I’m an NHL addict. I read NHL blogs, listen to NHL podcasts, follow NHL writers and players on Twitter, and even had a brief writing gig for a hockey blog (a weekly column about fantasy hockey). Heck, I even had a weekly talk show about the NHL during my tenure as a college radio host. Hockey has been a subject of a few of my comic strips on Clattertron, and will be featured in more to come.

To further beat a dead horse, when I was asked to be a part of the Capital Area District Libraries’ Geek the Library campaign, my fliers and such proudly proclaimed, “I Geek Hockey.”

Suffice to say, the current NHL Lockout, the third of Commissioner Gary Bettman’s career, is a blockade around my supply. I’m an addict without a fix.

And I hate every second. Hate is a strong word, and I try not to over use it, but it applies here. I hate the lockout.

I am still bitter about the loss of the 2004-2005 season due to the previous lockout. Several players I grew up watching missed a chance for one more season. It also meant a year without my favorite few months — The Stanley Cup Playoffs. No battles against rivals, no stories about a team chasing a cup, no chance of a team finally winning its first Cup or ending a decades long drought. For the first time since 1919, no Stanley Cup was awarded.

But, like an old girlfriend I can’t walk away from, I took the NHL back with open arms when it returned. I’m an addict after all. What was I going to do, start following football?

Not likely. I can’t stand football, basketball, or baseball. Anything with the “ball” suffix is right out — with the exception of Whirlyball.

First things first: this is not a strike. This is a lockout.

A strike is when the players refuse to play. That is not the case here. The players were locked out (not able to legally play) by the owners because their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) expired, and a new CBA has not been agreed upon.

The previous CBA gave the NHL the salary cap, for better or worse (which is worthy of its own article). And with the salary cap came the insane cap circumventing contracts with a length of ten years or more (the final years of these long contracts have players earning about a million a year, with some contracts lasting until a player was 40 or older — this brings the yearly cap hit down). Most players are lucky to make it to 40, let alone 42 or 43 when a few notable contracts expire). The New Jersey Devils were penalized when the league deemed their 17-year, $102 million(!) contract with Ilya Kovalchuk circumvented the salary cap. He was eventually signed for 15-years and $100 million.

I won’t go into the many, many issues behind this lockout. I recommend checking out the Marek versus Wyshynski podcast, because they explain the issues better than I ever could. A recent episode had an interview with NHLPA member (and retired player) Mathieu Schneider.

What this lockout will bring, I cannot say. When it will end is anyone’s guess. If, IF, this season is saved, I have heard the magic date of late November. This would mean the NHL’s biggest cash cow, the Winter Classic, would still happen.

As much as I want to see, or attend, an outdoor game featuring the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs (at the University of Michigan’s Big House no less), I am not optimistic it will happen.

Both sides seem far apart in this lockout, and I have read anecdotal comments from players expecting this lockout to, once again, last all season. NHL players have been heading off to play in Europe this week (most notably, Russia’s KHL), which hints this lockout could last a while.

I hope not.

Those really hurt by this lockout are the support staff — the folks who work at the arena. There have been a slew of layoffs around the NHL already, and there are likely more to come.

Please, don’t let there be another lost season. One game missed it too many. I need my fix. And I don’t want to resort to fantasy baseball again, like I did last time (I had no idea what I was doing, which the same scenario when I attend a baseball game in person — I’m lost, except for the drinking beer outside part. I have that covered).

If you prefer lockout rambling with a dash of humor, check out my What an NHL Fan Can Do During the Lockout post.

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Daniel J. Hogan writes humor and draws comics for clattertron.com. You can follow him on Twitter, @danieljhogan.

The Flyers WEST, ahem, the LA Kings, a ragtag crop of former Flyers and their pals, have sold their souls to someone other than the Devil, apparently, and claimed the Stanley Cup for themselves — and a coast that barely knows what ice is.

But I’m not bitter (I’m a little bitter), I’m hopeful.

The Kings can have Mike Richards and Jeff Carter (and Simon Gagne, etc.) because the Flyers have Eric Wellwood, someone that few people outside of Philly have properly noticed.

There are few speed metaphors that don’t sound so clichéd they obscure the phenomenon they intend to express, but the first time I noticed Wellwood, it really seemed like he’d been slingshot across the ice.

“Who is that guy?” I asked my dad as we sat, just above center ice at the Wells Fargo Center, watching Wellwood streak back and forth across the ice so fast it looked like he was traversing a frozen kiddie pool. He’d just been called up from the Adirondack Phantoms.

Wellwood is not to the Flyers what Chris Kreider promises to be for the Rangers. He’s not the next Kid with a capital S. No, he’s not that kind of rookie, but since that early March game I’ve been watching Wellwood closely. Here’s what I’ve noticed: Wellwood scores goals, but he isn’t a goal scorer — yet. Sometimes he overskates the puck, slicing past the black disc on breakaways even when the defenders are so far behind him the cameraman must pan away to locate them.  And often, when he does shoot, the puck seems magnetically compelled to hit the goalie square in the chest padding.

That’s probably frustrated a lot of Flyers fans this year, exhausted by half-raised arms repeatedly drooping to their sides after watching him dart out on many a rip-roaring breakaway with no impact on the scoreboard.

But I find possibility, not frustration in those youthful misses. What’s more important to me is that he is always there, even if he’s there before the play actually arrives. He’s so quick and fluid you’d imagine his movement could resurface the ice better than any Zamboni.

Philly.com called him an “elevator player” for his ability to flit between lines, using his skating skill to make himself a presence. You can imagine that despite his novelty, any of his linemates feel comfortable and confident to have him on their line, even if he doesn’t put one in.

I love his energy, reliability, tempo, and commitment. I love that he is a utility player, not an attention hog.

I love the way he skates hockey. That’s right: skates hockey. That’s what he does.

But I have to be honest. On some level, I think I see so much potential in Eric Wellwood because I don’t just appreciate his playing style, I identify with it.

As a competitive figure skater turned high school hockey player, I was a fast and confident skater. Transitioning between defense and offense was no problem for me because no matter where the play was, I was usually in the fray, backchecking or forechecking with the sort of spring in my stride you only see in people who learn to skate with a toepick.

But to this day, skating is mostly where the confidence ends as my body, the stick, and the puck struggle to achieve something approximating synergy.

In a sport where skating ability is assumed, and goal scoring and fighting are paramount, a young player with so much grace and strength on his feet alone is refreshing and auspicious for the Flyers — and maybe just a tiny bit validating for me?

For Wellwood, it suggests there’s plenty more skill where those wheels came from.

The hands and the timing will come for Wellwood as he collects more NHL experience, ideally with the Flyers. With the help of a collection of forceful and impressive young teammates, I predict Wellwood could be the unsung, but invaluable engine of a team with a Stanley Cup in its future.

You heard it here first.

So this year, because of Eric Wellwood, when anyone says, “Better luck next year!” I actually believe it.

Photo credit: Michael Miller

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Yael Borofsky is a writer, editor, and Philadelphia sports fan. Follow her on Twitter @yaelborofsky.

There are a zillion good reasons to fire a coach, but seven firing/hiring stunts in about two months raised eyebrows. Was it groupthink, coincidence, or just a lot of pot-stirring?

In reality and fairness, each of the coaches should get a full season in behind the bench before being evaluated. But if we’re going to peek early, now that we’re more than half way through the Stanley Cup Playoffs (although in my world they are already over) it’s an interesting time to tentatively take stock.

Of the eight teams that swapped coaches, five — the Hurricanes, the Canadiens, the Ducks, the Maple Leafs, and the Blue Jackets — didn’t make it to the playoffs.

Of those that did see the postseason — the Capitals, the Blues, and the Kings — only L.A. is still in contention with the third round underway.

Even if the L.A. Kings win the Stanley Cup, the results make it pretty tough to draw many conclusions about coaching changes and postseason success this year.

What the coaching switch has done so far is made for some soap opera-style drama — two teams are currently coach-less — so we can talk a little bit about the old default strategy of stirring the pot.

The Montreal Canadiens were terrible this year, but Randy Cunneyworth, who was brought in to replace Jacques Martin, stirred Hab nation to a boil. Cunneyworth is already back out the door — not because the Canadiens were bad, although they were, but because he can’t speak French. With a losing record on the books, the Canadiens still have no idea who’ll be in charge next.

Right now, though, the Capitals are providing even more coaching suspense.

As the Washington Post reported in its postseason recap, the Caps dropped a high-caliber coach in Bruce Boudreau to take a chance on Dale Hunter, who wasn’t even sure he wanted to coach in the NHL.

The Caps had a respectable and downright exciting postseason run (though they barely made it in), but Hunter already resigned his position, even after being lauded for instilling discipline and “accountability” in the streaky team.

From the Post article, it sounds like the coaching hire has been mired in controversy from the start.

“…the notion that Hunter had implemented sort of magic elixir of a system is a myth. Boudreau was in the process of changing the Capitals’ approach when he was fired for essentially one reason: Alex Ovechkin didn’t want to play for him anymore because — ironically — Boudreau began insisting on accountability from everyone, including his superstar. Hunter was a different voice saying many of the same things — to the team in general and to Ovechkin in specific.”

As if Ovechkin weren’t enough to handle, following the season there were rumors that Alexander Semin, the Capitals other leading forward, didn’t want to remain with the team because, as his agent told ESPN,  the team “decided to change directions.” Now he’s denying those rumors. Still, it’s likely his decision could be influenced the by the coaching pick.

In the meantime, the style and performance of two teams is in utter limbo. If the GMs were hoping to stir the pot (and not just follow the herd), they succeeded. Though not in the way I imagine they planned.

It’s easy to wonder if the Caps and the Canadiens might have been altogether better off keeping the coaches they started the season with. After all, Boudreau was just signed to a two-year contract with the Anaheim Ducks, so couldn’t Ovechkin have gotten over himself? And I’ve seen Martin on some lists as a potential Hunter replacement for the Caps, just to make things weirder.

There’s obviously no way to know.

Inevitably, more coaching switches will go down between now and next postseason, but these two organizations will be the teams to watch. Their ability to weather a revolving door of coaches — and possibly players — may help other general managers with their hiring and firing decisions, whether they know it or not. Or at least, a GM might think twice before firing a coach to try and stir the pot.

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Yael Borofsky is a writer, editor, and Philadelphia sports fan. Follow her on Twitter @yaelborofsky.

I couldn’t even hazard a guess.

This year, in the first round alone, the playoffs have been a statistical marvel. The Bleacher Report lays it out pretty concisely here. Watching them is mentally, emotionally, and possibly, physically (depending on how you react under pressure) hard.

Playing in them? Obviously, a whole lot harder.

But how hard?

Maybe you could compare how hard it is to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs relative to other pro sports playoffs in terms of number of hearts attacks or beers imbibed or anxiety pills popped, if you were really bored, I guess.

But how do you measure the difficulty of claiming Stanley Cup glory versus a Super Bowl victory versus a World Series clinch versus an NBA title?

I’m not particularly interested in being a statistician, so I used to think it was pretty simple. In my brain’s version of Excel (horrifying to think Microsoft is in my brain) I’d visualize the min/max potential number of playoff games versus brutality of the game and pretty quickly come to conclude in favor of hockey.

Salary caps, the average wealth of teams, or number of active players per team would all seem to play some kind of role. But, in my unofficial mental calculation, I still wind up thinking the Stanley Cup has got to be hardest hunk of metal to win.

There are plenty of bloggers on the interwebs who would agree.

I casually brought this question up to a coworker who is a slightly more even-handed sports fan than me, which is to say he watches hockey and basketball. I do not.

After the NBA, hockey, he said, might be the next easiest championship to win. He waffled back and forth between the Super Bowl and the World Series being the toughest championships, but his metric stayed constant: repeat wins.

If a team can win a championship at least two times in a row, how hard can that trophy really be to win? Or so his logic goes.

According to his unblinking evaluation, here’s how the four major US sports leagues break down since 1970. Just to caveat, each league has endured some structural changes over this time period so the comparison is not without its, er, flaws.

Football has seen 7 back-to-back Super Bowl winners, most recently the New England Patriots in 2004 and 2005.

Baseball has also seen 7 serial World Series champions, an honor the Yankees are still clinging to after scooping three in a row.

Basketball has had 10 repeats, many of which were snagged by the Lakers, who accomplished the feat in 2009 and 2010.

And then there’s hockey, with 11 back-to-back Stanley Cup winners if you break up the streaks of teams who’ve managed to win more than twice in a row. The Red Wings, of course, hold the most recent repeat win from successes in 1997 and 1998.

Yeah, I didn’t see that coming either.

But even though hockey has more repeat wins than any other sport — though arguably not by much — I still don’t buy that it’s the easiest championship to win, as this metric would have you believe.

Which leads me back to this terrible habit I have of answering a question with another question:

If my definition of what makes a championship hard could vary so significantly from colleagues’s, what really makes a championship the hardest to win?

As I write this, the Capitals and the Rangers are in double going into triple overtime.

Sounds heart attack-worthy to me.

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Yael Borofsky is a writer, editor, and Philadelphia sports fan. Follow her on Twitter @yaelborofsky.

All the shop talk has made me realize that I’m leaning towards a pretty unpopular argument: I think fighting should be banned in the NHL.

Even Grantland’s Katie Baker has danced the question, although the possibility of a ban seems to carry more weight than usual right now with more vicious playoff fighting this year than most people have ever seen.

I don’t think I’m ready to write an impassioned 800-word op-ed arguing for a fighting ban just yet, but I do think taking a thorough look at the pros and cons on each side of the coin might be a good starting place.

At the very least, it’s fair to say we can’t accept, “it’ll take away from the spirit of the game,” (or some version of that) as an excuse for avoiding this debate.

Argument: For allowing fighting in the NHL

PROS

1)   It’s tradition: fighting has always been part of the game (i.e., frontier justice, etc.)
2)   Allows to players to police themselves, especially if a ref misses a call
3)   Fighting is an outlet for frustration that prevents bigger, more dangerous hits
4)   Attracts fans
5)   Raises TV ratings

CONS

1)   Players try to control the game with fighting
2)   More injuries, especially to the head where most players tend to punch
3)   Feeds tempers and violence, especially when players that typically don’t fight get involved
4)   Could lead to more wild checks and dangerous behavior in the wake of a bad fight
5)   Fighting makes hockey players seem like goons instead of like athletes

Argument: For a ban on fighting in the NHL

PROS

1)   Fewer injuries from fighting and probably fewer missing teeth
2)   Junior hockey players wouldn’t feel compelled to fight in order to make it in the NHL
3)   Fewer distractions from regular play
4)   Fewer roster spots allocated to bruisers i.e., guys who can punch, but can’t actually skate
5)   Less rage, more strategy
6)   Potentially less damage, in the aggregate, to individual players’ heads
7)   Fewer players feeling obligated to fight because it’s their “job”

CONS

1)   Limited on-ice outlets for intense emotion or mutual dislike between opposing players
2)   TV ratings go down the tubes
3)   Loss of fans who like watching hockey for the fighting
4)   Fewer “bruiser” type players drafted to NHL
5)   Loss of frequently referenced “frontier justice”
6)   Lord Stanley turns over in his grave

Ok, ok, so that last one is not 100 percent rigorous.

What’s immediately interesting when you look over these lists is how different the pros and cons look depending on how you approach the argument — especially the pros.

The takeaway, so far, is there are a few issues that must be addressed in order to answer the question of whether fighting should be allowed in hockey: appeal of the game to fans and casual viewers, player welfare, player training from mites to pro, financial consequences for the league, and NHL playing style.

Like I said, I’m leaning towards the cut-the-crap-and-ban-fighting camp, though it’s a small one. But if there are pieces of this debate you think I’m missing, shoot me a note.

The controversy over fighting in the NHL is defining the way we play, watch, and talk about hockey today.

And, if we really care about the spirit of the game, it’s one that shouldn’t be dismissed for too much longer.

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Yael Borofsky is a writer, editor, and Philadelphia sports fan. Follow her on Twitter @yaelborofsky.

To be fair, my secret March Madness sauce involves a complex model based on team color and mascot. Not exactly the stuff sports analyst careers are made of.

Still, I’m not really in the predictive spirit.

What I am into right now, though, is NHL goal songs.

My fascination started when I was at the aforementioned Flyers/Red Wings game and Claude Giroux had just scored “a dazzler.”

Immediately, my boyfriend, who was watching the game from his couch (sucker), texted me the following message: “Doop doop”

It wasn’t romance. Those are the lyrics (yes, lyrics) to the Flyers’ latest goal song, which is actually called “Doop,” as far as I can tell. It was the first time I noticed the new tune.

You can listen to it, or you can trust me when I say that the persistent “doop”-ing sounds like some sort of over-aggressive homage to doo-wop. It grows on you.

With the mysteriousness of “Doop” in mind — what does it mean?! — I decided to listen to every hockey goal song in the NHL. There are 30, ahem.

There are at least as many recent rankings out there, which is really a somewhat futile exercise since teams do change their goal songs, despite hockey’s rampant obsession with superstition.

For example, this ranking from Bleacher Report is largely moot because there has been enormous goal song turnover this year.

It’s unclear whether or not it had anything to do with some unsavory allegations leveled at Gary Glitter in 2006, the mastermind behind the so called, “Hey Song,” otherwise known as “Rock and Roll Part II.” The song is probably one of the most recognizable celebratory sports ditties I can think of.

In any case, to reassess the goal song situation and redeem my bracket picking skills, I’ve decided to fabricate a March Madness playoff for NHL goal songs. I’m taking no actual team standings into account and heavily penalizing teams for repeats.

But, it will be interesting to see if goal song success tracks at all with NHL playoff success.

Without further ado* or additional commentary**, here is the bracket and the playlist. Make of it what you will:

PLAYLIST:

Eastern Conference

• Boston Bruins: KernKraft 4000, “Zombie Nation”
• Buffalo Sabres: Black Keys, “Lonely Boys”
• Carolina Hurricanes: Blur, “Song 2”
• Florida Panthers: My Chemical Romance, “Na Na Na Na”
• Montreal Canadiens: Turbonegro, “The Age of Pamparius”
• New Jersey Devils: Gary Glitter, “Rock and Roll Part II”
• New York Rangers: Ray Castoldi, “Slapshot”
• New York Islanders: Joe Satriani, “Crowd Chant”
• Ottawa Senators: “Seven Nation Army Remix”
• Philadelphia Flyers: “Doop”
• Pittsburge Penguins: Blur, “Song 2”
• Tampa Bay Lightning: XL, “Fluxland”
• Washington Capitals: Strange mix including Iron Maiden, “The Wicker Man” and Cascada, “I Miss You”
• Winnipeg Jets: Rev Theory, “Hell Yeah”

Western Conference

• Anaheim Ducks: Pennywise, “Bro Hymn”
• Calgary Flames: Duck Sauce, “Barbara Streisand”
• Chicago Blackhawks: The Fratellis, “Chelsea Dagger”
• Colorado Avalanche: (disappointing) Mix of Gary Glitter, “Rock and Roll Part II” and Locksley, “The Whip”
• Columbus Blue Jackets: Locksley, “The Whip”
• Dallas Stars: Locksley, “The Whip”
• Detroit Red Wings: Locksley, “The Whip”
• Edmonton Oilers: Black Keys, “Lonely Boy”
• LA Kings: Randy Newman, “I Love LA”
• Minnesota Wild: Joe Satriani, “Crowd Chant”
• Nashville Predators: Tim McGraw, “I Like It, I Love It” and Gary Glitter, “Rock and Roll Part II”
• Phoenix Coyotes: Black Keys, “Howlin’ For You”
• San Jose Sharks: Gary Glitter, “Rock and Roll Part II”
• Saint Louis Blues: “When the Saints (Blues) Go Marching In” (on the organ!)
• Vancouver Canucks: Clutch, “Electric Worry”

—

* It is surprisingly challenging to confirm official team goal songs without actually being at the game and shazaaming them or something. If I got a song wrong, it’s because the interwebs lied to me. Repeatedly.

** I tried not to be biased with respect to the Flyers. But come on now, this is sports. Let’s be real.

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Yael Borofsky is a writer, editor, and Philadelphia sports fan. Follow her on Twitter @yaelborofsky.

I’m going to see the Flyers play the Red Wings in Philly next week and this question is poking at me. It’s been just a couple weeks since the Wings unseated the 1975-76 Philadelphia Flyers for longest home win streak, so the game feels like it has some sort of fateful historical gravity. But if you’re only looking at this year’s team, you’d be missing the larger, more interesting mystery.

I’ve been living in fear every time the Flyers play the Red Wings pretty much since I started watching the Flyers at age ten.

After the Devils but before the Rangers, my dad taught me to hate the Red Wings. They swept the Flyers in the 1997 Stanley Cup finals and for that we can never forgive them.

That was about 15 years ago.

So now, at least for me, the mystery is so profound it’s taken on something of a philosophical quality.

Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot would surely be offended that the first place I go to gain some insight on an intractable mystery like this one is Google (though maybe I could just ask Gavin), but really that would just be jealousy.

Even if it didn’t really answer this deep-seated question for me, what comes up on a Google search is actually pretty fascinating in its own way.

Here are some explanations I’ve culled from the “depths” of the interwebs:

Ken Holland: Turns out Ken Holland has been GM about as long as I’ve been watching hockey, too. Under him the Wings have won more games than any other NHL team, not to mention four Stanley Cups. He helped the Red Wings survive the salary cap. More than that he built a team that thrived while other clubs faltered. Sports Illustrated named him the GM of the first decade of the 21^st century.

So what is it about Holland? Is it his experience as a scout for the Wings, his experience as goaltender? What does he have that no other GM has? And why does that allow him to make his team great?

In 2008, E.M. Swift tried to record his formula:

Load up on Europeans (the Wings have 11 on their roster, seven from Sweden); keep your character guys (Lidstrom, Tomas Holmstrom, Kris Draper, Darren McCarty and Kirk Maltby have all played on four Cup winners with Detroit); sign free agents who care more about winning than money (Chris Osgood, Dominik Hasek, Chris Chelios); and look for hidden gems in the higher rounds (Zetterberg was a seventh-round pick, Datsyuk a sixth-rounder).

But I don’t know. A lot of those things seem like what any sensible coach would strive for, it’s just that Holland appears to be successful where others fall short. Which is to say the formula doesn’t answer the “why” question.

Drafting: Namely Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, and Nicklas Lidstrom. Plenty also threw their hats in for Chris Osgood. These guys are GREATS, no question. And more than that, they’ve all hung with the team longer than the average hockey player and seemed to only get better with age. Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Lidstrom have been with the Red Wings more years collectively than I’ve been alive. That’s saying something, especially given all we’ve heard about concussions this year.

But when I see a list of names like that, I can’t help but wonder if it’s not the greats, but the not-as-greats that make all the difference. The Red Wings don’t rebuild, they reload, picking up guys who are low on profile and high on character.

Lots of teams have all-star players. Lots of teams do not exhibit consistent excellence the way the Red Wings do.

Scouts: I have no idea how to analyze this because I don’t know any hockey scouts. The most I know about scouting comes from Moneyball and that’s baseball, so there you have it. Maybe they practice some sort of hocus pocus with a crystal ball, but I doubt it.

I have a hard time accepting that it’s just one of these things, though I suppose it could be all of them. Just a happy confluence of aligned hockey stars.

But those are largely intangibles. With no real way to measure what influences what, such an answer somehow feels hollow and dissatisfying, like the reverberation of a puck on the boards when you’ve shot wide of the net.

Maybe I — and the Flyers-shaped chip on my shoulder — am over-thinking it.

Why ARE the Red Wings so good?

The winner, as far as I’m concerned, came from WikiAnswers:

i don’t know but they are

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Yael Borofsky is a writer, editor, and Philadelphia sports fan. Follow her on Twitter @yaelborofsky.

It’s pretty fantastic, in case you were wondering.

Two screens are better than one

How is that possible?

One reason is definitely the time difference. It’s probably fair to say that the majority of the NHL season does not take place in Pacific Standard Time. For me, that meant most games I care about took place while I was still at work on weekdays or just getting my day going on weekends.

And, as I’ve mentioned already, San Francisco is not the most vibrant hockey city. Part of this cultural failure may have something to do with the fact that hockey coincides with some of the best weather in the Bay Area. If hockey was a summer sport I bet San Franciscans would gladly spend an afternoon cheering on the San Jose Sharks to escape the fog monster. But in the fall and most of the winter and spring it’s clear and crisp and oh-so-sunny. Who wants to sit inside a dark apartment and watch an ice hockey game during some of the sunniest hours of the year?

I guess DVR might have solved my particular problem, but I’m being candid when I say the chances of me watching a recorded, regular season game that happened five to ten hours ago are close to nil.

So why Twitter?

To start, Twitter seems to have changed the way fans relate to both athletes and reporters. I’d like to write more about this strange dynamic some other time, but suffice it to say that Twitter offers a whole new dimension in which to relate to a player on what feels like a more insider-y (if you’ll allow me make up a word) level.

Not to pick on Bryzgalov (@bryzgoalie30), but the oddball Russian Flyers’ goalie already has a short, but colorful record of insane tweets that confirms three things for a fan like me

1. He wasn’t acting out of the ordinary on HBO’s 24/7 series when he achieved national fame for expounding on the hugeness of space
2. Goalies are out of their minds
3. He likes sturgeon.

Like celebrities, not all athletes tweet interesting commentary. Some of them are downright lame. But those players that are particularly clever, creative, or even incendiary are that much more compelling.

Then there’s the pre-game and post-game analysis from sports reporters on Twitter. Having all of that in one place means I can skim as much of the aggregated mess of content as I want while barely looking up from whatever else I am diligently (I swear) working on.

In the beginning of my Bay Area tenure, it was a slick and slippery slope from TV, to Ice Tracker, to Twitter. What eventually transformed me into an addicted Twitter hockey fan, though, was the ability to follow the record of the entire game as it happened and still get work done. At 4 pm PST on a weekday, when the Flyers were likely as not taking the ice, Twitter allowed me to commit that most cliched of sins: killing two birds with one stone. That has been the ultimate key.

But now that I’m back on the east coast, and (for a limited time) back at home, I’m sort of surprised at what I’ve missed. My Twitter hockey days aren’t over — note the comment about addiction. But despite nearly three years of experience harnessing social media to keep track of the NHL, I am relearning that in the end the only multitasking I really need to do during a hockey game includes drinking a beer and yelling at the good old TV.

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Yael Borofsky is a writer, editor, and Philadelphia sports fan. Follow her on Twitter @yaelborofsky.

As a singular tiny, crystalline bit landed on my knee, I thought for a brief, poetic moment that hockey truly is meant to be watched outside, through the fog of warm breath in the frosty air…

Then I ran out of hot chocolate, my toe warmers stopped working, and the jet lag of a 13-hour flight from Tel Aviv to Philly set in. My next shivering thought, perhaps preconditioned by nearly three years of California residency: What am I doing here?

When I finally warmed up, about five hours, two hot chocolates, and a car seat butt warmer later, I started thinking about the oddity that is outdoor hockey as we know it. After all, hockey lore holds that the sport was born in the great Canadian outdoors. How twisty and strange is it that now indoor hockey, at one time a technological marvel, seems to be the game’s obvious home, while the outdoor origins of the game are such a sparkling novelty?

Turns out it’s not so bizarre at all. Indoor ice rinks have been around for awhile — at least since the mid-1800s. And maybe every other hockey fan already knows this, but the game, with the rules and parameters we know and love today, was not even born on an outdoor sheet. Organized hockey is said to have been born in 1875 within the confines of the indoor Montreal Victoria Skating Rink. According to the International Ice Hockey Federation, “It was the first known game which was pre-announced, where two named teams played on a confined ice area (a rink), where all names of the players were recorded as well as the score and the game was played with ‘a flat circular piece of wood,’ a puck.”

Although the game at Victoria Skating Rink didn’t mark the end of outdoor play, it did herald a significant shift. The last international games to take place on outdoor, natural(ish) ice were the 1957 World Hockey Championships in Moscow, where maybe the weather was so arctic it seemed ludicrous to even consider an indoor arena. The final championship game between the Soviet Union and Sweden drew a record attendance: 50,000 spectators. (To put that in perspective, the 2012 Winter Classic pulled in 46,967 and both Philadelphia and the NHL were thrilled.)

Since then, despite the evident popularity, the incidence of professional outdoor hockey games has been relatively few and far between: a 1962 game in Gothenburg, a 1991 game in Vegas (of all places), the infamous Michigan “Cold War” in 2001, the Edmonton “Heritage Classic” in 2003, and the start of the Winter Classic games in 2008 in Orchard Park, New York, are some of the most famous. With far flung teams in enormous leagues and finicky man-made ice, the indoor sport makes way more sense. And yet people still convince themselves that outdoor hockey is the real, authentic hockey — how the game was “meant to be” — despite the fact that this sentiment makes no historical sense. After all, pond hockey is a far cry from what amounts to an inside-out ice skating rink parked in whatever lucky football or baseball stadium has the honor of hosting thousands of eager fans. I’ve played backyard pond hockey — the Winter Classic was awesome, but it was not that.

And I guess, when you think about it, that’s exactly why so many people love to go: outdoor hockey is awesome. It’s an excuse for a total spectacle, the complete package. People don’t actually fork over hundreds of dollars to see outdoor hockey games and connect with the roots of a beloved sport. If they really wanted to do that they could take a vacation to Saskatchewan. Hockey fans buy expensive tickets, expensive team jerseys, and gallons of hot chocolate because they’re there to see an outrageous show: The Roots, the flaming white trash can thingies, the gently falling snowflakes, and of course, a spectacular game that’s “meant” to be played wherever there are a pile of adoring fans clamoring to see it.

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Yael Borofsky is a writer, editor, and Philadelphia sports fan living in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter @yaelborofsky.

Despite my efforts to read about other things — like the league realignment or the recent spate of coaching changes — I find I’ve developed something of a tic whereby my finger “involuntarily” moves the cursor toward any link with the SEO keywords: hockey, fighting, CTE, or head trauma. Or: Flyers (at least I’m honest). To say I’m a little obsessed with the topic is dangerously close to an understatement.

Strangely, this predicament has caused some struggles in the writing department. The Idler doesn’t demand coverage of the latest he-said/she-said, but in this case I can’t seem to focus on anything else.

The other day, though, I decided to embrace my obsession after reading a Times article that polled neurosurgeons and neuropsychologists for their opinions on what the NHL should do to protect its players, particularly with regard to fighting. While most people would expect doctors to offer a scientific basis for new regulations or new protective equipment, many of the experts cited said that the science surrounding the long-term risks of head trauma is uncertain. Therefore, there is no conclusive scientific evidence that NHL must take action at all.

As one neurologist put it, referencing the league’s decision to ban checks to the head a few years ago:

“In essence, I would say there’s no more evidence that fighting is bad for the brain than there is that hits to the head are bad for the brain. The amount of evidence is the same — essentially, very little. Yet the decision was made on a policy level: let’s take head shots out of the game. There’s no more evidence, or less, for head shots than there is for fighting.”

The doctors raise an excellent point: this isn’t a science imperative, it’s a policy decision. In other words, evaluating the decision to forbid fighting (or not) in the context of policymaking offers an important lens through which to view this controversy. By separating what science can tell us about the long-term risks of head trauma (caused by fighting or otherwise) from the policy decision the NHL can make with the information available, it is easier to understand where all the disagreement stems from.

It may seem like I’m heading down a path already tread by Gary Bettman who, so far, has demurred from fighting restrictions. But a) separating the policy decision from the scientific uncertainty has not changed my conviction that fighting should be eliminated from hockey and b) acknowledging that the science linking head trauma to side effects, like CTE, is murky does not amount to a rejection of new head protection regulations in the NHL. On the contrary, this new framework merely suggests that science cannot form the sole basis for decision-making.

My day job involves energy and climate policy, so the first rough analogy that springs to my mind is climate change (a stretch, I know, but bear with me). Like concussions in hockey (or football, for that matter), scientific evidence supports the claim that global climate change is happening. Scientists, however, can’t yet predict with certainty the extent of the risk posed by a warming planet.

This uncertainty has complicated the climate policy discourse because it opens the door for the influence of values, politics, and ultimately, bitter disagreement. Some believe the apocalypse is imminent and there is an urgent need for extreme policy intervention, some say climate change is a hoax and no policy is necessary, and others land somewhere in the middle, recognizing that the possibility of catastrophic climate change is sufficient validation for some sort of policy intervention that promotes human development while protecting the most vulnerable populations.

To acknowledge this uncertainty demands that you wrestle with two important decisions: 1) to take policy action at all (values); 2) if we decide to use policy, what type of policy lever is appropriate given the uncertain risk (politics)?

That’s where the debate begins for climate policy and, interestingly, also for head trauma. From a policy standpoint, science is just one part of the equation. Values and politics play a critical role in designing policy, too.

When it comes to hockey, values include the integrity of the game, player health, the life quality of former players, and the entertainment potential. The politics may be influenced by the impact on the fan base, NHL coaches, and the players themselves. From this standpoint, any policy action undertaken by the NHL, if it is to be effective, will need to take all of these factors into account, instead of simply relying on an assumed scientific imperative (or lack thereof).

No one wants to see Sid or any other hockey player suffer the way Derek Boogaard did. But not everyone draws a clear line from Boogaard’s CTE and his untimely death to his career as an NHL enforcer. If you understand that the science connecting CTE, fighting, and head trauma is uncertain then that opinion has to be just as legitimate as one that says the line between CTE and head trauma is clear enough to take serious action.

A policymaking perspective does not necessarily resolve the head trauma debate. It certainly hasn’t led to any resolution of the climate debate, as yet. I guess my hope is that this more nuanced approach gives all interested parties the tools to make a more thorough, insightful case that advances the sport, but not at the expense of its players skulls.

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Yael Borofsky is a writer, editor, and Philadelphia sports fan living in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter @yaelborofsky.