Category: Sports
Division Rivalry: Let’s Stop Pretending about “College Sports”
In college sports, when is it okay to take your ball—or puck—and go home? A couple of months ago, a group of small, private colleges in Minnesota decided to boot a school from their athletic conference, the MIAC. The University
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Striking at the Heart
The stereotypical small-town person, or at least man, is a fan of sports, probably football. As I’ve written elsewhere, this isn’t necessarily wrong, but it is misunderstood. In fact, I’d like to offer a counterpoint: an example of how small-town
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Good Discrimination: Why Feminists Should Oppose Gender Identity in Athletics
She went skittering across the floor. Or, maybe I’m over-remembering a traumatic event. But she did slam into the decades-old, brightly colored vinyl pad against the brick wall, and hard. And the coach did call off practice. Immediately. I was
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Home, Sheet Home
Not all home-field advantages are created equal. Some don’t even exist. Major-league baseball has a beloved quirk: no two ballparks are the same. Different ballparks have different sizes of outfields (e.g. the huge outfields in Detroit), different heights of outfield
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The Rivals That Never Play
Professional and college football teams do not compete on the field, but they do compete at the state capitol. Just ask the taxpayers of Minnesota, who recently agreed to pay for two brand new football stadiums. The stadiums sit just
Read MorePoll Faulting
In “Poll Faulting: A Surprising Reason Why Preseason Polls Can Be Wrong,” I examined an unexpected reason for error in preseason polls. The article is data-driven, but casual fans can follow. It appeared on USCHO.com–please check it out here.
Read MoreOut of Realignment
In “Out of Realignment: Looking at Competitive Balance in College-Hockey Conferences,” I examined how the “new” conferences in college hockey stacked up in terms of past success, both recent and not-so-recent. It’s data-driven, but the casual fan can follow. The
Read MoreLeveling the Ice
In “Leveling the Ice: Looking at Parity in College Hockey’s National Tournament,” I analyzed the common perception (at least among fans of college hockey) that more and more teams are winning in the national tournament. It’s data-driven, but casual fans
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Friday Night Sights: Why Are People from Small Towns So Obsessed with High-School Football?
You can’t listen to country radio for long without hearing lyrics about a hometown football game. Football is king in rural areas. It’s a stereotype that holds up, and there are several good, logistical reasons why. The first reason boils
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