed skating - Wikipedia

(Please bother to check the record dates.)

Are we gonna pretend ice hockey players can't be bothered with skating faster and improving their speed just because speed is not the only thing that matters in the game of hockey?

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Let's try the last several posts again without personal attacks or being an ass.

 

[danincanada]

For all the keystrokes accompanied by bumps in the road errors(inches/centimeters) your position suffers from major flaw. The inability to connect multiple individual attributes to show "Better".

In isolation, added height does not makes players faster.

Going back to pre NHL days, the original burners, Ken Mallen,Hec Kilrea, both trained speed skaters were never confused with the best players of their time. Today or the last generation, the "Big" players Zdeno Chara, Hal Gill, are far from the fastest.

Even the fast players today, McDavid, Hagelin, etc are app six feet tall but lack the ability to generate the fastest/hardest shot. Similar to 1990s burners, Gartner, Fedorov, few others, whose shots did not keep goalies awake at night.

Orr was closest to being the total package - speed,mobility, strength, ability to process the game, high rankings in all attributes, but barely 6'0" tall,under 200lbs. None of the other modern players, two or more inches taller, come close.

Unless you can show that combined modern skills are better and produce positive results you will continue to spin your wheels.

Fedorov's name doesn't belong in this example. He was a great skater but also had a nice arsenal of shots, including a 100 MPH slapshot.

 

[danincanada]

Lest I forget! This oh-so-sarcastic remark is another proof you got completely carried away and forgot your own argument.

The point is, had NHL been played from 1830 to 1890, the average height of NHL players would have dropped as well, which is the point you have completely failed to understand (albeit arguing the nonsensical opposite of it).

Yes, even between 1830 and 1890, human beings changed. Congratulations on finally realizing it and discovering that we've been getting larger post WW II (which I thought was the common knowledge). Ironically, even now, learning all that new information, you change a little for the better. Unless you forget it right away.

I don't understand the counter arguments to your points either. It's like some people are scared to acknowledge any minor point that could be construed as "modern hockey is better", even if it's common sense/factual.

Evolution is an ongoing process, and people increasing in size is part of this whether its because the family farm has had great crops the last two generations or we're buying more nutritious food at the grocery store. I don't see anyone in this section using that as the sole basis for cross era comparisons anyways but to me, it just displays how the level of competition to even make the NHL is greater now. Players still come in all shapes and sizes but actually come in more shapes and sizes because there are more people to pick from.

 

[The Winter Soldier]

For those lucky enough to see him play live. The greatest hockey player ever to lace up skates. Will never forget he killed a PIM by basically stickhandling the puck for what seemed an entire minute. You couldn't touch him if he wanted the puck. Highlights do no do him justice!

 

[Canadiens1958]

Fedorov's name doesn't belong in this example. He was a great skater but also had a nice arsenal of shots, including a 100 MPH slapshot.

Not exactly game conditions.