Lee, damned lies and statistics ... nice try at hosing Tavares, you hosers

You know what they say, great at history, bad at math.

There is no reason to doubt Ottawa historian Jim McAuley's claim that former 67's star Peter Lee is still the Ontario Hockey League's all-time leading goal scorer, ahead of John Tavares. McAuley did his due diligence, having "poured" — or pored, as it were — "through game summaries of every game Lee played for the Ottawa 67's in the two disputed seasons (1972-73 and 1973-74), and determined that Lee actually scored 216 goals." (Ottawa Citizen, March 10.) The OHL did its own review and says Lee scored 213, meaning Tavares, now up to 215 with two games left in his season with the London Knights, is the record holder.

However, there is a difference between giving the facts and being truthful. It's fine to take what McAuley's evidence at face value (he's a historian, they don't have the imagination to make stuff up). Giving it without context is the equivalent of publishing the results of an opinion poll without adding that it's plus or minus 3.2 points, accurate 19 times out of 20 and all that jazz. It's irritating, especially when some crude cross-multiplication reveals Tavares might have scored in the neighbourhood of 300 goals in the OHL if he had played junior in Lee's day.

It's a mild irritant when the media give facts but not the truth. There is a difference, especially when you compare across eras in sports.

Let's set aside all the advances made in hockey in between Lee's final season with Ottawa in 1976 and today (short list: The use of video analysis in preparing for opponents, better coaching and equipment for goaltenders, more attention paid to defensive play, more physical play, bigger and faster players). Most of the changes in hockey, starting from the mid-1980s until after the 2004-05 NHL lockout, worked against players putting up gaudy goal totals.

The big matzo ball hanging out there with McAuley's research is that presumes that a goal in 2009 was easily achieved as it was in 1976, or that conversely, goals were equally hard to come by 30-plus years ago as they are in the modern game. Most of you who follow hockey could establish that simply isn't the case without benefit of a quick check over at hockeydb.com.

Here's a quick table of each player's season-by-season totals (games played, goals, total goals per game in all of his team's games and per-game average for the whole league; shootout goals weren't counted, but there wasn't time to factor out 4-on-4 overtime, so the averages for Tavares' area are actually higher than they should be, not lower). Just to be sporting, Lee gets credit for the two missing goals from 1972-73 that McAuley unearthed and the one tally from '73-74 (he scored one in '71-72, when he played a handful of games as a 15-year-old).

LEE:
’72-73: 63 27 10.06 9.74
’73-74: 69 39 8.13 8.34
’74-75: 70 68 10.87 9.18
’75-76: 66 81 9.42 9.43

TAVARES
’05-06: 65 45 8.19 6.94
’06-07: 67 72 8.97 7.34
’07-08: 59 40 7.97 6.80
’08-09: 32 26 7.14 6.70 (with Oshawa)
’08-09: 23 32 7.08 -- (with London)

Tavares' feats came in a era of much tighter-checking defence. Those per-game totals from the past four seasons are probably a bit on the high side, since you would have to factor out goals scored in 4-on-4 overtime, which didn't exist when Lee played for the 67's (I subtracted shootout goals from team totals). Tavares has put up numbers in a lower-scoring era.

For anyone wondering, the 67's were not the highest-scoring team in the OHL. In '75-76, they scored 331 goals, fourth-most in a 12-team league. The previous season, '74-75, under a rookie coach named Brian Kilrea, they scored 379, second in the league, but allowed a league-worst 382.

This doesn't mean 67's owner Jeff Hunt was wrong to ask McAuley to look into Lee's totals. Hunt was trying to do right by all concerned when he noticed a discrepancy between his franchise's records and the official league book.

Facts are facts, but they're trumped by the truth that Tavares' 215 goals in the 2000s are harder-earned than Lee's 215, 213 or 216 more than three decades ago. There were a lot more goals in the typical major junior game of Lee's era than in Tavares'.

Just for kicks, here's how each player would have done in the other guy's era, taking his goals per game and plugging into the league average.

TAVARES
’72-73: 65 63 10.06 9.74
’73-74: 67 81 8.13 8.34
’74-75: 59 54 10.87 9.18
’75-76: 55 81 9.42 9.43

LEE
’05-06: 63 19 8.19 6.94
’06-07 69 34 8.97 7.34
’07-08 70 50 7.97 6.80
’08-09 66 58 n/a 6.70

Tavares' total comes out to 279 goals. (Please bear in mind that this is purely hypothetical and just for fun.)

As an add-on, keep in mind that top-end junior phenoms such as him always take a hit on their stats since they usually miss about nine or 10 games while they're off defending Canada's honour at the world junior hockey championship. That scenario didn't exist for Lee. Tavares could have scored another eight goals in his third season, when he missed nine games, and popped in another 16 during the 11 he's sat out this season.

That brings Tavares up to 303. How many he would have had is inconclusive, but his goals-per-game totals, put into context, surpass Lee's by a fair margin.

This is not about who was the better hockey player as a teen, since it's fairly obvious who comes out the winner in that argument (January-born Lee would have been 16 years, eight months old when he began his first full season in '72-73, while Tavares' debut in the league came on the eve of his 15th birthday).

Granted, there's a lot of assumptions being made (hence the use of "crude cross-multiplication" and "in the neighbourhood" up top). It's also doubtful Brian Kilrea would have been putting Tavares out on the power play with one minute left in a 7-2 game, but that was another post.

Regardless, doing some crude number-crunching beats "pouring" over microfiche any day of the week. In sports, it's absolutely essential to put a player's stats into a historical context before you present your case. No disrespect, but that should not be lost on someone who's a historian.

Related:
Tavares record in question? (Patrick King, sportsnet.ca)
Lee unsure if Tavares broke goal-scoring record (Joe O'Connor, National Post)
Ottawa historian challenges Tavares' goal-scoring record (Wayne Scanlan, Ottawa Citizen)

My name is Duane and I'm a...

As I sit here typing this I am debating whether I should pour myself a rum and coke. It's 9:39 a.m. Since I live in Toronto you would be forgiven for thinking that the city's sports teams have driven me to this.

"I remember back in '92," he slurred. "ROBBIE! JOE! DOUGIE! now they were players. Player's players, you know. They played with heart, with pride. They were ours, ours I tells ya. And we were kings!"

But, no. I'm not compelled to drink out of some dark place that sees Matt Stajans where there once were Dave Andreychuks and where Devon Whites have been replaced by Marco Scutaros. I'm not itching to get drunk and forget, but rather to get my drink on and celebrate. You see today is the final home game--unless they pull the miracle and qualify for the playoffs--of Toronto FC for 2008. And that's a great reason to drink rum at 9:39 a.m.

Many sports fans make the mistake of thinking that you watch sports to see your team win. That's nice, but it isn't why the true sports fan spends exorbitant amounts of time and money obsessing over whether Jose Calderon can handle an increased workload, or if Danny Brannagan will be able to step it up deep in the playoffs. No, it's something a little bigger than the scoreboard.

To understand you have to put aside your preconceptions and your understanding of what's really important. You have to look deep within the soul of the the mostly men, but increasingly more women, that do care. And care so very much.

If you do that you will see that sports--and it doesn't matter what team you are talking about, or what city you are in--is far more than the sum of its parts. In the true fan it has embedded itself within the narrative of their life. It has connected them to people, and, although they understand that there are many things in life that are important--their kids, their family, their health--that makes the games they watch important.

The day my paternal grandfather died, my maternal grandfather took me to a hockey game. He didn't need to say why. Many years later, the last conversation I had with him was about the Detroit Red Wings. Somehow, when I got the phone call, that comforted me.

I once drove from Waterloo to Windsor, with the man who would one day hand me my wife's wedding ring, to watch my Golden Hawks beat the Lancers by nearly 60 points. That day, I had to hold his 1979 Dodge Diplomat's rear view mirror up every time we had to pass. Years later we both stood freezing and delirious as we watched Brian Devlin kick a 32-yard, Vanier Cup winning field goal in Hamilton. It wouldn't have been the same if he wasn't beside me, or if we hadn't made that drive to Windsor years before.

Which brings me back to today. I'm hankering for that rum and coke not because it would make it easier to watch a Marco Velez-led backline, but rather because I'm impatient. I want to start a celebration of friendship and solidarity, united by, but not entirely defined by, a soccer team. From Sunday to Friday we are cynics--we see the faults in out teams and in ourselves. But on Saturday that's all forgotten. Saturdays aren't about what's wrong with the world. Saturdays are only about the 90 minutes and the people we spend them with.

The sport changes, as do the faces, but the lesson is the same everywhere, for everyone. Sports matters. It matters because we make it matter and because we matter.

So, enjoy the game, whatever it might be. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go pour myself a rum and coke.