Hockey: I'm sorry, the boxscore says "Moops"

We're three Ontario guys, but we do our best for out-of-province games. That usually means relying on second-hand reports and boxscores. But if you looked at the boxscore for the first game in the AUS hockey final played Saturday night, you might have noticed a few things:
  • Both goaltenders were awarded with a tie and 65 minutes played, despite the game-winning goal that came at 61:29.
  • UNB's players tallied 42 shots on the Saint Mary's goalie, but Brandon Verge only faced 38 shots because four of those were double-counted for "Nathan O\'nabigon" and Nathan O'Nabigon. This also added a phantom assist to the UNB total, which doesn't seem so bad, but it's really, really hard to get credit for seven assists on three goals.
  • "Denny Johnson" scored for UNB 11 seconds into the third period and Denny Johnston was credited with a goal on the scoresheet. The latter is correct.
  • Nathan Beausoleil is also misnamed as Nathen.
  • And who knows what else.
We could keep going with the OUA finals, played the same day, and we'd find that every single penalty came at 0:00 of the period, meaning David Urquhart was called for interference before the game even started, and the Redmen scored two even-strength goals (and one empty-netter) while giving up one, yet every player on both sides has a neutral plus/minus, but you get the idea.

It's not easy to keep score in a game as fast as hockey, but these are easily-avoided factual mistakes. Players and coaches talk about stepping up their game for the conference finals and it sure would be nice to see the scorekeepers do the same.
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2 comments:

  1. Brandon Verge played on the same AAA midget team as Sidney Crosby! Don't ask how I know that!

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  2. It would be easier not to criticize this if it was just a one-off, but this happens almost every time in every OUA game with a boxscore (and probably in other associations too). One of the first ways to increase your sport's visibility is make sure that the information you put out is accurate: I can understand why a lot of major media give little space to the OUA and CIS when they pull off amateur stuff like this.

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