TSN Power Rankings

[mjlegend 155]

I'm well aware of what its "supposed" to stand for,but like someone else said,that is a running gag. I remember when the Skydome was being built there were daily updates....."Today 157 rivets were added to the Skydome"...that drove me nuts.

That was funny. Three minutes of lead-off coverage on SC previewing "Bryan McCabe comes back to the ACC! What's the reaction going to be?" is a recent example. Holy Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, that was a waste of time for fans of the othee 28 teams.

[MannyK 16]

I'm well aware of what its "supposed" to stand for,but like someone else said,that is a running gag. I remember when the Skydome was being built there were daily updates....."Today 157 rivets were added to the Skydome"...that drove me nuts.

hahaha, i don't remember seeing that, but i suppose it's probably because I just started paying attention to TSN about a year and a half ago and realized that they had superior highlights and videos on their website vs. any other website i've found, so that's probably why i wasn't aware of the "running gag".

excuse my ignorance!

[Guest Shoreline]

LOL

are we talking about this single ranking or about TSN rankings at all?

because I fail to see how single sample speak about whole thing

in general. it's totally against laws of statistics

I can clearly remember a good number of rankings over the past 3 or 4

years which had Canadian teams higher or much higher than they really

deserved to be. excellent example being them stubbornly keeping

Senators on top of the ranking during Ottawa's lowly streaks of 2005-06

season while Wings were ripping every team in the league. just to name

an example...

Inform me about this law of statistics..

2005-06 season:

http://web.archive.org/web/20051231165845/...48&hubname=

http://web.archive.org/web/20060423214602/...48&hubname=

1st link:

#1, Ottawa Senators (23-5-2)

#2, New York Rangers (20-10-4)

#3, Calgary Flames (19-9-4)

In this case, the Flames and Canucks had awesome streaks and superb goaltending, versus teams like the Wings who lost to teams they should have won against and didn't deserve to be at the top of rankings around their win record. And Ottawa simply had the best record in the league during these rankings so this was obvious they should have been #1.

However, #2.. later on in the season:

#1, Detroit Red Wings (58-16-8)

#2, Dallas Stars (53-23-6)

#3, Ottawa Senators (52-21-9)

This was after the Wings streak, which you claim TSN kept the Senators on the top with. And the commentary states:

The cries come far and wide about how easy the Central Division is, but when the Wings haven't lost in regulation since March 7 (excluding the season finale when they rested Nicklas Lidstrom, Henrik Zetterberg and Manny Legace), they're still good enough to finish on top. If they can get Datsyuk back in time for the start of the playoffs, all the better.

These rankings are mostly subjective anyways, with only some part of taking records and streaks into account, but they are not as biased toward Canadian teams as you claim.

[akustyk 84]

Inform me about this law of statistics..

just for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

and please don't tell me a sample of 2 elements which I've no idea how you picked

is anyhow significant in statistical terms. because it's even contrary to common sense...

These rankings are mostly subjective anyways, with only some part of taking records and streaks into account, but they are not as biased toward Canadian teams as you claim.

subjective basically implicates biased because people do have preferences even

if they try not to take their into account.

and yes, I do claim they are biased because this has often enough been my

impression when reading through those rankings and seeing how doubts

about higher or lower rating of similar teams are resolved in favor of

Canadian teams. and I'm talking about checking this rankings basically every

single regular season week since maybe 2002. quite a sample if you ask me,

definitely more relevant than those 2 above.

but no, I'm not going to lose my time to prove it. you have every right to see

this differently and I'm not gonna lose my sleep about convincing you. this is my

impression but apparently also of quite a number of people who check TSN

ranking regularily. truth being said there's also a bias in my observations

because I'm more interested in some teams than the other hence my

evaluation of TSN ranking is based on partial knowledge, to say the least..

in the end... those are just rankings. nothing more. like them or not.

I do like TSN rankings except the fact that on average they push Canadian

teams higher than most other rankings.

Edited March 17, 2009 by akustyk

[Guest Shoreline]

just for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

and please don't tell me a sample of 2 elements which I've no idea how you picked

is anyhow significant in statistical terms. because it's even contrary to common sense...

subjective basically implicates biased because people do have preferences even

if they try not to take their into account.

and yes, I do claim they are biased because this has often enough been my

impression when reading through those rankings and seeing how doubts

about higher or lower rating of similar teams are resolved in favor of

Canadian teams. and I'm talking about checking this rankings basically every

single regular season week since maybe 2002. quite a sample if you ask me,

definitely more relevant than those 2 above.

but no, I'm not going to lose my time to prove it. you have every right to see

this differently and I'm not gonna lose my sleep about convincing you. this is my

impression but apparently also of quite a number of people who check TSN

ranking regularily. truth being said there's also a bias in my observations

because I'm more interested in some teams than the other hence my

evaluation of TSN ranking is based on partial knowledge, to say the least..

in the end... those are just rankings. nothing more. like them or not.

I do like TSN rankings except the fact that on average they push Canadian

teams higher than most other rankings.

I went to archive.org and looked for two points near opposite ends of the season to look for the "Canadian" bias you told me about, because watching TSN and paying attention to their rankings for the last, oh, 6 or so years (when bored enough to read it), I've never seen the bias you claim they have. My poking fun at your reference to statistics was because statistics also used observed formulas or some sort of evidence to back it up.. and you provided none. In fact, to your only tangible claim that they had bias toward Ottawa, it in fact was pointed to the opposite, that Ottawa was in fact the best team at the start and they ranked the Wings #1 later. Your assertion was easily refuted, and objectively at that.

Edited March 18, 2009 by Shoreline

[DMAC 25 18]

I know this doesn't matter one bit, however it irks me. TSN just came out with this week's NHL power rankings and Detroit is ranked 4th again with a 7-2-1 ten game record. San Jose is 1 with a 4-5-1 and Boston 3 with 4-5-1 ten game record - with the exception of the Devils, how does this make any sense? Not even to mention the fact that Detroit sit atop the NHL with the most points....

TSN doesnt know anything about it, they just go with whos their favorites teams really. i dont remember if detroit was one last year or not but they'll just have to prove them wrong by winning it all again this year

[Third Man In 2,091]

LOL

are we talking about this single ranking or about TSN rankings at all?

because I fail to see how single sample speak about whole thing

in general. it's totally against laws of statistics

I can clearly remember a good number of rankings over the past 3 or 4

years which had Canadian teams higher or much higher than they really

deserved to be. excellent example being them stubbornly keeping

Senators on top of the ranking during Ottawa's lowly streaks of 2005-06

season while Wings were ripping every team in the league. just to name

an example...

You should ask questions first before laughing, akustyk. Clearly I was only referring to this ranking, which was the OP's topic, and never claimed otherwise. It was others, including yourself, that were making the logical leap from the Wings not being higher than 4th in this ranking to allegations about pro-Canadian and anti-Wings bias. And you really shouldn't lecture others on statistical significance when you supply a single, vague piece of subjective evidence in support of your argument.

subjective basically implicates biased because people do have preferences even

if they try not to take their into account.

and yes, I do claim they are biased because this has often enough been my

impression when reading through those rankings and seeing how doubts

about higher or lower rating of similar teams are resolved in favor of

Canadian teams. and I'm talking about checking this rankings basically every

single regular season week since maybe 2002. quite a sample if you ask me,

definitely more relevant than those 2 above.

but no, I'm not going to lose my time to prove it. you have every right to see

this differently and I'm not gonna lose my sleep about convincing you. this is my

impression but apparently also of quite a number of people who check TSN

ranking regularily. truth being said there's also a bias in my observations

because I'm more interested in some teams than the other hence my

evaluation of TSN ranking is based on partial knowledge, to say the least..

As you admit, your argument is as subjective as anyone else's. It's an opinion, and that's all it's going to be until it's worth your precious time to support it. There's nothing wrong with an opinion--just don't attack other posters' arguments for being subjective and relying on statistically insignificant evidence when yours do the same. While it's a sample size of one, it makes you look a bit pretentious and more than a little hypocritical.

[RusDRW 155]

if TSN is not joking about using some "formula" to compute power rankings the explanation can be really easy. Perhaps, it involves a king of smoothing mechanisms like moving average and exponentially weighted moving average as it is often done in statistics to estimate the current standings. Remember we were not that good 5-7 games ago. However, I really feel all this stuff is just someone's subjective opinion...

[Guest Shoreline]

I'd say TSN is joking if they are suggesting they are using a formula. The horribly struggling Sharks, with 2 regulation losses in the last week and a half, get #1 while the hot Devils and Wings get ranked below? Even worse, Boston has 3 losses in the last week and a half and they get ranked above the Wings too. Ouch. This is why I don't take rankings seriously at all.

[Third Man In 2,091]

I believe it that TSN is using a formula--a formula can still lead to results that one finds counterintuitive (the BCS comes to mind...) And again, TSN's rankings change slower than some others.

A good approach with power rankings (as with polls) is to look at a number of them. Any single poll could be an outlier. But looking at power rankings from a number of sources is a much more objective idea of how the teams are doing at a given moment of the season.

[Dabura 12,232]

I'm pretty sure "a formula" is a euphemism for "narcotics" in this case.

[Vincanni 1]

The Pacific division has been a landfill this year.

The only way you could justifiably grant San Jose a #1 especially at this juncture of the season where they're not even 1# in the league with points would be if they where absolutely running away with the president's trophy, much like the Wings did in 05-06, except we actually had another playoff team in our division (Nashville ranked 4th in the West) while the Pacific is essentially San Jose sitting atop a heap of garbage in a shiny throne.

[akustyk 84]

As you admit, your argument is as subjective as anyone else's. It's an opinion, and that's all it's going to be until it's worth your precious time to support it.

indeed, but it's rather impossible to prove anything here as any such claim would need measurable things to compare and eventually

do some maths.

my claim that TSN is biased towards canadian teams is based on my own observation. which is impossible to asses by anyone else.

though, to support this claim I could name a number of times posters on this very forum discussed such bias, because this is not the

first thread ever to name such hypothesis.

anyway... with the lack of measurable evidence there's only one thing we can use as reference - other rankings. as I wrote, SI, Yahoo

or ESPN do rate the teams differently and on average they have canadian teams rated lower. truth being said, it's neither provable

or refutable that those rankings are unbiased, hence they are of no use here.

There's nothing wrong with an opinion--just don't attack other posters' arguments for being subjective and relying on statistically insignificant evidence when yours do the same.

OK, excuses if anyone felt this way. I was trying to defend the bias claim which some posters ridiculed, but I agree I went

too far with calling names. my view is that the thing is highly subjective and in general impossible to prove or refute.

I do have an impression TSN is biased and I don't buy this thing about formula's but it's just rankings and it would be

waste of time to collect and analyze the data to asses this claim. it's just another ranking.

excuses and... well... until another TSN ranking

[Third Man In 2,091]

OK, excuses if anyone felt this way. I was trying to defend the bias claim which some posters ridiculed, but I agree I went

too far with calling names. my view is that the thing is highly subjective and in general impossible to prove or refute.

I do have an impression TSN is biased and I don't buy this thing about formula's but it's just rankings and it would be

waste of time to collect and analyze the data to asses this claim. it's just another ranking.

excuses and... well... until another TSN ranking

fair enough