By the time I was born, Wayne Gretzky had played his last game with the Edmonton Oilers. I never got to see them, and all through my childhood I had difficulty placing Gretzky in an Oilers uniform. I saw pictures and hockey cards, and the occasional TV clip, but it always looked weird to me to see Gretzky in something other than a Los Angeles Kings’ sweater.
The Oilers of the 80s are discussed a lot, and they have an impressive collection of stars and Hall of Famers and records and Stanley Cups. That said, it is difficult to imagine just how dominant they were. The first year they won the Cup, they had 446 goals, 86 more than the second place team. That’s more than a goal a game, which is wild, but in the end, just by visualizing, it would have taken a few weeks dedicated viewing for somebody who wasn’t counting the score to gather that Edmonton was putting goals at a much faster rate than Quebec, the New York Islanders or Minnesota.
That’s why things get recorded. Numbers and the detailed notes taken by stat geeks counting scoring chances or zone entries, or the guys in the NHL booth tracking the data that becomes the skeleton for our Corsi and Fenwick models. There’s that, but there’s also goals and assists and points to record for individuals, and goals for each team. For a sport like mixed martial arts, scores are awarded based on subjectivity. There’s no running point total on the board, just three trained guys sitting near the ring each with an interpretation of what leads the victory.
