underdogs or favorites?

[crawjo]

At this point I honestly have no idea what the point is to the regular season in hockey.

[Enforcer]

Well, this was also half a regular season. And like I said on this thread before the playoffs started, the high seeds were more vulnerable than usual because the seedings were less reliable. The short schedule inflated the gaps between teams. Over the course of a full 82 games, some of the top teams would have faced a bad stretch, maybe some injuries, adversity, and dropped in the standings. And some of the teams with mediocre first halves would have gelled and made a push at the end to climb higher.

[crawjo]

I don't know...it feels like this sort of thing happens pretty much every year, short season or no.

[jon abbey]

At this point I honestly have no idea what the point is to the regular season in hockey.

didn't you have the exact opposite complaint about the NBA a few weeks ago?

[crawjo]

At this point I honestly have no idea what the point is to the regular season in hockey.

didn't you have the exact opposite complaint about the NBA a few weeks ago?

Yup. One is too random and the other is too predictable.

[jon abbey]

heh, we have 2 vs. 5 and 1 vs. 3 in the NBA final four, and Miami just lost a home game.

[Enforcer]

I don't know...it feels like this sort of thing happens pretty much every year, short season or no.

Regular season teams not faring well in the playoffs does happen pretty much every year. But I don't think it's as random as you do. Perhaps more than any other sport, the NHLgame changes in the playoffs. So much so that it's not that hard to tell which teams are built for regular season success but not the playoffs, and vice versa.

For me, that's a positive. I enjoy that aspect of watching teams build a roster that will be underwhelming through 82 but pose all kinds of problems in the playoffs.

[crawjo]

heh, we have 2 vs. 5 and 1 vs. 3 in the NBA final four, and Miami just lost a home game.

Right, but Oklahoma City lost Westbrook to injury. Going into the playoffs, as a very casual fan, I thought it a virtual lock that one of Miami, Oklahoma City or San Antonio would win the title. Westbrook's injury put OKC out of the running. That leaves Miami and San Antonio which by the way would probably be the most depressing final in NBA history. I'll believe the Pacers take four games from the Heat when I see it.

There's also a history here. Growing up, you knew the Bulls were going to win every season. You knew Jordan was never going to lose in the Finals. Since Jordan's retirement it has become a little bit more compelling and competitive, but most years you can confidently limit the number of playoff teams who actually have a real chance at winning a title to three or four. I'll eat my words if Indiana or Memphis win the title this year.

[crawjo]

I don't know...it feels like this sort of thing happens pretty much every year, short season or no.

Regular season teams not faring well in the playoffs does happen pretty much every year. But I don't think it's as random as you do. Perhaps more than any other sport, the NHLgame changes in the playoffs. So much so that it's not that hard to tell which teams are built for regular season success but not the playoffs, and vice versa.

For me, that's a positive. I enjoy that aspect of watching teams build a roster that will be underwhelming through 82 but pose all kinds of problems in the playoffs.

Right, the game does change dramatically. I think that's a problem. When you have such a weak relationship between regular season and postseason, it renders pretty much everything outside of making the playoffs irrelevant. Who cares how many games you win or lose as long as you get into the postseason? And why, then, should I bother paying money to watch the regular season, if the only thing that matters is being the eighth best out of 15 teams? Maybe the NHL model would work better for me if they didn't put so many teams into the playoffs. Make it four teams in each conference. Then the regular season would be a real dogfight.

But this model sucks for me. I don't think I'm going to bother buying the NHL Center Ice package next season, if all the really important hockey starts in April.

[Enforcer]

Right, the game does change dramatically. I think that's a problem. When you have such a weak relationship between regular season and postseason, it renders pretty much everything outside of making the playoffs irrelevant. Who cares how many games you win or lose as long as you get into the postseason? And why, then, should I bother paying money to watch the regular season, if the only thing that matters is being the eighth best out of 15 teams? Maybe the NHL model would work better for me if they didn't put so many teams into the playoffs. Make it four teams in each conference. Then the regular season would be a real dogfight.

But this model sucks for me. I don't think I'm going to bother buying the NHL Center Ice package next season, if all the really important hockey starts in April.

Well, I watch the games because I enjoy them. If you like the sport, why wouldn't you watch the games? Do you not watch regular season baseball games because each one only represents 1/162nd of the season?

Last season, an 8 seed won the Stanley Cup. But that's exceedingly rare. Most Stanley Cup winning teams are high seeds. In fact, if you look back over the past 20 or 30 years, it's usually a 1 or 2 seed.

[jon abbey]

That leaves Miami and San Antonio which by the way would probably be the most depressing final in NBA history.

not sure what you mean by 'depressing', but the Detroit/San Antonio one in 2005 (sorry Enforcer) would be hard to top for unwatchability quotient.

[crawjo]

That leaves Miami and San Antonio which by the way would probably be the most depressing final in NBA history.

not sure what you mean by 'depressing', but the Detroit/San Antonio one in 2005 (sorry Enforcer) would be hard to top for unwatchability quotient.

It's depressing because Miami with LeBron are the most imposing, so you would naturally want to root for a talented upstart team to beat them. OKC filled that role last year. But the Spurs can't fill that role, because they destroy all that is good and decent in the universe. I only occasionally watch the NBA and yet feel like I've been watching Tim Duncan and Tony Parker for the last 26 years. They might be the only team in the NBA that I would want to see Miami beat. Well, probably them and the Lakers.

[jon abbey]

It's depressing because Miami with LeBron are the most imposing, so you would naturally want to root for a talented upstart team to beat them.

no, you would. I like seeing historic greatness triumph, I always rooted for Jordan and Shaq in his prime and LeBron except when they were playing my team. depressing would be Indiana/San Antonio, although actually I kind of like Indiana.

[walto]

crawjo wrote:It's depressing because Miami with LeBron are the most imposing, so you would naturally want to root for a talented upstart team to beat them.

no, you would. I like seeing historic greatness triumph, I always rooted for Jordan and Shaq in his prime and LeBron except when they were playing my team. depressing would be Indiana/San Antonio, although actually I kind of like Indiana.

I'm with crawjo on this (though not on his hatred of the Spurs--I really enjoy watching that team). And I find it interesting how far apart people are on the subject of rooting for underdogs or favorites.

I mean, as soon as a horse wins the Kentucky Derby, I start rooting against it in the Preakness. And I never want any sports records to be broken. I'm not defending this stance, I don't actually even understand it completely. But, unlike Jon, I like HAVING SEEN historical greatness and don't want so much to see it again. So maybe it's that I don't want to have to share the "having seen" status with a new generation? Now that I think about it, I used to like to keep musicians and bands and records that I liked to myself too. So maybe it's just selfishness? And (as everyone knows) I have this kind of mean-spirited anti-homerism thing going. Partly, it's that I want the seats to be cheaper and for there to be no parades. But it's also that I want, e.g. the Sox to get close and then fail miserably. So there IS a certain level of nastiness there.

[jon abbey]

unfortunately national TV money in most sports has meant that there is little correlation between whether a team wins or loses and how their seats are priced in the future. every baseball game I see this year seems to have tens of thousands of empty seats (although they are claiming that the Yankees/Mets games this week will be sold out), very curious how it affects overall attendance for the year in the end, and if anyone cares enough to actually lower prices for once. I haven't paid for sporting tickets for maybe ten years, I am quite happy to stay home and watch on TV, or to go occasionally as a gift from someone else or on comp tickets (thank you crawjo!).

[crawjo]

unfortunately national TV money in most sports has meant that there is little correlation between whether a team wins or loses and how their seats are priced in the future. every baseball game I see this year seems to have tens of thousands of empty seats (although they are claiming that the Yankees/Mets games this week will be sold out), very curious how it affects overall attendance for the year in the end, and if anyone cares enough to actually lower prices for once. I haven't paid for sporting tickets for maybe ten years, I am quite happy to stay home and watch on TV, or to go occasionally as a gift from someone else or on comp tickets (thank you crawjo!).

I think it's time for MLB to send me some more free tickets. I've done a ton of work for them this year and have never been to either of the new stadiums in NY. Hopefully they will send them my way...it's probably not a good idea to just ask, but maybe it is.

[Enforcer]

In general, I root for underdogs. It's about the teams and their players and I loved Rocky. It's in my nature to cheer on David when he faces Goliath. But it's also a lot about media. The teams I really loathe are the media darlings. The Yankees, the Lakers, the Heat, the Cowboys. Sid Crosby and the Penguins.

But I'm not categorically opposed to cheering for favorites.

I mean, I cheer for Tiger Woods, and I can't even really explain why. And he's as much of a media-hyped favorite as anyone in any sport. When Gary Kasparov was dominating chess, I rooted for him.

I'm so complex.

[crawjo]

I think a lot of this might have to do with where you grow up. If you grow up in New York you will naturally find yourself rooting a lot for teams that are favored, although you can also find plenty of underdog teams in NY history. But if you grow up a Yankees fan, the psychology is so different. I can't even fathom what it would be like to root for a team that had won 27 world championships or been in the playoffs in 16 of the last 17 seasons. That's just so foreign to my experience that it feels like a completely different planet.

Growing up in Maryland, you naturally root for the Baltimore and Washington sports teams. In my childhood, that meant the Orioles, the Redskins, the Capitals and the Bullets. In the 1980s and 1990s, the only one of those four teams to have much success was the Redskins in the Joe Gibbs era. But even they were hardly ever an unstoppable behemoth that churned out championships year after year. Anyway, as a baseball fan above all else I had to endure a lot of games where my favorite team's home park was overrun with Yankees fans, and later, Red Sox fans. There's really no way you could grow up as an Orioles fan and not hate the Yankees. It's just not possible.

What I've never had any patience for are the bandwagon fans. A kid growing up in Annapolis should not be rooting for the Yankees, or the Cowboys, or the Lakers, etc. There's a special place in hell for those kind of people. Ask anyone in Baltimore about Mark Teixeira. It's not just that he grew up in Severna Park but signed with the Yankees, it was that he grew up in Severna Park and rooted for Don Mattingly and the Yankees. I knew a lot of kids like that, and I never had any respect for them.

Anyway, all this is to say that when Jon says that he likes to see excellence triumph, that is just such a strange notion to me. I never rooted for Michael Jordan. Of course I knew he was the best, but it was more fun to see an inferior team try to take him down than to watch his many inevitable triumphs.

[jon abbey]

well, first of all NY fans do have the Yankees (unless they were Mets fans or Dodgers/Giants fans going back a long way), but the Knicks and Jets haven't won titles since Nixon was President. the Giants have also been successful, the Islanders were amazing growing up (easily the most I've ever gotten into hockey), but NY also has two teams in most sports, so that helps.

bandwagon fans: honestly I don't care at all about this. watching/rooting for sports is supposed to be a source of pleasure, take from it whatever you want. it's probably true that Red Sox fans enjoyed 2004 more than almost any fans have enjoyed any title ever, but they had to sit through a whole lot of misery before then, depending on how old they were. David, even fans who only root for the Orioles (or whatever team) obviously have a massive range of how much they pay attention and how much they actually understand. where do you draw the line? I guess for me there is so much that sucks in life (for most people) that I don't think rooting for sports needs to be a source of that if that's not what someone wants. actually one funny thing I do with most/all teams I root for is turning off games I know will be ugly, or skipping ahead to make sure. if this means I miss the opposition outscoring NY by 50 or 100 runs each season, I have a less realistic view of the team but I'm happier. does this make me a 'worse' fan than someone who watches all 9 innings 162 times? probably, but I don't care.

underdog/favorite: I've never given a huge amount of thought to why I'm like this, but I think I'm pretty uniform across all sports (except tennis, oddly).

one thing is that upsets in non-Finals almost invariably lead to a crappier level of play in subsequent rounds. but honestly I don't even care about whether games are close, I want to see athletes transcending the sport and themselves, I want to see UNLV dominating, I want to see Jordan win title after title, I want to see the 98 Yankees roll through the sport and follow it up with 2 and almost 3 more titles in a row, I want to see guys who the entire league is gunning for night after night somehow manage to triumph repeatedly. I think some of it comes from my own sports background as a fencer. in high school, I was All-State a couple of times, but besides me and one other guy, everyone else on our team was awful and we lost constantly. in college, I was lucky enough to be part of the other extreme, a team that was so dominant that our JV would have been a top 3 or top 5 team nationally, back to back NCAA titles and I think probably the best fencing team in NCAA history, based on performance and depth.

but I don't think it's just that, I'm the same way with music or film or whatever. give me the top handful of people doing anything, and you can keep the rest. even in my biggest jazz fan days (and I was pretty hardcore), I never cared one bit about Hank Mobley (just as an example, not trying to pick on Hank). the top handful are the ones who speak to me, and going back to sports, there are titles decided in every sport every season. the vast majority of those teams are fairly forgettable, I am interested in the ones that are memorable, and are memorable because of a combination of talent and utilizing that talent to triumph.

interestingly along these lines, the current Yankee team that is playing very well I don't find especially compelling, because of what I've just talked about above. Mariano Rivera? of course. Cano? same, of course. Pettitte? amazing, underrated dude. the rest of the team? not so much.

[jon abbey]

and actually winning it all isn't even essential in my book, or at least it's not the only measuring stick.

for instance, the 2001 Yankees (who lost to Arizona in game 7 of the WS in the bottom of the 9th) had a much more enjoyable overall postseason run to me than the '99 or 2000 teams that won it all. '96 was the first Yankee team to win in a while, and coming back from 0-2 in the WS was awesome. '98 was just sheer dominance from start to finish. 2001 had NY knock out the team with the best second half record EVER (the A's, sorry Darren, 58-17 after the ASB), the team with the best 162 game record ever (116-46!!), and then come a few outs away from somehow beating the team with the best two-man postseason pitching performance ever (Schilling/Johnson), who started five of the seven games and relieved in another. that was a more impressive run than a few of the title teams, admittedly that's an extreme.

the Patriots team that crushed everyone until the Giants beat them in the Super Bowl is another good example, although that one was a lot tougher for NE fans to enjoy since they weren't coming off three straight titles like the Yankees and they were so close to going undefeated for the year and making it so we never had to hear about Shula's Dolphin team again. also the UNLV team that lost in the Final Four on its way to trying to repeat, I'd take them over most title teams in terms of entertainment/enjoyment.