Parity

[Don Wassall]

Parity has come to the NHL with a vengeance this season. In the Eastern Conference every team currently has between 56 and 73 points. Pretty amazing,and I don't like it. Parity equals mediocrity. Give me dominant teams duking it out for the right to hoist the Stanley Cup rather than a league filled with virtually interchangeable squads.


At least we don't have to worry about every team eventually ending up with a .500 record thanks to the NHL's gimmick of adding a second loss column (the "OT" column). Teams that win in overtime or a shootout get a win, but if they lose it goes in the OT column rather than the loss column, thus making team records look better than what they are. Even in the parity-filled NHL, only 4 teams are "below .500" and only 1 is more than 3 games below. Gimmicky, gimmicky.

 

[Lance Alworth]

I disagree. Parity builds interest in a sport in most of the markets that remain competetive. I like the fact that there are only a few teams that are really out of it. Everyone else has a pretty decent chance of going the distance. Compare that to baseball where 1/3 of the teams know they're dead before opening day. I'll take the system of the NFL and the NHL over MLB's any day.

 

[cslewis1]

I agree with Lance. I'm a Caps fan and it's been a lot of fun paying attention to see if the Sabres beat Florida or whatever. A game like that before would mean nothing to me. Now, I check the scoreboard each night to see what the Eastern Conference teams did. It's so damned close now, a win over another conference team is a 4 pt game.

 

[pistol pete]

the Western Conference in the NBA is kind of like that. the top 9 teams (only 8 make the playoffs) are within 4 games of each other.

Very good teams only separated by a few games. that is probably the best kind of parity.