The Chum Bucket

Incredibly Important Sharks News!

2011-10-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

Fuck Vancouver!
Congrats Boston!
Setoguchi for Burns!
Heatley for Havlat!
Shitty start to the season!

And we're caught up. So now I can bring you this actual incredibly important news: a website made Sharks cupcakes:

Wear the Cheese is a rad food blog that makes nerdy food. Good lord, they even made Krabby Patties! So enjoy your free plug, Wear the Cheese, from a rarely-updated overly-profane Sharks blog.

DetrLOLit

2011-05-13T16:12:00.001-07:00

A buddy of mine started watching hockey recently, and after Game 6 of this series he realized, "that's why you have so much grey hair." This makes as much sense as anything I've ever heard.

Fucking hockey. Fucking Game 7's. Nothing like this in the world. Good Shit San Jose, you kept the tank ROCKING last night and put Detroit in their place. Now lets make fun of those douchebags.

Just. Do. Wins.

2011-04-12T16:53:00.000-07:00

As the 2010/2011 season wound to a close, you could hear the gnashing of teeth and clacking of 10-keys from Gilroy if you tried. One question took a million abacuses to solve:

"Who the hell are the Sharks facing in the playoffs?"

Thanks to the NHL's relentless pursuit of fan accessibility, there are not 2, not 3, but 4 GODDAMN COLUMNS in the NHL Standings - Wins, Losses, Overtime Losses, and the all-new, enigmatically named ROW (really overwrought?).

A single non-Shark game had 4 possible results that determined San Jose's first round opponent this year. In past years it's taken entire flowcharts to figure this shit out.

So why go through all of this? Why confuse your players, reporters, and fans? What if I could show you how to make the NHL standings so intuitive that any fan, of any age, could easily track who is on top of the league? I'll show you in just 3 simple words:

Just. Do. Wins.

That's it. Just do wins. No shootout losses. No regulation + OT wins. No 3 point games - hell, no point system whatsoever.

Just do wins.

2 columns - Wins and Losses. Won the most games in the league? You're #1. Won the fewest? You're last. It's just that simple.

"Heresy!", you cry. "The standings will be completely out of whack!", "Deserving teams will miss the playoffs!", "Shootouts are an abomination and too much fun as it is. I want the thrilling, 1-on-1 finish to my games to be a mere footnote on the outcome of the game, not to actually mean something!"

I'll address each of those objections, but first, here are the details of my proposal:

The Plan:

Games are played exactly as is. 60 minutes of regulation, 5 minutes of overtime, followed by 3 rounds of shootout. Maybe bump OT up to 10 minutes of 4-on-4, but I think that's a good idea regardless.
Eliminate the SOL, ROW, and PTS standings. Just keep track of Wins and Losses. Shootout wins count the same as regulation wins count the same as OT wins. SO Loss? SOL. You lost.
This clearly will create quite a few tiebreaking situations so, *gasp*, lets crib most of this from the NBA:

a. The 3 division winners get seeds 1,2, and 3, ranked by wins.
b. After that, seeds 5-8 are based on # of wins.
c. 1st tiebreaker: Head-to-head record
d. 2nd tiebreaker: if in same division, division record; otherwise:
e. 3rd tiebreaker: conference record

Clear? Good. Now, those objections:

The standings will be out of whack.

Nope. Good teams win games, shitty teams lose them, and it shouldn't really matter if they win or lose in the shootout.

Let's look at the evidence. The shootout has been in existence for 6 full seasons now. I compared each teams' ranking using the points system vs. the win/loss system, and measured how much each team moved up or down with this new system. What happened?

The average team ranking changed by 0.78. On average, teams moved up or down their conference ranking by less than one degree. 5 seeds became 4 seeds. 12 seeds became 13 seeds. In other words, not that much changed. Good teams win, bad teams lose.

Deserving teams will miss the playoffs.

I guess that depends on how you define "deserving", but that argument doesn't hold up either. Ready for it?

Using the win/loss system, over the last 6 seasons there would be a total difference of 5 playoff teams. That is, of the 96 playoff teams since 05/06, 91 of them still would have qualified for the playoffs, and this situation hasn't arisen since the 07/08 season.

Furthermore, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that those ousted 5 teams were deserving of a playoff spot. Let's take a look at the most recent example, the 07/08 Boston Bruins vs. Carolina Hurricanes.

Carolina finished the season 43-33-6, good for 92 points and just 2 points off their division winner, Washington. Boston posted a 41-29-12 record, good for 94 points. If you'll recall, the East was logjammin' that year, with 5 teams between 92 and 95 points, and 6 teams between 41 and 43 wins. A crowded field for sure, with one team destined to be on outside of the playoff picture.

Which team just made it to the dance? The Boston Bruins, with their staggering 12 overtime losses. Carolina was squeezed out, despite having won 2 more games, and having won the exact same number of games as the #2 seed, Washington! You're telling me this is a fair system? Where Washington and Carolina skate off the ice with jubilation the same number of times, but one gets a 2 seed and the other hits the golf course early?

The points system does NOT reward deserving teams - it rewards teams for losing in overtime, and punishes teams for winning at all costs.

Shootouts Suck.

Screw you, you joyless punk. That should be all I need here, but let's continue anyways.

Shooutouts might be reviled by players, coaches, and purists, but they're the adored by the NHL's most important constituents - the fans, and particularly casual fans. Look, shootouts are captivating, thrilling, heartbreaking, and they pass The Sports Guy's remote control test (see #7 and ignore that ball kicking crap) - you will never change the channel when a shootout is on, and neither will anyone else.

This is no shocker, but the NHL is terrible at one of it's primary functions - marketing professional men's ice hockey to fans. Why is the NHL relegated to fucking Versus? Why do I need 4 columns to track the standings? Why is every NBC Sunday game some permutation of Philly, Pittsburgh, New York, and Washington? Because the league office is stupid, that's why. Their one great idea over the years has been the shootout - so let's capitalize on that and make it really fucking count!

Let's make shootouts more exciting! Let's put more on the line! When I see Antti Niemi lining up against Corey Perry in the shootout, I'm freaking out, but I'm also thinking "we've already bagged a point" or "we've already given away a point". What I should be thinking is "holy $@#! we need to stop Perry right now or we walk away from this game with nothing." When Patrick Marleau has a chance to end the game on the 3rd and final round of the shootout, I should be thinking "He's gonna make this shot and we're going to take home another win!"

A simple call for reason.

All I want is some reason and simplicity. If we can make the NHL more accessible to fans and more exciting for all, why wouldn't we? Because regulation wins are somehow better than shootout wins? Bunk. Let's make standings that make sense. Just do wins.

Fap fap fap

2011-04-12T16:22:00.000-07:00

ESPN's header image... rightnow!

Can't figure out which is more improbable:

Joe Thornton, Torrey Mitchell, AND Brian Wilson make it to the front page of ESPN.com?
2 of 3 experts picking SJ in the finals? or
ESPN covering hockey in any way, shape, or form

Magic Numbers 2011

2011-03-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

I awaken from my deep slumber to bring back a regular Chum Bucket feature - Magic Numbers! See the sidebar on the right for the number of points San Jose needs to clinch a playoff spot and the Pacific Division.

*Hopefully* those numbers will start shooting downward as the season winds to a close and we go head-to-head with the Pacific the rest of the way (starting with LA tonight would be preferable).

So Fucking Stupid

2011-01-13T11:32:00.000-08:00

"Aquatic Danger Sense"? UGH.

hurhurhurhurhur

2010-12-17T09:24:00.001-08:00

Cock'n'balls.

Game Over

2010-06-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

I'll miss ya dude. Ridiculously consistent but only occasionally spectacular. Somehow managed to be underrated but overpaid. Good luck wherever you land.

As long as it's not LA.

2010-2011 Schedule Released

2010-06-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

So I'm over 2009-2010. Fuck it.

On to 2010-2011, you may have seen the schedule was released today. Snap impressions:

San Jose starts the season on Friday October 8th in Stockholm, Sweden vs. the hated Columbus Blue Jackets. Make sure to set your alarm clocks... those of you that set your alarm clocks 4 months in advance.
The legit home opener takes place on Saturday October 16th vs. Atlanta. Atlanta will be playing their 5th game of the season and already out on the road, while San Jose will be knocking off a week of rust and 6000 miles of jet lag! Who's excited to blow the home opener against the shittiest team in the Southeast?!
We play Detroit at home on 11/30 and 3/3, and Chicago at home on 11/24 and 12/11. Because I know you were going to check anyways.
Random out of conference games I'm excited for - Toronto on 1/11/11 (numerology FTW) and Washington on 2/17 (maybe, just maybe, I can finally see an Alexander the Great game in person)
San Jose goes on their annual February odyssey yet again, going to Anaheim, Boston, Washington, Columbus, New Jersey, Florida, Nashville, before finally going back to San Jose. 7600 air miles in 15 days. Fun!
The biggest schedule news: clearly the Pacific slugfest to close out the season. From March 24th to April 9th, San Jose plays Dallas once, LA and Anaheim twice, and Phoenix three times, without a single non-division game. EPIC. I'm excited.

There Might Not Be Any More Hockey...

2010-06-10T14:02:00.001-07:00

But you can still see The Karate Kid!....? What? Really Danny?

And fuck Chicago, right in the butt.

So What Do You Do

2010-05-23T21:32:00.001-07:00

When your best just isn't good enough?

Now It's Personal

2010-05-14T15:48:00.000-07:00

It apparently takes quite a bit to get me to come out of my self-imposed exile. For one, this season I've gotten both a PS3 and a girlfriend, both of which I enjoy spending a lot of time with, moreso than yelling at strangers on the internet.

Also, since I've shut the fuck up, the Sharks have done quite well. I'm not one to mess with good juju.

But then I read this ridiculous bullshit from some limpdicked fuck at a site I won't do the pleasure of linking to (via Pollak's always awesome WTC):

“San Jose? Is that really a city, or just a suburb of San Francisco? Let’s get ourselves out of California, where hockey is an afterthought. Best chance for everybody involved to avert that possible chance for the first hockey finals interrupted by an earthquake.”

Well then.

Yes, San Jose is a city, and a vastly more important one than Chicago now that you bring it up. We shouldn't have to keep reminding people that San Jose is the 10th largest city in the US, which means our fanbase is bigger than 20 other teams in the NHL. We've given the world Google, Craigslist, Ebay, Facebook, Pat Tilman, and Nikki Sixx; Chicago's greatest export is shitty baseball and too much fucking bread on my pizza.

Afterthought? Afterthought?!? You might not have noticed while sucking your own dicks for the last two years, but before Kane and Toews landed in your laps, no one in Chicago gave a shit about the Blackhawks.

Blackhawk rank leaguewide in home attendance (based on raw attendance):

2001 - 24th
2002 - 23rd
2003 - 24th
2004 - 27th
2006 - 29th
2007 - 29th
2008 - 19th
2009 - 1st
2010 - 1st

Do not, DO NOT, give me that "frontrunner", "afterthought" bullshit. Everyone in Chicago hated the Blackhawks before Old Man Wirtz died and your team sucked so badly you stumbled ass backwards into 2 franchise-changing players.

And earthquakes? Really? How fucking lazy are you? That's like saying we'd be doing everyone a favor by knocking out the Blackhawks because the whole city might catch on fire. That's just retarded and lazy.

I tell you what, we'll knock out the Blackhawks so you all can go back to figuring out the best way to fellate LeBron James. "Da Bulls", amiright?

Sharks in 7. Fuckers.

Fuck You Flukes

2010-04-20T22:37:00.000-07:00

Dan Boyle and Joe Pavelski will not let you decide the fate of the Sharks. Dan Boyle and Joe Pavelski will not be denied.

Go Sharks.

Fantastic Voyage II

2010-04-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

It's time again for a favorite yearly tradition - the incredibly wasteful journey of my Sharks playoff tickets!

The tickets start in an undisclosed location, then travel through the many armpits of America, before eventually landing at my front door, ready for anyone to come by and steal. It's like the Amazing Race, but without me winning anything at the end.

At least it was close to a straight line this year:

Sunnyvale, CA, by way of
San Pablo, CA, by way of
West Sacramento, CA, by way of
Mather, CA, by way of
Louisville, KY, by way of
Indianapolis, IN

View Larger Map

Somewhere, Dan Ellis's Ankles Are Being Put Back Together

2010-03-12T16:00:00.000-08:00

My God...

So I'm officially confused.

What the hell was that last night? How am I supposed to feel about that game?

I mean, any time your team comes from behind like crazy at the end, it's undeniably exciting. The Sharks played out of their minds in the 3rd period, got some extremely lucky bounces, and ended up dominating the inferior Predators in the end. Also, props to Todd McLellan for sticking with Nabby after 2 periods. If you're getting outshot 34-11, you should probably expect the score to be about 4-2.

But yeah, about those first 2 periods...

Despite banging in 8 goals (2 on the PP), 4 Sharks ended up with -1 on the night (Clowe, Leach, Marleau, and McGinn). The statue of Rob Blake had +1 but I have to believe he was just too slow getting off the ice when the goal was scored.

San Jose's top performers? No surprise if you watched the game - Malhotra, Nichol, and Pavelski, at +3 each. Everyone else was a defensive nightmare. Fans were giving the refs shit for (among MANY things) getting in Clowe's way as Nashville scored their 5th goal, but that doesn't excuse Clowe's goddawful turnover exiting his own zone. And you're not going to believe this, but despite Thornton's constant presence, he got way too cute with the puck way too often. Joe's major contribution to the game? A buttfuck ugly rebound goal! You can shoot Joe! Sometimes they go in!!!

So goddamn frustrating! I can't forgive those first 4o minutes of agony just because of the last 20 minutes of ecstasy.

The Sharks are like your divorced dad who lives 2 states away. Most of they time he only bothers to call you on the holidays and send you five bucks for your birthday. But sometimes he shows up to take you fishing and lets you flip through his Playboy. Thanks Dad! I didn't really want to go to Disneyland last year anyways!

I'm just a little to worried "Dad" is going to forget to show up for the playoffs and decide to spend April golfing with his buddies or hanging out with his new girlfriend. She smells like candy and vodka and is always pinching my butt! I hate her! She's not as pretty as Mom! MOOOOM!!!

Fuck Yeah!

2010-02-22T13:51:00.001-08:00

You Got KTFO'd!

2010-02-10T13:02:00.001-08:00

Nice one Shelley:

3 Words

2010-01-19T09:36:00.001-08:00

I Fucking Hate Andy McDonald

2010-01-07T15:45:00.001-08:00

I know I haven't posted much lately, and I know the Sharks won anyways, but fuck! I fucking hate Andy McDonald! That little fucker ended up with -1 on the night despite dry humping Nabokov before scoring on him.

And while I'm ranting.... HAND ON THE PUCK IN THE CREASE!!! HAND ON THE PUCK IN THE CREASE!!! How many times can we get jobbed by shitty reffing on plays in front of the goal mouth?

In conclusion, the St. Louis Blues are a bunch of dirty fucking cheaters and Andy Murray can go jam his head up his ass.

Oh they've got some new guy? Davis Payne? It looks like Numa Numa went on the Subway diet:

Save-d!

2009-12-24T23:21:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Even the Pontiff is getting in the hockey spirit this holiday season. Here's hoping his holiness pulled that red sweater over her noggin and gave her a season's beatings.

Intent To Blow

2009-12-10T12:54:00.000-08:00

Just like Jamie, I laughed. Then I cried. Hey refs, I've got something you can intend to blow.

Decapatation

2009-12-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

TONS of good stuff on WTC today, including the requisite Heatley-Ottawa stuff, Patty's 900th(!) game as a Shark, and this ridiculousness. Sucks for Vokoun:

As for tonight's game, make sure to give Cheech and Milan a big round of applause, and let's make sure to show the Sens why we were glad to get Dany.

Ha, speaking of post-goal FAIL:

Wacky Ass Game

2009-11-21T12:48:00.000-08:00

Was it me or was that game just all over the map?

Manny Malhotra scores both for, and against, the Sharks
Pickles gets in his first fight in 265 NHL games, with Danny Briere, his second fight in 606 NHL games.
Dany Heatley gets his second hat trick of the season (both at home), when the San Jose didn't record a single one during their record-setting 08-09 season. And he wasn't even the 1st star?!?!
That honor would go to Joe Thornton and his 4 assists, who made all of us look a little bit foolish for yelling "SHOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!"

San Jose leads the NHL standings by 4 points. Duck the Fucks.

Stupid Anaheim Ducks Fans Fight Literally Over A Stick

2009-11-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

There's no way to improve on that title:

Nice find by my buddy The Mayor.

Other Blog Round-Up

2009-11-09T12:03:00.000-08:00

Nice find by FTF - the top 10 saves made by skaters. Make sure to watch all the way to the end.

While we're at it:

The Sharks Hockey Analysis guys moved their main blog over to Dudes on Hockey. Check 'em out. They actually know what they're talking about and understand the cap.
Couch Tarts have been over at Bloguin for a little bit now. Check 'em out. They draw cool pictures and point out funny nicknames.