Sunday, January 11, 2009

Vote for Hobey

The online fan vote for the Hobey Baker Award began last week without a lot of fanfare. The past few years, the fan vote has been plagued by automated voting giving certain players a bazillion votes. This year, the Hobey committee offers this stern warning:
"Automated or programmed voting is not allowed. In the spirit of Hobey Baker himself, all voting should be conducted in an honest and ethical manner. If further automated voting is evidenced, then the fan vote will not be included in this year’s selection process. We thank all college hockey fans for participating in this year’s Vote For Hobey."
OK, first off...in the spirit of Hobey Baker himself? Back before the delightful Fire Joe Morgan gave up blogging to focus on a new TV show starring Amy Poehler (*shudder*), they had an interesting observation on the evolution of video technology in baseball:
"If you could go back in time and take Nap Lajoie into a room after Rube Waddell K'd him on three pitches and show him a glowing box with a video replay of the at bat, he would call you a demon, slit your throat, tear out his eyes, and generally freak the f--- out."
I feel pretty much the same way re: Hobey Baker and computer voting fraud.

Second, is there an emptier threat than saying you're going to cut the fan vote out of the award? The fan vote counts for 1% of the final vote total, making it essentially meaningless already. Has the fan vote ever made a difference in the voting? It seems that most years, the recipient of the fan vote doesn't even make the top ten. Would anything really change if they stopped bothering with the fan vote?

Of course one thing that amuses me in all this is that they supposedly picked the 50 top players in college hockey this year. The most notable omission from that list of 50 is the guy that was allegedly the best player in college hockey two years ago. Either college hockey has come a long way over the past two years, or the committee's mistake in 2007 is becoming more apparent. Maybe they would be better off giving the fans more power.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Duncan wasn't on the initial list of 50 players two years ago either.

Anonymous said...

your lucky you are somewhat annonymous. The committee's "mistake" in 2007 is the leading active scorer in the NCAA and ripping on him is just going to make you sound even more petty than you already are. Get over it.

Anonymous said...

How come Jordan Pearce is the only player representing Notre Dame, who has been #1 for weeks now? Hanson and Ridderwall are respectively first and third in scoring in the CCHA, not to mention Hanson is tied for 3rd in the NCAA in goals scored, yet Western Michigan gets 3 skaters on the list?

Anonymous said...

haven't seen much posted let alone a summary about the drubbing your lowly gophers got at the hands of the fighting sioux. sure would've loved to read the lengthy recap if you could have managed to get home without your tail between your legs...

Anonymous said...

Who's Duncan???

Anonymous said...

Anon 4:17--You must be new here. Chris isn't a Gopher fan. Go to www.siouxsports.com You can find the circle jerk that you're looking for there.

Anonymous said...

Center for the Spurs

Anonymous said...

Only a Siouxage fan is dumb enough to believe the person that writes this blog is a Gopher fan. His teams are Michigan and MSU-Mankato. Hobey Garden-Gnome wasn't even the fourth best player on the Siouxage team the year the committee chose him.

Although he was the best forward, who wasn't either drunk on Facebook or peeing in elevators.

BrettB in STL said...

C'mon the fan vote means the most!! I mean that 1% really sways the voters...

Coming from a Sioux fan, I don't think Dunc's was the best player in College Hockey that year. He was the 3rd best, the top two were his linemates(And every media/coach/scout will tell you the same). I'm glad that those two didn't get the Hobey Hex, as lately it doesn't benefit the professional player to win the Hobey or Heisman.. Just look at where the past winners are in their professional careers. (If they're still playing)

Anonymous said...

Good thing Panzer didn't win the Hobey, (every media/coach/scout/Sioux fan will tell you he was robbed). He never even played a game in the NHL.

Maybe he wasn't that good after all.

Hey Brett: If as you say, "every media/coach/scout" said that Duncan was the third best player on the Sioux that year why weren't the two better players in the Top Ten Hobey Baker finalists that year? And why did Ochie play three years at UND if he was so clearly superior?

Anonymous said...

Vote 4 Stoa or Kangas!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

dumb a** panzer is too f***ing short to play in the nhl let's see someone 5-7 in the nhl today or even five years ago 6 years on the same team in the ahl tells you something. Gerbe's the same size weighs more and he STILL can't make it. Duncan is short as well but he's a better player and not a poon like Gerbe. By the way Michigan people are worse than dirty gophers!