Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Empirical Hockey (Updated)

The Sabres were robbed last night. With 13.4 seconds left, they put in the tying goal against NY, only to have it disallowed. I will give the NHL credit, they review every close play at the net and often take a significant amount of time doing it. They try their best to get it right and I havn't heard a single peep about how technology is ruining the game, a la football. Now on this goal, the NHL get sit wrong, but they get it wrong because the NHL doesn't believe in science.

The video below is the best footage I could find of the goal.

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Here's the thing. In the NHL, there has to be conclusive video evidence that the entire puck has crossed the line. As almost everyone commenting on the game admitted, given the angle of the camera and the momentum of the puck as the keeper's pad goes over it, it is easy to conclude that the puck went over the line. BUT, you cannot "conclude" that the puck went over the line. There has to be a picture of it going over the line, or you "can't know for sure."

So, the NHL, apparently, lives in a purely empirical world where observation is everything and deduction is nothing. Apparently, we "can't know for sure" because geometry is still pretty suspect and logic stops at the blue line.

UPDATE: Yes, yes, feel free to comment on the hair of the commentator, Ginger can't get enough of it.

1 comment:

mike3550 said...

Since this is the same league that put the micro-chip in the puck to put the stupid-ass trail anytime the puck went over 60mph, I think that they could put a chip in that can tell whether the puck crosses the line.

The light could automatically go on when it does. Also, that means that the referee could focus more on what is going on in front of the net and open the game up more.