In the comments thread of my recent post, “Crosby for MVP”, one reader posted the suggestion that there was Eastern bias toward the Western Conference.
“Schedules, TV coverage, reporting, and yes, even balloting is strongly eastern biased, and traditionally has been so for some time.”
I briefly responded to those comments later in the thread but felt it was a topic worth pursuing further.
This isn’t the first time I’ve read and heard of supposed bias against the NHL’s Western Conference from hockey fans, but a closer examination of the facts suggests otherwise.
First, scheduling in terms of travel is considerably tougher for Western teams, but that’s the result of geography. All the Eastern Conference teams are within one time zone and in many cases a quick one or two hour plane trip apart.
In the West, however, the teams are spread further apart and between four time zones (eastern,central, mountain and pacific). It’s unfortunate, but not the result of any bias against them (hat tip to Paul Kukla and Barbara Stephenson for reminding me that Detroit and Columbus are in the Eastern time zone).
TV coverage is also the result of geography. With all the Eastern teams within one time zone, they’re going to get a favorable TV schedule. Unfortunately for Western teams, those time zones work against them, resulting in their games being televised much later in the East and thus a perceived lack of coverage/interest.
To counter this, Western games could start earlier, but that would be unfair to those teams and their fans. The travel schedule in particular for Western teams is tough enough without taking away some valuable rest time to an earlier start.
There is obviously more favorable coverage of the Eastern teams than the Western clubs, which again is unfortunate and again due to geography and time zones, not bias.
Geography and time zones have nothing to do with balloting, but as I noted in response to this comment, the winners of the recent NHL awards clearly indicates no bias against Western players.
“The professional hockey writers association votes for the Hart, Norris, Calder and Selke trophies. The GMs vote for the Vezina winner, and the NHL Broadcasters Association votes for the Adams winner. I fail to see where bias enters into it.
Four of the last six Hart winners were from the West, as were three of the last seven Calder Winners, three of the last six Adams winners, five of the last 8 Selke winners, and 7 of the last 8 Norris winners.
Since the GMs select the Vezina winners, and there can be no suggestion of too many GMs in the East, then obviously a number of Western GMs believed only two Western goalies of the last 13 Vezina winners were worthy of the award."
So much for “bias” against the Western Conference.
There is no bias against the Western Conference, its just like you said they play their games later so we people in the East don't get to see them as much as Eastern Conference games.
I honestly wonder if a lot of this "bias" stuff comes from the fact that we, as fans, are biased, not the league in general. For instance, I could argue all day that there's a bias against Sidney Crosby because I'm a pens fan. Devils fans will also argue there's a bias against their team and their goalie in the league. LGB will argue there's a buffalo bias ... the list goes on (and its hard to deny...we've all seen these arguments made on the comments in this blog). Similarly, Western Conference fans may feel snubbed by the schedule or the hardware, and in turn feel there's a bias against the Western Conference. It really seems that simple.
Its not your normal run of the mill bias. Its almost to the point of ignorance, rather than simply a lack of attention.
Your last posting on Roloson amply demonstrates that. Clearly, the Maven hasn't put thought into the fact that Roloson was a major factor in not only the Oilers making the play-offs, but a large part of their run. Even on casual glance, the one series the Oil lost was the one Rolo didn't play in.
Its comments like these that are a dime-a-dozen and obviously some journalists and fans out east are much better educated. You don't get the frequency of ignorant statements like that out West.
As a Vancouver fan, I'm all for Luongo winning the Hart/Vezina. I also understand that I'm biased and saying Brodeur/Crosby make a better candidate for the Hart is equally valid and could be true. But we can't help but wonder if people like the Maven are allowed to vote. It just taints the process.
The perception is that this is more frequent out East than West.
Just to clarify, its always a law of numbers kind've thing. On average, Western fans have opinions on the Eastern Conference that are more grounded in the knowledge of what's happening with them specifically. The reverse is true in the East. There are many exceptions to both rules, but like I said, on average. This line of thought is almost given for anyone cheering in the West.
I have benifited from seeing this issue from both sides. I grew up in the East, lived in the West for over 10 years and am now back in the East. I have heard the same bias complaints, which I find ridiculous, from both sides. But greywall said the key word, perception. The East percieves the Western games to be played too late and in turn the West plays second fiddle to Eastern games in which they see more of not due to bias, just the way it is. The West percieves the East to be a "cupcake" conference because of travel differences and therefore cries of bias anytime the East is mentioned. To suggest that the media is biased is absured as I have seen pundits on each side claiming that the best hockey is played in the other conference. Spector points out the facts very well showing the bias claims to be bunk. To me, it's a non issue. It's only the perception of fans, depending on locale, that drives the arguement and there inlies the ignorance.
I think this is a bogus arguement. The same is said regarding the other major sports.
The fact of the matter is that the sports day has to start at a time when people can enjoy the games, especially those of their local teams. That has been determined, for whatever reaason, to be around 7:00 or 7:30pm for weeknight games local time. This gives people a chance to get home from work, grab dinner, and maybe do a chore or two before enjoying the game. For people on traditional schedules this works just fine.
It doesn't matter if you're in the East or the West, that's the set up. If anything, I would think fans out West would be happier with this set-up being that they can catch more sports action than their Eastern counterparts that have to work the next day.
I think it would be great to be able to flip a game on after work, while messing around the house and then get to sit down and check out my favorite team at night. People living in the East do not have that luxery.
As a Vancouverite I think Greywall said it best. I don't think there is a specific bias against western teams. Sure everyone has their favourite teams and likes the players on them but that is just homerism ... its expected. The ignorance that many eastern media people have about the west is not necessarily reflected in trophy voting because that boils down to the stars that everyone knows about regardless of conference. The ignorance is more reflected in little things ... like a list I read of the league's top penalty killers that didn't include a single Vancouver Canuck when they have the best penalty killing in the league.
There are other examples ... Greywall used the one I was going to use (Maven). But I have a couple of more.
- The lead play by play people for the Canadian national networks (Canadian - TSN and CBC) know all the players on Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto by heart but beyond a few stars regularly misidentify the players on the western teams, can't pronounce their names (Kevin Bee-ess-ka anyone?) ... or don't bother even trying ("he gets the puck ... he brings it out ... ooh ...what a play by that defenceman ...")
- Another eastern writer writing for ESPN just identified his top ten candidates for the Hart trophy. Seven were from the eastern conference and only one (Luongo) was from west of Nashville. Two were from the same team. I am sorry ... if a team has two MVP candidates they should be miles ahead of everyone else ... not struggling for a playoff spot. His list didn't include Nidermayer, Selanne, Thornton, or Iginla.
to finish ... i wouldn't expect to see all of those guys on a list but not to see any of them?
The sad thing is that because the league's fair haired boy Lou Lamoriello (speaking figuratively of course) has convinced them that his poor little team shouldn't spend more than ten nights a year out of their own beds this ignorance is going to get worse because the eastern media simply isn't going to see the western teams live more than once every three years.
I would LOVE ... love the opportunity to see Sydney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin live once a year. I would love eastern media to see the Sedins play keepaway more than once every three years ... but no such luck.
It's not an active bias, per se, as much as it is merely a matter of group think.
The major media markets and a plurality of the population is out east, so those teams (and by extension the teams they play the most often) will get more coverage and more attention. And when you play a Western team only twice every three years, while in that same span you've got 24 home and away dates with each of your division rivals (not including playoffs), which club are you going to care about?
Unless you're a very dedicated hockey fan, if you're living out east you are likely not staying awake for the Minnesota / Los Angeles game that finishes after midnight your time. So a lot of new players will fly under the radar of the casual fan. The Kings' Anze Kopitar, for example, is a great young player whom I think most of the Eastern media wasn't all that familiar with until the All-Star Game. Perhaps if the Kings were doing better in the standings, more people would have noticed sooner.
Living on the West Coast is the best of both worlds as we get the chance to watch a lot more hockey and not stay awake half the night. A Hockey Night in Canada doubleheader starts at 4 pm and ends at a very reasonable 10 pm. Then the NHL on NBC starts at 9:30 am the next morning, so it's up for a little Sunday hockey brunch after a good nights sleep. Very civilized!
Not to belabor the issue, but I think Gregsky missed my point. Definitely there is the overall impression of "the East is biased," which functions more of a buzzword that glosses over and hence obscures a valid complaint.
The compliant is along the lines of this. Players and teams playing in the West do not make the same impact on the general hockey psyche that comes from playing in the East. In the East, there is a complete absence of the flow of day-to-day hockey that's being played out West. I've also lived on both sides (having recently moved to Toronto). If I was to sum it up in one sentence, it would be this: Eastern fans to a large extent and the eastern media to a lesser extent care about the Eastern conference whereas people in the West are more pre-disposed to viewing the NHL as a North American market.
Hence, you get more informed hockey fans (and by extension the media which has to play to the crowd its given) in the West again on average.
Again, law of large numbers notwithstanding but you get this ignorance on a daily basis out East which happens once a week out West. Articles like the Maven's and the CBC calling the Canucks captain Mats Naslund on Hockey night in Canada are what feeds the perception. But like all good jokes, they do contain half-truths.
Hardly anybody notices and nobody cares what Naslund name is and he hardly is a career 4th liner just called up from the farm team. But Harry Neale, Cherry or anyone on the "national" hockey station called the captain of the Maple Leafs Markus Sundin, they'd be the laughingstock (or at least more
I'm not sure the assertion that the West is more informed because of geography and daylight savings time is correct. In any case, its no more accurate than saying "All the Eastern media is biased."
I agree with Spector that any bias is removed once you get to the hardware which is what really counts. Those who are paid to vote for these things are typically in the informed category (GMs, journalists, etc.) notwithstanding their public declarations and articles.
But our complaints haven't been that there aren't enough MVP's. Our complaint is why are you (not Spector but that ignorant section) so surprised it happened? If the Canucks by some warp of the imagination were in the same time zone as the Devils, Luongo winning out over Brodeur for the Vezina will be no surprise as they have pretty much the same stats. I bet dollar to donughts that there will be a significant number of people calling it an "upset" if it happens.
Last edited by greywall on March 22nd at 11:25 AM.
Each one of cymru's examples could be cited with mine.
I'd even go so much as to say that had Crosby been playing out west, the schedule would have been changed. the decision was lost by one vote, something like 22-8 in favor and it still doesn't pass. if it was only 23-7.... if only...
As an aside, this is my first time posting. Its awesome that you can go back and edit ur postings as they usually are a stream of conciousness sort of thing for me and I frequently mis-type what I really meant to say.
as a side note, I HATE the fact that most games start at 7pm. Its not easy for me to get to MSG after getting out of work at 5pm. I miss when games starting at 730pm.
also... loved that Wild/Phoenix game on Versus. Both teams have such ugly uniforms, and the Wild has to be the stupidist name for a hockey team ever.
Last edited by Messier94 on March 22nd at 12:54 PM.
Something I've noticed, particularly with the new schedule. Back when we actually played inter-conference hockey regularly, we east-coasters saw and heard about more western conference hockey than we do today. I stumbled across an interesting factoid this afternoon, while perusing the scores from last night. I can tell you the Rangers look like they'll be beaten by either New Jersey or Pittsburg in the first round. There're still five teams vying for the last two spots in the big dance, being New York, Long Island, Boston, Montreal, and Carolina. Buffalo's going to take the first seed in the East. Atlanta is pretty much set in third. Tampa and whoever loses out in the Pittsburg/New Jersey battle will win seeds 5 and 6.
Which brings me to my point: I have no idea who's in out west. Not due to lack of interest, but due to lack of coverage in the East. Geography plays a big part in it, but I think it's also helped by the way the regular season schedule progresses. The Eastern Conference rarely ventures West of the Mississippi, and y'all have 1-3 hours time advantage on us anyway.
Well I'm an Oiler fan, and I can't see how there could be a Western conference bias. In the West Luongo is without a doubt a the MVP of the year. He's faced a fair number of shots, has a great save percentage, 3 shutouts and an impressive 43 wins.
I don't think that GAA should be so directly related to a goalie's stats. It's a team play thing. Shots allowed, shots blocked, penalty kill, and gaa should be used to measure a team's offense. Goalies should be measured by shutouts and save percentage, and shootout performance.
Anyhow moving on. Luongo has had a great year, but Brodeur has 42 wins, a great save percentage, and an insane 12 shutouts. Luongo can't really compare to that. Plus when Vancouver's line-up of defensemen is healthy Luongo should be outplaying Brodeur on most nights.
Since the MVP candidates should be Lecavier, Hossa, Brodeur, Crosby and Luongo, there isn't much of an arguement that someone could make to say that there's a bias going on against the West.
Probably just some Shark fans who think their #### don't stink.
graywall - bottom line is that this is a stupid argument. Maybe because I follow all teams and don't have a favorite is the reason I'm not seeing the bias you speak of. Living on the East coast I do admit that it is more of a chore to catch the Western games but I'm able to do it and I stay informed and know as much about the West as I do the East. To think that people out West are any more informed than people in the East is just silly. I don't think anyone on the East coast was surprised that Thornton won the Hart, if they were then they weren't watching. I still think it is only the perception of fans that drives this and not so much the media. Anytime hockey is covered on ESPN (which isn't often) the talk is about the Western players. Melrose is forever going on about Lidstrom, Pronger and Luongo. Buccigross has said countless times that the West has the best hockey. ESPN is stationed out of CT. To say that there is a complete absense (in the East) of the flow of day-to-day hockey being played in the West is neither true or informed. But I believe that this is your perception of the way it is.
There is no reason to arrange the conferences in East and West Conferences except to keep the travel and TV schedules congenial for Eastern Conference teams -- at the expense of Western Conference teams.
Return to the Campbell and Wales Conference names (thereby eschewing the essential geographic reference) and populate each conference with teams from all four time zones. Everybody's ox would thus be gored ... nobody would be happy ... everybody would have something to complain about. In short, the perfect solution.
I believe there is a bias but it's neither to the east or west. The bias is towards hockey in general, at least in the states. A general lack of coverage of the sport even in local areas has become more and more common.
All the hockey news I've found as of late has come from the internet. It's hard to call the internet biased in any way. All the information is there for those who wish to find it.
As far as fans being bias, well of course they are. Does it matter to Islanders fans whos gonna be the third seed in the west? Probably not at least while they're still fighting to make the playoffs themselves.
So is there a bias towards western teams? Maybe from fans. But from the media no. That would require them to actually pay attention to the sport.
Well said hockeyfan30, if there is any bias at all that would be it. Although, if the American sports public would demand that hockey be moved from the back pages and the coverage intensified, the U.S. media would have to comply. But there is no public outcry from fans. True, there is quite a bit of complaining, but no one actually does anything but complain and fragmented at that. If U.S. hockey fans were to flood the major media markets with constant demands to cover more hockey some ground may be gained. If the NHL would get in the face of the American sports public with constant ads on tv they would attract more people to watch as the American public as a whole is rather lazy and needs things made easy or they lose interest. Unfortunately, these things don't happen and hockey struggles to get more coverage than tennis and water polo.
I think the true bias is against #### players in the NHL. When is the last time a homosexual player won one of the major awards? It is about time we got our fair share of the recognition regardless of our sexual orientation!
I agree competely. That is why since ESPN stopped showing NHL games I have not watched ESPN. Seriously I skip the channel while flipping through. I have also wrote several emails to networks that do carry NHL games (*cough foxsports) about pre-empting(sp?) NHL games that they had scheduled. Come on are there really more pro poker fans than hockey fans?
HOCKEY FANS UNITE!! Boycot ESPN. Write to FoxSports. DEMAND HOCKEY!!
hockeyfan30- your rant prompted me to write about the subject here - http://fans.nhl.com/gregsky/home/r>
continue writing and demanding that things change, it's the only way they will.
when teams from the east play an away game they usually end up sleeping in their own beds as opposed to the western teams who are away for a week or more at a time so any cost savings are strictly for the eastern teams. not to mention the moronic schedule whereby the west only gets to see Crosby and Ovechkin ONCE every 3 years unless of course they're injured then it becomes once every 6 years ... it's thinking like this that has attendance down and minimal tv coverage
a bias is a tendency or inclination that prevents an unprejudiced opinion of a question. Ignorance the tendency behind the bias ... not an excuse for it.
cymru: There's a big difference between willful ignorance (which thus can form the basis for bias) and unwillingly or unwittingly ignorant, which is the true factor that clouds eastern coverage of Western Conference teams.
A deeper explanation of bias is as follows, courtesy of Wikipedia: "A bias is a prejudice in a general or specific sense, usually in the sense for having a preference to one particular point of view or ideological perspective. However, one is generally only said to be biased if one's powers of judgment are influenced by the biases one holds, to the extent that one's views could not be taken as being neutral or objective, but instead as subjective."
It was originally suggested that the Eastern media is biased against the West. There has been no example by anyone to prove this claim. The worst they can be accused of is ignorance, not bias.
LOL ... not sure I actually wanted to enter the realms of philosphy here. But whatever ... my Random House Dictionary of the English Language (Second Edition - Unabridged) actually gives 11 different editions of bias. We are pretty much splitting hairs. You are saying there is no prejudice against the west ... no favouritism etc. I am saying there is a predilection or leaning to more favourable and complete coverage of eastern teams (through ignorance rather than some kind of deliberate 'east is better' slant) - neither is actually wrong - just depends which definition of bias you are 'biased' towards (heh). The real question ... is ignorance ok then?
Ignorance is understandable when the organizations whom the pundits in question work for are focussed solely on what's happening within their own realm.
HNIC is frequently mentioned as biased. CBC is certainly biased toward the Toronto Maple Leafs, which leaves their Eastern commentators at times embarrassingly ill-informed about Western Conference teams (or even some Eastern clubs, as at times they seem unaware of players on the roster of the Montreal Canadiens). I don't fault the commentators for the ignorance, so that's been forced upon them by the bias of their employers.
I'd be careful about citing Wikipedia as a reference in support of your argument. Cymru just might go edit that article and you'll be tricked into agreeing with him!
To throw my two cents back into the mix, the distinction that you're drawing between ignorance vs. bias falls upon the concept of whether such ignorance is an act of ommission (passive) or commission (willful).
For example, I'm mostly ignorant about European football. I have a passing knowledge of the game, and recognize a handful of the team names, but I don't have enough of an interest in that sport to pursue a greater understanding. One could argue this is a passive sin(i.e. I only remain ignorant because I haven't informed myself), while another could argue this is a willful act on my part (i.e. I have the opportunity to improve my understanding of that game, but I choose not to because I deem it to be unimportant).
One could further argue that my determination of what is and isn't important to me reflects a certain bias in my priorities. It can be a logical, well-reasoned bias -- I don't care much for that sport; I don't have a favourite team or player to cheer for, so I lack a vested interest -- but it remains a bias nevertheless.
For the record, I don't think there is an ACTIVE Eastern bias against the Western Conference. Rather, population distribution, time zones, media concentration and the current schedule contribute to (in general) a greater importance and awareness of the Eastern teams to the Eastern fans.
** continued **
Last edited by Matt_McCallum on March 25th at 2:36 PM.
The question becomes: Does the resulting lack of interest in the West by East -- which is a logical outcome given the factors described above -- constitute a PASSIVE bias?
Now that I live in the US, should I complain about the "obvious bias" against Canada in the US media because I don't see excerpts from Question Period broadcast on Fox News? Of course not -- it should be clear that what happens in the Canadian House of Commons usually doesn't have any impact the average American on a day-to-day basis. Given that, any Canadian political issues that do rise to a level of international importance certainly get covered south of the border.
The Western Conference is in the same boat. If we want to increase the coverage and awareness of the West in the East, the West has got to matter more to Eastern fans.
How do you go about doing that? A balanced schedule would be a start. When you play Edmonton three times a year rather than twice over three seasons, you might care a bit more about what's happening in the City of Champions, at least on the days when they're coming into your home rink.
But Western fans have to recoginize that we can't change geography, redistribute population centers, break-up media concentrations or change the history of traditional longstanding rivalries. Because of all these factors, Eastern teams are always going to be more important than Western teams. And Toronto is always going to be more important because they're Toronto.
Last edited by Matt_McCallum on March 25th at 3:02 PM.
Put simply, I don't believe there's any bias, passive or otherwise, by the Eastern media against the Western Conference, which I made clear in my post on this topic.
I spent half my adult life living in Western Canada (Victoria and Calgary) and Alaska so I can understand the frustration of fans of Western Conference teams over the coverage of those teams.
But as I originally stated, geography is more of a factor in coverage of Western teams by the East, and as far as balloting goes for individual awards, it's apparent that it doesn't exist amongst hockey writers and general managers.
I'm Lyle Richardson, also known as Spector, Foxsports.com 's "Prince of Pucks".,which is based on the fact I live in Prince Edward Island, Canada and I couldn't think of a better byline. I've been an NHL hockey commentator since 1998 on my website, Spector's Hockey, and I'm a contributing writer for Foxsports.com , The Hockey News and Eishockey News. I'm also a regular on The Faceoff Hockey Show and a frequent guest on "The Late Crew" on The Team 1200 Ottawa.
