Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!jeff From: jeff@dciem.UUCP (Jeff Richardson) Newsgroups: net.sport.hockey Subject: Re: Rookie of the year (Who should be eligible?) Message-ID: <1407@dciem.UUCP> Date: Mon, 18-Feb-85 12:52:33 EST Article-I.D.: dciem.1407 Posted: Mon Feb 18 12:52:33 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 18-Feb-85 13:20:57 EST References: <3822@ucla-cs.ARPA> <1381@dciem.UUCP> <1389@dciem.UUCP> Reply-To: jeff@dciem.UUCP (Jeff Richardson) Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 45 Summary: > Actually, I did realize that Chelios is eligible for the trophy (I > endorsed him for it) in my posting. What I was questioning is whether > he *should* be classified as a rookie. 25 games, plus maybe another > 25 for the playoffs, and you're still a rookie (not Chelios, but a > hypothetical player...)? I really think that's a bit excessive. > Maybe at least the playoff games should be counted, too. What do you > people out there think? > > watmath!watdcsu!haapanen I think that regardless of where he played before, each and every NHL player player should be eligible for the Calder Trophy once during his career, (I think the NHL agrees with me, but they just made an exception for the WHA players because they wanted to get back at them for signing with the other league), so the issue here seems to be: Where do we draw the line and say that a player is no longer a rookie, in such a way as to be fair to him by giving him a reasonable chance to win the award, and to be fair to the other rookies by not putting them up against someone with signif- icantly more experience? The NHL has drawn the line at 25 regular season games. As Tom said, it's silly not to count playoff games, because they are certainly valid NHL experience. (In the six-team days when the rule was made, it was impossible to play more than 14 playoff games in a season, so they didn't really have to worry about this problem.) However, since I think that each player should be eligible once, to make a player who gets into only 8 regular season games and then plays 20 playoff games ineligible the following year makes his rookie season only 8 games long, since playoff performances aren't supposed to count in the Calder voting, effectively giving him no chance of ever winning the award. If playoff performances counted in the Calder voting, it would give a big unfair advantage to the rookies from teams that won at least two playoff series, because the voters would see them a lot more than the other players. 25 or 30 games is not much experience even if some of it is in the playoffs. Consistency over an entire season is a totally different story, so my proposal to the NHL board of governors is: Change the maximum number of games Calder candidates are allowed in a previous season from "25 regular season games" to "40 regular season or playoff games", but continue to award the trophy based only on regular season performances. This would make Chelios eligible this year, as I think he should be, but would make Tom's hypothetical player with 25 regular season plus 25 playoff games ineligible the following year. -- Jeff Richardson, DCIEM, Toronto (416) 635-2073 {linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd}!utcsrgv!dciem!jeff {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!dciem!jeff