Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Archive21

We appear to have lost a good one

Maxim has evidently chosen to leave the project as a result of the drama that is associated with some administrative duties. Hopefully he chooses to return at some point, but if not, his work at WP:HOCKEY will be missed. Resolute 19:19, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Such a pity. --Krm500 (talk) 21:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

He must not quit. GoodDay (talk) 21:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

That's too bad. He seemed happy to be here and created our newsletter! -- bmitchelf•T•F 06:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Ken McKenzine

The NHL's official Stanley Cup history lists the coach of the 1922-23 Edmonton Eskimos as Ken McKenzine. I've been working on the List of Stanley Cup champions and I was going to create a page for him because it's the only redlink there, but I can't find anything about him. I realize he is the coach of a defunct team from over 80 years ago, so there won't be much on the internet about him, but a google search for the name only reveals 8 hits [1] and all of them relate to Stanley Cup champions. So is it a spelling mistake, an error, or is this guy just so utterly non-notable that nobody has bothered to mention him? -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 20:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Pretty sure his name is Ken McKenzie, not McKenzine. I don't have a source for that, though, just off the top of my head. It might help your search, though. --93JC (talk) 21:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

It is definitely Ken McKenzie. Actually, a book I currently have with team photos of the teams of that era identifies him as "Kenny McKenzie", though nothing is written about him as an individual. Resolute 23:00, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I've found some information on internet about Ken McKenzie, but not a whole lot. Here is his HockeyDB profile, which doesn't have biographical information. Here is a small blurb from a Google book. This website seemed to have the most information about him, mostly that he was both owner and general manager. It also lists his name as Kenny McKenzie. This website also lists his name as Kenny and said he owned teams in Regina and New Westminster. Patken4 (talk) 12:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Cup champion boxes

Just noticed on my watchlist that Masonpatriot has become the latest person to create a template for Stanley Cup champions (example being Template:1915 Vancouver Millionaires. I don't think he's gotten to far, but it would be a good idea for someone to go through and remove them. I've left a message explaining our reasons for keeping if off the hockey pages

Hey everyone. I posted a response on Kaiser matias' talk page regarding the navboxes. I did not know that WP:HOCKEY has specifically not supproted them, though I think there are easy solutions for those worried about too much clutter. I've seen Henri Richard's name kicked around as a case-in-point of clutter, but 11 navboves are easily merged into one colapsible navbox. See below, as this this the navbox used on the Babe Ruth page:

World Championships

Anyway, let me know your thoughts. I'm not trying to make waves, but I don't see how in this context hockey is different from baseball, american football, basketball, etc who use these type of navboxes. Thanks. - Masonpatriot (talk) 01:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I've always opposed them, and I continue to oppose them. The collapsed superbox helps alleviate the visual pollution that results from the ridiculous overtemplating the other sports projects have plagued themselves with, however, these templates continue to suffer from the same fundamental flaw: The teammates any player has in any given year is non-defining for that player. They remain useless clutter, and sweeping them into a box doesn't change this. The other projects would do well to get rid of them. Resolute 04:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I would have to agree, the teammates a player played with is non-defining for that player. I have nominated them again at this TFD. I would have deleted them for recreated content except that a number of them have never been created before so I put em back up. -Djsasso (talk) 15:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Definitely an example of misplaced enthusiasm. I would agree that putting them on a player's page can contribute to clutter and doesn't really add anything of value to the player's page. I'd rather that people work on the content of these player's articles from the past. There is a lot of work needed to be done there. That said, before deleting them, I do want to ask this question: Is there a place for this format of template on other pages, e.g. team pages, season pages or Stanley Cup pages? Also, should there be a link from the TfD discussion page to here? Alaney2k (talk) 15:46, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Players who won the championships are already listed on the season pages for the teams they were on, so there is no need for the template on team season pages as the information is already there, and on the main team article itself it would suffer from the same problem as the player pages. Can you imagine how many Montreal would have? As far as a link on the TFD. This discussion should actually be discussed there now, as opposed to here. Hence my link in this discussion to the TFD. -Djsasso (talk) 15:53, 21 April 2008 (UTC)\

Red_Wings-Avalanche_brawl_1997

What do you guys think of expanding the article into the greater Wings-Avelanche rivarly? Chaldean (talk) 03:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Rival articles in the past have been deleted due to often being heavily original research and filled with point of view stuff.. -Djsasso (talk) 15:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Pretty much. I can point to entire books about the Battle of Alberta, but most rivalries are built around fan legends and stories. If you can find the sources for it, however, I say go for it. Resolute 20:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale template up for discussion

Since {{Logo fur}} is used on logos within this project, members should have a look at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2008_April_21#Template:Logo_fur_and_just_about_every_other_boilerplate_FUR_template. Flibirigit (talk) 21:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Country names at time of player's birth

There is a user insisting on changing Anze Kopitar's country of birth to Slovenia from Yugoslavia. Could someone who knows where to find that policy spelled out point him to it on that article's talk page? Thanks. :-) -- Gmatsuda (talk) 00:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I've adopted the example at Jaromir Jagr. -- GoodDay (talk) 17:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Country of birth‎. --necronudist (talk) 18:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

My Jagr solution isn't being accepted at Anze Kopitar; we need assistance folks. GoodDay (talk) 18:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

It's quite clear that these people only care about promoting Slovenia, probably because they are from there, or maybe they're just anti-Yugoslavia, or whatever. In any case, that's all they care about. It's not about Anze Kopitar, the subject of the article. It's about Slovenia getting recognition. Sad, but true. -- Gmatsuda (talk) 21:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Goodday, I love your solution. The Slovenian nationalists, not so much.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 01:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

What about Jesenice, SR Slovenia, Yugoslavia? --necronudist (talk) 19:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I thought about yesterday. Sure, give it try. GoodDay (talk) 19:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

On the importance of correct international spelling

I think there was some discussion recently about use of international characters in player names. I don't know what you decided, or where that discussion is, but I thought you might like to read this article about the problems caused when a cell phone used "sikisince" instead of "sıkısınca". Kind Regards. Dan Beale-Cocks 17:15, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

While I liked the last sentence of the article ("Alternatively, the press could ask for banning knives from the homes of demonstrably stupid people."), what's the relevance of that link to the English Wikipedia?  RGTraynor  19:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Should players with foreign language names have their real names mentioned somewhere in the article, or just the "easy read" version for people who can't cope with squiggles? That article shows that kludging foreign characters to something that looks vaguely similar can have unintended effects. Dan Beale-Cocks 12:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Colorado Avalanche

Seems a bunch of clowns in Detroit decided to hammer the Avs article to the point it had to be fully protected. Might not be a bad idea to keep an eye out on other Avs related articles, as well as Red Wings related ones, in case a "counter-attack" occurs. Resolute 18:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Already had Joe Sakic hit. Apparently he wanted to be traded to a "respectable" franchise, the Red Wings. Kaiser matias (talk) 19:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

rofl... now they are vandalizing the Red Wings article with comments about how Colorado sucks. I've semi'd Detroit Red Wings for ten days. Resolute 03:40, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I've got a few articles on various players on both teams on my watchlist. I really hope that we don't have to protect all these pages. Kaiser matias (talk) 03:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

My apologies on behalf of all fans of the 2008 Stanley Cup Champions Detroit Red Wings... ;-) . - Rjd0060 (talk) 04:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to watchlist the other playoff teams, in case this happens again. Unlikely. If you didn't know already, the attack on Colorado Avalanche was coordinated by 971 the ticket in Detroit. ANI thread. Enigma ^message 15:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protection

It seems we deal daily with vandalism on every team article page. Can we ask for semi-protection on a permanent basis? It is almost always from IP addresses, why not just permanently block them? Alaney2k (talk) 20:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

No, semi-protection is only when there is a prolonged amount of vandalism many times a day. Like 10+ for example. A couple vandals here and there are not enough for semi-protection. Something like 80% of edits on wikipedia are done by IPs so they don't like to restrict IPs from being able to edit. -Djsasso (talk) 20:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Makes me wonder. Does that mean that 80% of edits are vandalism? (seems like it sometimes) This must be discussed regularly somewhere? The thing is that it is daily, every day. Why not take steps on the 30 NHL articles? (It's only 30 out of millions) Would that be out of line? Alaney2k (talk) 21:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I've always been in favour of making User registration mandatory. GoodDay (talk) 21:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Mostly again because wikipedia as a whole wants to be open to everyone to edit, and blocking IPs turns alot of editors off due to the hassle of creating an account. Now whether or not we should allow IPs to edit without registering. That is a debate I am not getting into, but I am pretty sure its something that will never happen. I don't know if most of the edits are Vandalism or not coming from IPs but I doubt it. I have seen a number of highly contributive editors who only ever edit as IPs so I would have to say probably not. Also there are alot of IP edits consisting of grammar fixes or typo fixes or people who know about a specific topic and correct an error but only ever make that one edit. So no I don't really think we should block all these articles, I actually think blocking them would be against overall policy unless the vandalism is rampant on a particular day like Colorado was today. We get alot of major contribs in the hockey project from IPs so it would more likely hurt than help the project to block such things. Most of us have all the teams on our watchlist anyways and vandals edits don't last more than a few minutes at most. -Djsasso (talk) 21:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

It would also be a violation of the protection policy and flies in the face of Wikipedia's stated goal: to be the largest encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Unfortunately, this means we have to deal with trolls and vandals, but relatively speaking, the damage isn't that bad, and is almost always reverted within minutes. As far as useful IP edits go, I've noticed that most game log updates for season articles were done by IPs. Resolute 22:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Okie Dokie. I must concede, not all anons are vandals & trollers. GoodDay (talk) 22:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

How about some sort of protection for the Sean Avery article? It has been attacked several times the last few days and it will only get worse once the second round starts. EDIT: Oh and I would love that fancy new undo feature you admins hand out *wink* --Krm500 (talk) 22:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, I wonder if Marty Brodeur is behind the vandalism. GoodDay (talk) 23:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks like you got a present from me Krm500, enjoy. -Djsasso (talk) 23:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

It would probably be a good idea to keep an eye on some articles associated with teams in the second round, as it will only get worse as the playoffs go on. Kaiser matias (talk) 23:14, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, you beat me to it. Anyway, Sean Avery is scum! :P Enigma ^message 15:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I think we got a bit off-track here. I am not talking about individual liberty and freedom. We do have libel laws and copyright laws, so let's not get into that.

I was talking about the constant vandalism and graffiti on these 30 team articles. That is completely different than 'vandalism storms'. It's why there are bots cleaning up regularly, why we have watchlists on these articles. At some point, the vandalism watching and correcting just seems pointless. We can safely predict it's going to continue, so why do nothing about prevention? These articles are 'vandalism targets'.

As we work towards Featured article status on some of these teams, will we continue to tolerate it? I think at this project, we'd like to get all of the team's articles to the top level, although I guess with the use of non-free images, the articles will never be on the CD version. Anyway, I think that when you get an article through the process, while not 'owning' the article, you do like to think that it will not get trashed unnecessarily. Some basic level of safety.

How much time are we going to waste over corrections? At even a few vandalisms each day, it becomes thousands of vandalisms over the year. Over a small number of articles. Are the eds replying here about 'leave it unprotected' the ones who are watching and correcting the vandalism??? And the ones who do, how much longer will your patience last? I may bring this up now, and likely it will come up again in the future.

There are templates, for example, which are on permanent protection un-related to vandalism. So, it is acceptable to keep some protection on in isolated cases. Why is it wrong to suggest that because these 30 are vandalism targets, that we'd like a bit more time to work on them, instead of cleanup?

The process of putting on the full protection, even temporarily, requires another level of vigilance. More overhead. It has to follow procedure. It expires.

I know this was a rant. And of course I should be editing instead. Really, I'm okay. Don't worry about me. Not going postal. Not going postal... :-) Alaney2k (talk) 16:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I think semi-protection for all 30 NHL team articles, would be acceptable. GoodDay (talk) 16:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Again that would discourage new editors. Other than the slight frustration involved in reverting something. There is really no damage done. And as far as the frustration goes I say just let it go. *shrug* -Djsasso (talk) 16:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Again because it comes down to losing future good editors that will help edit these articles. You mention how we waste time on cleaning this mess up. I like to think we gain time by cleaning this mess up because if even one editor becomes a regular editor like you or I then that time they put in is probably greater than the time we spent reverting a change. I don't know about you but it takes me less than 15 seconds to revert a vandal. I have most major articles on my watchlist and more often than not have their vandalism reverted in less than a minute so no true damage is done. And as I mentioned One good editor gained makes the simple push of the undo button worth it as their time editing is probably greater than the amount of time I wasted. -Djsasso (talk) 16:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I suppose, semi-protection of all 30 articles, would smack of Ownership by this WikiProject. An accusation, we don't want. GoodDay (talk) 16:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

While I was typing in my rant, a vandalism was caught at Ottawa Senators by a bot. Sheesh! To respond to a couple of things. It is only 30 articles, how would that stop new editors? We could put up a note saying something to encourage new ed's. 'Vandalism' plagues this article, but we would like you to edit ice hockey articles -- see our to-do list. Maybe we need one like, Vandals will be hunted down and forced to explain their behaviour to their parents in the middle of the night, naked. :-) I don't know how protecting known vandalism targets would qualify as ownership? Alaney2k (talk) 17:07, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

While I'm with you about anon editing because most of my time on Wikipedia is spent dealing with vandals, warning them, reverting them, getting them blocked, requesting that pages be protected, etc., a member of the Wikiproject protecting all 30 articles would definitely smack of ownership. It would be a Wikiproject attempting to control the articles completely. Enigma ^message 17:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Enigaman is correct. WikiProjects can only give advise on the articles it's concerned with. GoodDay (talk) 17:42, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't forget that those 30 articles are possibly the most visible 30 articles for hockey besides the Stanley Cup, National Hockey League and Ice hockey itself. Those are the pages most likely to be edited by someone new. If I look back at your own edit past, correct me if I am wrong but didn't it start with the Ottawa Senators page mostly? Wikipedia itself has stated that we should avoid at all costs when reasonable putting protection on pages. The idea behind Wikipedia is that anyone can edit. You restrict IPs/Newly created editors and you defeate the purpose of Wikipedia. Yes there are pages that are always protected, but usually those are pages that are vandalised hundreds of times a day like George W. Bush. -Djsasso (talk) 17:47, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

While it would be nice to semi-protect the articles, there is a simple problem: there is no policy reason to semi-protect the articles most times, and none that would justify permanent semi-protection. If we attempted it, it would be reversed in a real hurry, and the admin(s) who did it would have to answer some questions about why they should remain admins. So far we've managed to minimize the threat the articles, and protected the pages as necessary for the lengths necessary. Resolute 01:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

NHL team season articles' Playoff Template

Should the goaltender under Decesion, be the winning goaltender? Or are things OK the way they are? GoodDay (talk) 22:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

No the standard is to have that teams goalie. As that goalie got the decision win or lose. Decision does not equal win. -Djsasso (talk) 22:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll fix up the changes I made. GoodDay (talk) 22:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

It's all a matter of who got credited with the win or loss. And since its that teams page its appropriate to have that teams goalie. -Djsasso (talk) 22:07, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Okie Dokie, I've reverted my mistakes at 2007-08 Washington Capitals season & 2007-08 Ottawa Senators season. -- GoodDay (talk) 22:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

WHA Junior Hockey League merge proposal

Please see here: Talk:WHA Junior Hockey League#Merge discussion

This league has really gone to hell... since pretty much day one... I would appreciate some input as I would like to merge all 6 remaining team articles with the main article. DMighton (talk) 10:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:Evolution of the NHL

I think {{Evolution of the NHL}} is ugly. I've made my own here [delinked sandbox link], shamelessly stolen from {{evolution3}}. Any thoughts?-Wafulz (talk) 13:39, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I like it.  RGTraynor  14:04, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I am sure no one will object. It does look much better. -Djsasso (talk) 14:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I've put it through. Feel free to play with it if you want better colours/images/text.-Wafulz (talk) 14:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Good job. --necronudist (talk) 15:35, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I tweaked it so that the leagues and years are aligned vertically. Glad to see another use of this image. It's very old, from Farrell's 1899 book on ice hockey. Alaney2k (talk) 15:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

The NHL line doesn't align correctly (at least that's what it looks like in my browser). I had set the leagues to align right and the dates to align left, which had everything align correctly, but that was reverted and I'm not sure why. Jmj713 (talk) 22:08, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Links to wikia

What is the policy on links to wikia.com, as in the National Hockey League rivalries article, e.g. Wikia:IceHockey:List of Boston Bruins-Montreal Canadiens playoff series? It seems like viral marketing. Alaney2k (talk) 16:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I think we treat it the same as we would treat any other wiki. Namely, from "Links to avoid":

Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors. Wikis that meet this criteria might also be added to Meta:Interwiki map.-Wafulz (talk) 18:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not really viral marketing as alot of us edit on that site as well. What happened was that article was deleted from wikipedia and transwikied to the ice hockey wikia. I have been looking at that link for awhile and trying to decide if it should stay or go. What has probably kept me from removing it is that wikia is run by one of our better contributers. -Djsasso (talk) 18:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I am an admin on the other wiki... and I personally try to avoid using it as a source. I think that it isn't a terrible thing to link to for more info per se... I really like it for storying league standings for the different Junior leagues. It is meant not for conjecture or original research, but literally cover hockey better than we do on wikipedia... at least that is the ultimate goal. I think at 2600 articles, we have had a good start. DMighton (talk) 05:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

More articles doesn't mean more quality. --necronudist (talk) 18:49, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

And nor did I claim it did, but I did say the wiki has had a good start. Feel free to contribute. DMighton (talk) 20:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I will. --necronudist (talk) 21:00, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs & the other SC Playoffs articles

I see the dios are spread out over these 'NHL articles' -against this Project's agreement-. I don't think I can keep up my efforts (removing dios), anymore. Could somebody call my a psyciatrist? GoodDay (talk) 22:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I've stopped enforcing the diacritics guideline because I think it's a misguided rule. The people who care about such a guideline can take care of it. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 23:07, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I only change them if they are overtly changed by someone. You are about the only one who actively changes them to be honest GoodDay. -Djsasso (talk) 01:47, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sticking to the NHL team rosters. Trying to invoke the non-dios half of the compromise on all the Hockey articles, is prooving increasingly impossible. I just might be, the last of the Mouhigans (considering the dios). GoodDay (talk) 15:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

You're not. I change them whenever I see them.  RGTraynor  19:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Yip Yip Yahoo. I'm not alone, afterall. GoodDay (talk) 19:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There ya go. You have a posse now. :) -Djsasso (talk) 19:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I've cleaned up the 2007 Stanley Cup Playoffs article, today. I think I'll do a SC Playoffs article per day. The NHL team articles' rosters are stable, therefore I can give more attention to the SC's. GoodDay (talk) 17:13, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization

Why is playoffs capitalized? It this a proper name? I believe it should be Stanley Cup playoffs instead. We have 2007–08 NHL season which is not capitalized. Comments? Flibirigit (talk) 19:51, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Because it is a proper name. The Stanley Cup Playoffs. Just like Olympic Games not Olympic games. -Djsasso (talk) 20:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I cannot find the NHL referring to it as a proper name. Flibirigit (talk) 20:11, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a trademarked name. The old playoff logos used to have it that way. But after looking at the last few years logos they have dropped the word playoffs. -Djsasso (talk) 20:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Disruptor?

It appears we may have a disruptor. Would somebody, help me straighten the lad out. GoodDay (talk) 19:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Trevor Linden

I've been working on Trevor Linden on and off for the past few months now in hopes of reaching FA status, and have found myself in a position where I'm at a loss of what to add. So if anyone wouldn't mind going through and reviewing it so I have some more direction of what to add. I know it's not close enough, but I just can't see where. Any help would be great. Kaiser matias (talk) 00:48, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of chronic reversions ...

It bugs me every time I stumble across a pre-1986 "Chicago Blackhawks," as well as every time some wellmeaning fellow otherwise ignorant of hockey history changes to the usage. Is there some bot someone can recommend to search out every occurrence of "Chicago Blackhawks" and correct to the proper pre-1986 "Black Hawks" as needful? Obviously a global change is inappropriate, but it'd be nice to have something that could "find next instance" and have a one-click change. Any notions?  RGTraynor  19:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not certain a script could be written that would be able to identify if the reference to Chicago describes an event pre- or post-1986. This may be something we'll have to change manually as we come across it. Resolute 19:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Resolute is probably correct, a script probably couldn't be written. But someone could manually do it with AWB but it would take quite awhile with 10k hockey articles out there to scan through. -Djsasso (talk) 19:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

You can start with everything that links to Blackhawks. Alaney2k (talk) 19:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh you could start that way, but there are also all the articles that don't link back. Though most should. -Djsasso (talk) 19:47, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it has to be done manually. No script I know could possibly identify which version of the team is being referenced. Enigma ^message 19:48, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Here is a quirk that will throw off people. Detroit Red Wings has a hawks mention for 33-34 and some recent. So that would mean the two spellings in one article. Alaney2k (talk) 19:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

And another Illinois lists the team as starting in 1926. Use the old spelling or the current? Alaney2k (talk) 19:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Two spellings in one article wouldn't be an issue, the spelling was officially changed. It's no different than changing from Ducks to Mighty Ducks or whatever. This is different from having the same word spelled differently in the same page as in this case its a proper name. -Djsasso (talk) 20:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, no, I'm sure that nothing could be written to automatically make the proper distinctions, and I wouldn't trust it anyway. What I DO want is something like this:

• fire up bot;
• bot goes to article after article, everywhere that has "Chicago Blackhawks" in it;
• bot highlights the usage and gives me the option of changing it, moving on or marking the article with a "Don't bother" tag on the script (Jonathan Toews is fuggedaboutit, Dale Tallon a mebbe, Stan Mikita a "This is Black Hawks and nothing but"); and
• go on to the next one.

 RGTraynor  20:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

In that case, that is exactly what AWB does. -Djsasso (talk) 20:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Reliable sources

On the Scott Stevens peer review, I had someone question the reliability of the following sites:

• http://www.hockeydraftcentral.com/index.htm
• http://www.hockeydb.com/index.html
• http://www.statshockey.net/
• http://www.sportsecyclopedia.com/

Now obviously we utilize hockeydb.com quite extensively, so I don't think that will be a problem. But has anyone else come across a problem using the other three sites? I guess I'm asking for an official ruling on what sites we permit as reliable & verifiable, so that we can use them in GA & FA nominees/articles. Any assistance would be much appreciated, because the hockeydraftcentral site especially is chock full of info that I can't get anywhere else without losing my mind and going through 15 different locations. Anthony Hit me up... 13:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

HockeyDB definitely is reliable. It even cites its sources. Sports e-cyclopedia I would consider reliable as well. It is cited in both the Devils and Flames articles, both FA's, and I could vouch for the accuracy of the Flames history on that site via some book sources I have. I suspect the amateurish look of that website harms its credibility in the minds of some. Hockeydraftcentral I would trust as well. Again, I can vouch for the accuracy of the info via other books and sites. Statshockey seems okay, but I suspect this disclaimer might cause concern: I believe the information found on Stats Hockey is accurate and complete but do not provide any Warranty or Guarantee that it is accurate and will stay that way. I suspect anything found there can be found elsewhere too. Resolute 15:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I used Hockeydraftcentral for Joe Sakic, and never had any problems. Like Resolute said, any information it has obviously came from a written source that we could find, after much searching and agony. Kaiser matias (talk) 04:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Gee wheez, Hockeydraftcentral hasn't been updated since November 2005. I wonder what happen to the guy. GoodDay (talk) 19:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I've found hockeydraftcentral to be very reliable. That being said, while hockeydb corrects errors when they are pointed out, I've found a number in my time, and I wouldn't call it completely reliable. That being said, it's perceived to be.  RGTraynor  23:34, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

List of Stanley Cup champions

Just a heads-up to everyone. The review for FL status for this article is not just a review. Some formats of tables and contents have changed. Most for the better, but I think everyone should take a look for consensus. The list of appearances is significantly different. I don't think it is for the better, so I think we should all take a look. Discussion at Talk:List of Stanley Cup champions#Win/loss_record. Alaney2k (talk)

Notability

Could somebody direct me to the guidelines where we get that an AHL player is notable? All I can see at WP:ATHLETE is highest-level competition. Grsz^talk 01:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The guideline you've cited says players "who have competed in a high-level, fully professional league", not "highest-level competition", as you have suggested. The AHL is a professional league. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 01:08, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:Hockey notability standards are here. Applicable section is next.

• Played five or more seasons, and at least 100 games, in a fully professional minor league such as the American Hockey League, the International Hockey League, the ECHL, the Mestis, the HockeyAllsvenskan or other such league. -Pparazorback (talk) 01:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course as it stands WP:ATHLETE trumps our projects notability guidelines. However, a number of us follow our guidelines when deciding whether a player should be created or not. But once its created WP:ATHLETE takes over. -Djsasso (talk) 14:36, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Bob Murray

Well I've done some sloothing, and have discovered a striking similarity between a couple of articles here. It seems to me that one Robert John Murray is the very same individual as one Bob Murray (ice hockey b. 1948). Now the question, which one stays and which one goes. Any ideas? – Nurmsook! (talk) 05:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Hockeydb links to "Bob Murray" [2] so I would keep that one. Thricecube (talk) 05:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The Hall of Fame site does too.  RGTraynor  13:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Robert John Murray should stay as per MOS the true name should be used prior to resorting to bracketed ambiguitors, however the bracketed one should be redirected to the other. And of course merge and relevant information. -Djsasso (talk) 14:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Bob Murray (ice hockey) now links to both of the Bob Murray's who played hockey. -Djsasso (talk) 14:34, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Season-by-season tables

I would like to have all NHL teams' season tables be in a uniform standard, and I really like they way, for instance, the Devils look. I just went through all the teams, bolding playoff wins, but ultimately I'd like to convert them all to that format as used on the Devils table and a couple of others. Also, I'd like to do this for the defunct teams, of course. And finally create a new article that would list active and defunct teams' and their all-time performance with links to the season articles in a sortable table. There's no such list right now, and I believe it to be rather important as it would serve as a great tool to quickly gather important performance information on any NHL team, past and present. Jmj713 (talk) 21:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

There actually already are standards for most of those things you mentioned. I believe the New Jersey table actually deviates from the standard. Take a look at Calgary Flames seasons for an example. We are currently working on taking most of these to the same standard already. Most teams defunct or active are being converted. As far as an all time standings page go ahead and create it. And bolding is only done for Stanley Cup wins in the current way of doing things. As technically thats the only win that matters. -Djsasso (talk) 21:15, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I only used NJ as an example of the style, but Calgary does look even better. As far as wins bolding, I think they all should be bolded, since it helps to grasp a team's performance through the years. Perhaps a Finals win should be denoted somehow specially, but I don't think it's necessary. I'll think of the best way to present an all-time table and create it if no one objects. Jmj713 (talk) 21:22, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Calgary Flames seasons was the example I used because it is already a Featured list. But yeah everything is always up for discussion so what do others think about bolding? -Djsasso (talk) 21:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

A finals win is denoted by the blue background, is it not? Regarding the bolding of playoff series wins, I did that a while ago for Philadelphia Flyers seasons. I think it looks better but then again I also set the font for the results smaller than Calgary Flames seasons. --Ulf17 (talk) 22:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend that Washington Redskins seasons be the standard that 'seasons' articles be measured by. It does not bold, just the color coding. I see no need for bolding except possibly if you wanted to reduce 'Won' to a 'W' and 'Lost' to an 'L'. That's for spacing. Of course, it mentions previous incarnations of teams, something that -certain people- disagree with . ;-> It does color code the headings, which I like. Alaney2k (talk) 22:17, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of previous incarnations, I just started compiling the all-time performance table and I think relocated teams should be listed separately from their current franchises.Jmj713 (talk) 22:23, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the majority prefers it that way. The other sports don't do it that way, but the ice hockey seasons do so. That's a big debate. Alaney2k (talk) 22:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

E.g. Calgary Flames seasons would include Atlanta Flames seasons. Alaney2k (talk) 22:44, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

That isn't actually true, baseball doesn't do it that way, and most recent NFL and NBA teams don't do it that way either. Its only the very old teams that tend to be merged into one. The reason that other person at the FLC kept using the Washington article as an example was that it was an exception to the rule. -Djsasso (talk) 01:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I created a rough version of the all-time table I was talking about. Will populate it with data in the next few days. All are welcome to help! Jmj713 (talk) 01:33, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Just an FYI, your table is now at All-time NHL team performance list. You spelled performance wrong. --Michael Greiner 03:02, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that! To be honest, I don't really like this article title, but I couldn't come up with anything better... Jmj713 (talk) 04:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I like. FWIW, I like the idea the Redskins table uses of bolding only the word "won". I'm not a fan of your bolding the entire line, as I find that the bold text draws my eyes away from the rest of the table, it becomes distracting. And yes, I am very much in favour of keeping stats separate for different incarnations of the franchises. A few here are well aware of my position on that topic, heh. Resolute 03:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The only exceptions being, of course, when a team just changes their name, from simple changes like Chicago Black Hawks to Chicago Blackhawks or Mighty Ducks of Anaheim to Anaheim Ducks, to more complex, like with Toronto Maple leafs or California Golden Seals (I think I just named all such instances, anyway). Jmj713 (talk) 04:11, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah most people consider name changes in the same location to be the same. Its the moving that is the key to calling for a split. -Djsasso (talk) 14:16, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

About the other sports: Look at Atlanta Braves season records. That includes the Boston teams as well. Why isn't that better? Why is including the past stops along the way of the team such a problem? It's a way to provide back up to a History of article. The Colorado Avalanche did not start from nothing. In ice hockey, we indicate that by saying look for the Nordiques seasons article. It's just done differently. Other advantages include the maintenance of just one article. Putting the previous teams in the one article means it is all in one place, which is a solid advantage in my book. If the Nordiques or North Stars had won Stanley Cups, then people would be pushing to have those teams records in the seasons articles. In fact, in the List of Stanley Cup appearances article, we do lump the franchise totals together, e.g. Dallas/Minnesota. Alaney2k (talk) 14:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Very simply article size. It is considerably much more adventageous to have the articles split. Size wise, ability to include more information on both pages because you aren't restricted in that way. Each incarnation had its own history. This isn't just limited to sports articles. Articles in general you split at points where they make the most sense, in the case of articles like this the most obvious place to split an article is when it switches locations. Secondly most people dispite the franchise being the same, they consider the TEAM to be a seperate team and to have its own history. If I am looking for the Avanlanche history I don't want to know the Nordiques information unless I ask for it. Which is why you would link it in the prose at the top of the article. Wikipedia is not paper, so there is no reason to try and shove all that history onto one page. Quite simpley having pages split up makes it easier for people with slower connections to read pages. Heck even people with faster connections often prefer smaller pages. That being said thats just the technical reason, there are many others practical reasons as well. You've managed to single handedly kill two FLs because you wanted to argue against the majority at the noms but then I think you usually like to pick the side opposite pretty much everyone else. You have this wierd desire to merge articles like you did with Ottawa Senators and Ottawa Senators (original). -Djsasso (talk) 14:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Not an objective discussion, let's move on. Anyway, should we split up the numbers at List of Stanley Cup appearances? Alaney2k (talk) 14:39, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Notice at the top of that page it says franchise appearances not team appearances. -Djsasso (talk) 14:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should change it to team appearances. Alaney2k (talk) 14:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so for this new list, then the splits will occur on city changes only. The team is a different team when it relocates. Name or ownership changes, no. Alaney2k (talk) 14:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

What new list are you talking about? I've only been talking about team season pages. Lists I don't care how they are done. Its team season pages I care about. Lists can be configured anyway you want as long as you make it clear in them what they are talking about. Season pages themselves should be split when they relocate. -Djsasso (talk) 14:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

He meant the new All-time NHL team performance list I created yesterday. As far as team seasons, the Dallas season currently also contain the Minnesota seasons. Jmj713 (talk) 15:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like someone tagged them on there in August and it wasn't noticed. It's now in its own article. -Djsasso (talk) 15:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

David Vyborny

David Vyborny signed this week with HC Sparta Praha, to join them for next season. See news report. An anon has already updated his page to list Praha. The playing career section will need to be updated too. My question is, is it too soon to list Praha as his current team if he starts there next season. I will add Columbus as his former team if not. They've already had a press conference, with his jersey, etc. Alaney2k (talk) 20:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

It is too early to put him in the category for the players of that team. But he is the property of that team so you can list it in the infobox. -Djsasso (talk) 20:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Can Vyborny be 'removed' from the Blue Jackets current roster section? GoodDay (talk) 20:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:BOLD is all I have to say. :P -Djsasso (talk) 20:12, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

An anon, beat me to it. GoodDay (talk) 20:16, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Merge articles?

We've got 2008 IIHF World Championship and 2008 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships articles. They appear to be the same subject. GoodDay (talk) 18:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

2008 IIHF World Championship (16 countries/teams) is the top level of the 2008 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships (46 countries/teams). --Bamsefar75 (talk) 18:59, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Yup like he said. The first article is only part of the second article. -Djsasso (talk) 19:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Okie Dokie; I often find the relegation part of this tournament 'confusing' & rarely covered in the Sports world. GoodDay (talk) 19:23, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Probably cause it never matters to Canada really. -Djsasso (talk) 19:54, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

However, quite an interesting subject that deserves more attention. Just something about a game between Armenia and Mexico held in Bosnia. Totally meaningless, even in their home nations, but at the same time so riveting. Kaiser matias (talk) 01:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, the titles of the articles seem to be about the same topic. Can this not be improved? Alaney2k (talk) 16:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

It's the s that makes all the difference, that combined with the first line of the one article should make it clear. But it definately can be confusing to the non-hockey fan. Do you have any suggestions? I think the biggest problem is that they are both using their official names I believe. So to change it from official name to something we like better might be an issue. -Djsasso (talk) 16:14, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Vancouver Canucks task force

Another task force has been born! I have gone ahead and launched a Vancouver Canucks task force under this WikiProject. Currently sitting at six members, we will be getting the ball rolling with the tagging of articles for this project, followed by some much needed improvements to many of the Vancouver Canucks related articles here. If you would like to join the task force, add your name to list list found here. I plan on being very active with this task force and know that the current members are great Canucks fans and editors, so don't count on it being some ghost project! – Nurmsook! (talk) 22:48, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Eric Kroshus

Can a member of this wikiproject look over the above article and check it for notability? I am not sure if he meets WP:Athlete. Thanks. Oore (talk) 02:17, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I would say no, and have PRODed the article. The article spends virtually its entire existence trying to invent notability for itself, but Mr. Kroshus remains a junior player who has not won any individual awards of note. His only claim is winning the title in two leagues in consecutive years, but that it is restricted specifically to junior hockey, and is completely unproven greatly diminishes the value of the claim. I would not doubt that many players have won titles in two leagues in consecutive seasons once you expand to all of North American hockey. Resolute 02:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

He neither meets WP:ATHLETE or our own criteria. Despite the appearance of numerous inline sources, the "sources" given turn out to be aimed at nothing more than the top pages of the various league websites. Like Resolute, I don't doubt that many dozens of players at least have won championships in both Tier II and Tier I in consecutive years. Come to that, there is at least one player who's won titles in the NCAA and the AHL and the NHL, something of a rarer feat.  RGTraynor  09:11, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I won't be suprised if Teslamaniac is Eric Kroshus. He already removed a prod once, I'd AFD it. ccwaters (talk) 13:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah this guy definitely doesn't meet inclusion standards.-Wafulz (talk) 13:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Eric is also widely believed to have coined the phrase, "It's science, look it up." -- this line seems to imply this page is either a hoax or a vanity page. Skudrafan1 (talk) 14:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Not a hoax, Kroshus did play for Camrose last year, and Penticton this year, at least. But yes, that line really stood out for me too. Resolute 02:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help everyone. Oore (talk) 17:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

World Championship rosters

Feel free to add your team's roster at 2008 IIHF World Championship rosters.

Needed: Sweden, Switzerland, Belarus, France, Canada, Latvia, Slovenia, Finland, Slovakia, Germany, Norway, Denmark.

Thanks, Grsz^talk 16:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

All of them are listed on the IIHF site for the tournament, albeit only preliminary as of now: rosters. Kaiser matias (talk) 18:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added identical roster to both the WC roster article and the national team article. Most team articles have their own style of rosters, which led me to add an unmodified copy of the table there. It feels a bit redundant. --Bamsefar75 (talk) 18:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly redundant. If the national team pages keep having various rosters added they will spiral out of control in regards to length. Having all the rosters on one page for the different tournaments is convienent and will not get any larger. Kaiser matias (talk) 18:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

What I meant was that the roster for Canada at the 2007 Worlds currently is listed in three (soon two) places: Canada national men's ice hockey team (probably will be replaced with 2008), List of Canadian national hockey team rosters, and 2007 IIHF World Championship rosters. That felt redundant. Just a feeling. --Bamsefar75 (talk) 19:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

In general we list the most recent roster on the national page. And on the specific tournament page we list the ones for that tournament. So yes in a way the informatinn is duplicated for awhile. But each year the ones on the National team pages are replaced. Or every four years in the case of olympics. That being said I always felt List of Canadian national hockey team rosters was not needed but I suppose it works to bring together all the far flung articles into one place. -Djsasso (talk) 20:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

One of my projects is to write a good article for Tre Kronor, I think it's a shame that the article is in such bad shape right now. Rosters should be keept off the national team pages IMO, but I was thinking about creating some sort of separate national team players article with various rosters, medal winners, scoring leaders and such. But first I have to visit Quebec, a few hours from now I'll be on a flight to Montreal. --Krm500 (talk) 01:24, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

By now, the 2008 roster page is complete (50 kB) with just a few late numbers and additions over the next few days. Players still get added as they are announced in media in a temporarily unsourced manner until their roster registration appears on the IIHF website. I guess the player entry rules allow some teams to add (two) extra players as late as Friday May 9. --Bamsefar75 (talk) 14:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Minnesota North Stars team captains

Would somebody 'respond' at that article's talk page? I've some concerns there. GoodDay (talk) 20:03, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

NHL Plus/Minus Award

Hey guys! I was watching the NHL Plus/Minus Award article and wondered about the winner of the award in 1999. The article says it is Alexander Karpovtsev, who was a +1 with the Rangers and after being traded he was a +38 with the Maple Leafs. This means a combined +39 for the entire regular season. John LeClair was a +36 this year with the Flyers in the same year. So still everything that is said in the article seems correct. If you now have a look at the legendsofhockey.net player pages (Karpovtsev, Leclair), you will see that Karpovtsev didn't win the award in 99, but LeClair did... So who is the winner? Is LeClair the winner, because Karpovtev got traded during the regular season? --Thomas ^✉ 15:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The article is incorrect. Leclair won it. There is a 60 game minimum. Karpovtsev played in 58. --Smashville^BONK! 15:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The article used to say it was LeClair, but some random IP changed it. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 15:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, how in the hell can there be a qualification minimum on an award such as this? +39 > +36, no matter how many games were played. Goofy. Resolute 15:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess because it's a fluctuating number like a batting average. +39 is more than +36, but who's to say that if he played 2 more games he wouldn't have been a -4 in them? I think that's the theory behind it, like why baseball requires a minimum number of at bats for the batting title. --Smashville^BONK! 15:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It's the same deal with GAA and save percentage (minimum ten games I think). Imagine someone going on a Boucheresque shutout spree and then having that used for an award.-Wafulz (talk) 17:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Kind of like how despite being a backup for the majority of the season and starting fewer than half of the games, Dan Ellis won the SV% title...of course, considering that he's too old for the Calder, maybe it's a little consolation. --Smashville^BONK! 18:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It's 25 games for the GAA and SV% titles. An absurdly low number considering most starting goalies play at least 50-60 games, and even teams that split the net (Minnesota, Detroit, etc.) have goalies play around 40. Only reason why Miikka Kiprusoff managed to set a new GAA record in 2004 while only appearing in 38 games. Most good goalies would have inflated numbers with that few games played. Kaiser matias (talk) 18:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Template:current sport

The {{Current sport}} template has been revised to allow the setting of image and event. I suggest that an 'official' or 'standard' ice hockey image be created and some standard language for the 'event'. Should we just set 'event' to 'ice hockey'? Alaney2k (talk) 16:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, there is no need to get fancy. Personally just using current sport in the old way was fine with me. Never saw why people got so worked up about that template. -Djsasso (talk) 17:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Well 'ice hockey' is no good. I've set the event text for the 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs and 2008 IIHF World Championship to 'ice hockey tournament'. Like so:

{{Current sport|event=ice hockey tournament}}

Suggestions encouraged. Alaney2k (talk) 17:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It could just be left at the default which says its a current sports related event. The only reason they added that new functionality was because of all the other templates that used to exist like current motor sport event etc. They wanted to cut down on how many templates there were. Personally I think the default is good enough. -Djsasso (talk) 17:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not being bold, though. I propose that we more descriptive. 'League championship series'. Anyway, I notice some of these current sports are taken off of NHL team season articles. At what point do the 08-09 seasons become active? At draft day? Just curious. Alaney2k (talk) 18:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

In the past we consider the 2007-08 season done when the Stanley Cup is awarded. So anything after that is the new season. -Djsasso (talk) 18:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

To me, the end of the Entry Draft or start of free agency is the beginning of the new season. The standings from the current seas reflect the draft positions, which is why I think this way. Moreover, players about to be unrestricted free agents still belong to their old team and are under contract until July 1st. July 1st sounds like the best date for switching over, at least IMO. Thricecube (talk) 22:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe the reason we considered the draft part of the upcoming season is that you are drafting players that you might be using the next season and its part of the next seasons team building. -Djsasso (talk) 00:13, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Article traffic statistics

Out of curiousity, I set up a little page documenting the traffic various hockey articles receive here. So far, It just shows how many views our feature articles get, as well as those on the 30 NHL teams, and various hockey leagues. Feel free to add any thing else that might be of interest. Resolute 18:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Neat stuff. The Leafs are number one! _{for non-playoff teams}-Wafulz (talk) 19:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

An amibitious project

Although I have a few other things planned, my personal favourite activity within Wikipedia are research projects. There is just something fun about going through the past, learning about the history of the sport. I was planning to do that for the Western Hockey League, but decided that the NHL should get preferential treatment here. Especially given the relatively poor shape of History of the National Hockey League.

With that in mind, I have decided to start a major project, the ultimate goal of which is to bring the history of the NHL to featured status. Including associated articles, this could become the focus of a new featured topic drive. Using the existing history article as a guide, I've created a general template in my sandbox, of how this series of articles might look. As of right now, there are about eight articles in this cluster that I believe I can focus on as the core topic: National Hockey League (already a GA, look to improve to FA), Stanley Cup (FA), List of Stanley Cup champions (improve to FL), History of the NHL, and proposed child articles.

I am looking to the community here for three things:

1. To gauge interest in making this a full fledged featured topic drive or task force. i.e.: would anyone else be interested in working on this with me.
2. Input on major historical topics that are not listed on my sandbox page.
3. Major sources that can be used for this series of articles that are not listed on my sandbox page.

On the last two, please feel free to add more topics on that page. If there is interest in a topic drive, I'll move it to project space and set up the charter for it. Resolute 19:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I would definitely be interested in this drive. I was actually going to propose that we drive to get all 30 NHL teams up to FA status, but I can get behind this too.-Wafulz (talk) 19:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Right now I'm working my way through the stub lists, expanding and merging as the case may be, but after I get my fill of that ...  RGTraynor  20:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

We could probably do both concurrently. I have absolutely no doubt that as part of building the history of the league, we will develop significant parts of team histories as part of the research. But, looks like there is some interest. I will set up a project page for it tonight so we can create a forum to organize this. Resolute 20:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Always interested in something like this. Count me in fully. Kaiser matias (talk) 20:12, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:HOCKEY/FTD has been re-designed to focus on this. Feel free to join and comment! Resolute 20:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Once the List of Stanley Cup champions page passes, I'm going to try for a small Stanley Cup FT, which would comprise the main article, the list and the anecdotes page. Howver, there could be problems as some may want Lord Stanley's article added as well. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 20:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Good luck with that one if it becomes neccessary to bring his article up. Also, wouldn't it be appropriate to bring the list of challenge games up to FL status as part of that topic? Good luck though! Resolute 21:04, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

That's what I thought at first, but then I realized that the list of challenge cup games is no different than the various playoffs/finals articles, so I don't think it would be necessary. The definition for the topic will just be things relating directly to the cup. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 21:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

This looks like a really useful project. I have some questions, though. Looking at the FTD, I wonder why the 1900 date for the start of the NHL history? Typo? It started in 1917, or you could start with 1909 for the NHA? Nothing significant around 1900. As for the date ranges, I would suggest 1942-67, which corresponds to the Original Six era? Maybe 1967 to today is too long? 1967-2000? That was the last date of expansion. Anyway, go for it! Alaney2k (talk) 00:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

1900 is arbitrary. I think prehistory is important, especially given how the controversy with Livingstone and the Blueshirts brought about the demise of the NHA, and how it relates to the founding of the NHL. The actual article might be subtitled 1917-1942. As far as the Original Six era goes, I divided the history into blocks of three for now. I didn't want the article to be redundant with Original Six, and I think the NHL's first expansion period of 1967-72 is a logical extension of the Original Six era, especially given the stacked deck the Original Six dealt themselves in the first four years after expansion. 1972 also struck me as a good break point as it leads directly into the WHA and Soviet Series timeframes. Resolute 00:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

There is an article on the Original Six era, maybe it could be merged into one of the history articles. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 00:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

You could argue that the professional era started in 1902 with the IPHL. That would be the watershed for pro hockey. For the NHL, its origins start with the NHA which really is the St. Lawrence Valley, Ottawa Valley and the mines of Northern Ontario, aka the Cradle of Hockey. (Nova Scotia is the birthplace) Especially Ambrose O'Brien who could be considered the originator as he really footed the bills as they made the break from the links to the amateur era. The NHL is really just a continuation of the NHA, where the NHA was revolutionary, the NHL was evolutionary. Lords of the Rinks is a good book on the topic. Alaney2k (talk) 02:37, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. I just started a rough timeline, and the last section is pretty long. It might make sense to go with four 25 year periods: 1917-1942 (including a look at the NHA), 1942-1967 (Original Six could then become a redirect), 1967-1992 and 1992-present. That is actually a fairly logical division, since 1992 marked the start of the Sharks, the beginning of the second expansion era, and the trickle of Eastern Europeans entering the NHL became a flood.

On the NHA history, perhaps you'd consider expanding that article as sort of an unofficial prologue to the NHL history series? It's history certainly is in need of expansion as well. Resolute 02:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we should move this to a more localized discussion area focused on this new project, seeing as how this looks like it could take up the entire talk section here. Kaiser matias (talk) 03:05, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Captains templates

Going through I've noticed that Rickyharder has been creating tempaltes of captains of all teams, and then adding it to the applicable pages. So far, I've gone ahead and removed them from the few pages I have on my watchlist, but want to see what the consensus was before we get into a major overhaul. I feel that like the other templates we've crushed, it's not very defining of players. As well, some of them are rather pointless, notably Template:AvalancheCaptains, which includes only one name, Joe Sakic. Kaiser matias (talk) 01:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This would be far better served by a category I think.-Wafulz (talk) 12:12, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm not unsympathetic to the notion, but I get this sinking feeling that we're going to see fifty templates on every page, largely because someone thought the graphics were cool.  RGTraynor  13:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I sent the user a message.-Wafulz (talk) 13:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I would have to agree. I was going to put them up for tfd but wanted to spend the night thinking about it. -Djsasso (talk) 13:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

We need to build a consensus on this. (Maybe there is one already?) Also on head coaches templates. Because we also have succession boxes on captains and coaches articles. The templates are 'hideable', but succession boxes are not, is that right? Alaney2k (talk) 14:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I think there is a way to build a table around the succession boxes to hide them. At one point I think that was done on the Gretzky article but I am not sure if it is anymore. -Djsasso (talk) 14:54, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

The Gretzky article has both, including succession boxes for awards. The succession boxes are not hideable by themselves. I guess what I meant is that the templates can shrink/expand, but the succession boxes don't have that. If I was starting from scratch, I would probably choose these templates over the succession boxes for that reason alone. Alaney2k (talk) 15:02, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually if you take a look at the code, a box is coded around both the templates and the succession boxes to hide them. So on their own you can easily do the same thing with just succession boxes. -Djsasso (talk) 17:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Really, I can't criticize the template, given the proliferation of other templates - ones for coaches, first round draft picks, even ES Sports cover atheletes. I'm not a fan at all of them, but if we keep one, we might as well keep them all. That said, having both a template and a succession box is completely redundant. Get rid of one or the other. Resolute 16:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Keep the succession boxes, as they've been around longer & they link directly to their respective NHL team articles' captain sections. GoodDay (talk) 16:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

The templates also link there if you click on their headings. As for what Resolute said that pretty much sums up my stance pretty well. Personally I would like to see most navigational boxes go, but they seem to be completely infiltrating wikipedia. But he is right remove one or the other. -Djsasso (talk) 17:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Delete the 'templates'. GoodDay (talk) 17:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This is the 'line in the sand'? I don't think the succession boxes look better, though. I think the biggest objection is the amount of clutter. It is a real mess. If look at Gretzky's page, you won't believe the amount of navigation boxes, including an SI swimsuit cover one. All hidden by default, because it is too much. You could make an article out of the nav boxes. :-) Completely overdone, but at least it is all hidden. Is that the real solution, require all nav boxes to be hidden like Gretzky's page? We could control the look of that, (even have a 'hockey' one? -- though I hesitate to mention it because someone will create one?) and require all nav boxes to be within it? .. Over to Dj to tell me how I am wrong. :-) Alaney2k (talk) 17:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Although, if you were to force all nav boxes into one like Gretzky's it might reduce the proliferation if they are all hidden. ? Alaney2k (talk) 17:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes I agree with you, you know. :P -Djsasso (talk) 17:59, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Mostly though I p**s you off. (sorry) I should pay some for your stress medicine. ;-> I tried changing the title of the overall nav box at Wayne Gretzky and Daniel Alfredsson to 'Quick Links to related material'. Let me know what you think. The title is a first pass. Maybe just Quick Links, or Quick Links to related articles. Alaney2k (talk) 18:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I've brought this up at the village pump, where a discussion was already brewing. Alaney2k (talk) 18:17, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey, the example at Alfredsson look compact & neat. PS- I must admit the Templates and Succession/Nav boxes are cumbersome. GoodDay (talk) 18:39, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Even better is that someone created {{Navboxes}} which we could expand into a standard Ice Hockey navbox to hold all that crap and make it look, well, clean, tidy ... I was just thinking aloud. :-) Alaney2k (talk) 18:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, I'll go along with what ya'll decide. GoodDay (talk) 18:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I've set up the template on several articles Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman, Mario Lemieux, Winnipeg Victorias and Ottawa Senators as kind of a test case. On the Victorias, I could not collapse the succession box, in fact I had to put a span tag just to get it to display properly. Alaney2k (talk) 20:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I like it, let's adopt them. GoodDay (talk) 20:29, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Due to a technical issue , if you want to just show or the succession boxes first add &nbsp ; to the top and will display fine , see User:Gnevin/sandbox1Gnevin (talk) 00:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The Templates have been put up for TfD. I guess the discussion continues there. I can't seem to make a link. Alaney2k (talk) 20:36, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2008_May_2#Hockey_Captain_templates, is the place. GoodDay (talk) 20:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

NHL trade deadline

Do we really need this page? It just teams like a repetitive sub-category of the transaction pages. Thricecube (talk) 04:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

If the NHL section in the actual trade deadline article were improved to better explain this event in relation to the NHL (and the significance that comes with the deadline), I don't think this page would be necessary. But until that happens, I think it should be kept. – Nurmsook! (talk) 18:14, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The page is a hideous embarrassment. I worked on cleaning up the most recent seasons, which should be a good starting point for anyone wanting to take care of the rest. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. The transaction list isn't at all necessary, and what information is pertinent can be merged with other articles.  RGTraynor  00:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

List of IIHF World Championship medalists

I have split the list off from the main page with intentions of going for an FLC. I admit that the title sounds a little off, but at first the page was named List of ice hockey world champions but I thought that wasn't very good either. If anyone has a better idea for a title, feel free to change it. And does anyone have any ideas for a (free) image that we could use? -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 13:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

2008 IIHF World Championship rosters

Hi there! A task for this project would be to create articles for all the redlinks at 2008 IIHF World Championship rosters! 80.203.94.189 (talk) 09:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

What about the redlinks at 2007 IIHF World Championship rosters? --Bamsefar75 (talk) 13:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:National Hockey League game log templates

Am I the only one who doesn't understand the point of these? Why create a template when only the one team season article will be using it? --72.25.52.208 (talk) 22:29, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe the point of it is that it cuts down on the amount of clutter on the page when people are editing the page. There is no need to have all that code on the page. That being said I don't necessarily think we need them. -Djsasso (talk) 22:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

That is why sectional editing exists. I know other projects do it this way, but it is ridiculous, and single use templates are discouraged. I also love how it is just a cut and paste of the NBA templates, not even reformatted. I'll list them for TfD tomorrow if nobody else does first. Resolute 22:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Half of the websites don't work and the stats are for basketball, definitely get rid of them for now. --Michael Greiner 23:30, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and don't think it would be a good idea to use these. Sectional editing (by month --- which is how most seasons articles are now, IIRC) is simple enough. - Rjd0060 (talk) 15:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Nominated for deletion Resolute 18:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Stub sorting

While doing that interminable pre-1986 Blackhawks => Black Hawks (over 600 edits, as it happens), I've run into a powerful lot of stub templates: icehockey-bio, canada-icehockey-bio, canada-icehockey-winger, euro-icehockey ... heck, someone even came up with a Danish icehockey bio stub template. My own take is that this has to ding stub expansion, and since that's something near and dear to my heart (I've been knocking off about a stubs a day for a few weeks), I wonder if there'd be any backing for trimming them out. What we need is to consolidate into {{icehockey-bio-stub}}, so people can just find a one-stop place for biographical stubs to polish off: I can't imagine why there'd need to be separate templates for wingers and defensemen. Any thoughts?  RGTraynor  15:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I believe its the stub project in general that makes them more and more specific. They are like sub-categories. You want to try to seperate them into smaller and smaller groups. If you go to the stub categories there pretty much a one stop place for finding them. They are just sorted into sub categories. I think wikipedia takes the other stance from you. People tend to only want to expand the articles that interest them, say Canadian players for example. So they go and work on Canada-icehockey-player-stub . If you put them all in one massive place it makes them harder to find what you want to work on. -Djsasso (talk) 15:29, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

For example if you go to Category:Ice hockey stubs at the top is the start of the stub tree. And from there it gets broken up into more specific versions. -Djsasso (talk) 15:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Flags in infobox

First of all, flags next to the city name, e.g. New York City, are expressly prohibited in WP:MOSFLAG. Second, I really don't think the nationality of coach, GM, owner, and captain is important enough to receive the emphasis a flag in the infobox gives it. In the roster it is helpful, because those players could play for the national teams the flags represent. However, who cares about the nationality of the owner, GM, or coach? That wouldn't be notable enough for inclusion in the article body, so the flag should not be there, either.. – flamurai (t) 18:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Not that I am necessarily disagreeing, but lots of people when it comes to Hockey care about the nationality of the owner especially if not the other two. -Djsasso (talk) 18:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, the coach could represent his national team as well, and many have. At that point, it becomes a consistency thing. Personally, I see no great need for them, but I'm also not all that concerned with having the Owner, GM, Coach and captain all flagged in the infobox. Resolute 19:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The other issue with owner is that many are owned by corporations. The point of the infobox is to quickly summarize the most important information about a team without clutter. Is it really that important to the New York Rangers as a team that the captain is Czech? The test I would use is this: Is this info important enough that you would put an extra nationality field in the infobox? (e.g. Captain: Jaromir Jagr / Nationality: Czech) I don't think it is, and I think the flags are just one level of detail too deep in the infobox. – flamurai (t) 07:10, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, for corporate or large group ownership (e.g.: Calgary Flames) no flags are used, as that would be unnecessary/unwieldly. As far as the captain thing goes, I would actually say that yes, that is useful information. It is actually a very common statement, especially this time of year, that no team with a European born captain has ever won the Stanley Cup, while only one or two American born captains have hoisted it. Given the attention that fans give this bit of trivia, it could be justified. Regardless, I favour an all-or-nothing approach, where appropriate. If we flag one, lets flag all. Otherwise, flag none. And yes, restrict this to players only. Resolute 14:31, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

2008 IIHF World Championship

How many medals did Russia win in this tournaments history? Do we include the USSR's total? See that article's discussion. GoodDay (talk) 21:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

No, of course not. There is longstanding consensus across many sports and hundreds of articles when it comes to the USSR and Russia and their sporting history. We have distinct articles for Russia national ice hockey team and Soviet Union national ice hockey team for a reason, and so does many other sports on Wikipedia. Clearly there is a relationship that cannot be ignored or trivialized, but the right thing to do (in my opinion) is keep the numbers distinct with respect to tabular results, and add footnotes in lots of places to explain the situation. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Okie Dokie. I've reverted the 24 titles edit, at that article. GoodDay (talk) 22:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

IRC

I've created a channel for the project, at #wphockey . If you're not familiar with IRC, look over WP:IRC, which should provide the information needed to connect, if you are interested. Maxim_(talk) 23:06, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey! Good to see you back! -- bmitchelf•T•F 21:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

current sports-related template

A template that we use on many hockey articles is up for deletion at current sport-related. Thought you all might like to be aware. -Djsasso (talk) 15:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Stanley Cup Champion templates

Here we go again. I've messaged them to stop for now.-Wafulz (talk) 15:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

All are elligable for G4 this time because they have all fallen to afd this time. Last time I relisted them cause not every team had been previously deleted. But the last person created a template for every championship team so this time they are all elligable for G4 since they all got deleted only a few weeks ago. So I will begin deleting and removing. -Djsasso (talk) 15:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I am confused. Why is it allowed for NBA, and MLB Champions, but different for the NHL? Chaldean (talk) 16:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The NBA, MLB ones are about to get nominated as well. I've just been slow to do it cause it takes forever to link them all into the tfd debate. -Djsasso (talk) 16:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

And what is the reason given? Is there a link you can give me on the discussion and the decisions made? Thanks. Chaldean (talk) 16:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah let me find one of the many TFD's there have been a handfull. Basically the reasoning is the nav boxes are only supposed to include links that would already be linked on the page and that are defining of that pages content. The fact that a player has played with some other random player is not defining of that player. Another reason is that it creates massive clutter on the pages of players who have won multiple championships. To use the NBA for example think of all those championships in a row that Boston won. -Djsasso (talk) 16:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

This was the last, and it links to four others. Resolute 18:18, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Whoops I linked it in the NBA tfd and forgot to link it here as well. -Djsasso (talk) 18:30, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

For those interested here is a link to the NBA Championship templates TFD discussion. I know many of you are interested in the championship templates. -Djsasso (talk) 16:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

So is this a referendum on just the NBA ones or all sports? If the NBA ones don't get deleted, are you going to bring back the NHL ones? Chaldean (talk) 15:25, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not work on precedents. Even if the NBA ones are kept (and at best, that TfD will end as no consensus, which really screws any hope of using it as a precedent), I would still speedy G4 any recreated Stanley Cup templates. We've debated this at least five times now, and the consensus has consistently been that they aren't necessary on hockey player articles. Resolute 15:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm a strong believer in consistancy when it comes to Wikipedia. I don't think it would be a good idea having different guidelines on the same issue IMO. But if you guys have like you said debated many times before, then I guess there is no point in talking about this. But in regards to this [[3]], you only had 7 people vote and I believe if we have a broader pool, like the current vote on the NBA, I think most users wouldn't mind having them. Chaldean (talk) 15:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

As Resolute said the best this current NBA debate can hope for is no-concensus. The keep !votes mostly seem concerned with losing the information as they surprisingly don't have rosters on many of their season pages. So I would say even if this vote goes no-concensus, once the rosters are found in the apropriate places that another tfd will probably happen and they will be toast. That being said its only my opinion. In reguards to the broader pool. Most of the major sports wikiprojects were notified on their project pages to come and discuss on the stanley cup tfd and none of them did, that is very easily construed as them not thinking it was important enough to come be a part of. -Djsasso (talk) 16:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

So the NBA debate concluded as Delete. However, the admin knowing someone would take it to DRV did not want to delete everything and then have to have everything undeleted if it got overturned decided to take it straight to DRV himself. Anyone who is interested may want to watch Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 May 22 as this debate combined with the delete of the stanley cup championships would likely be enough to set precedent for all sports championship templates. -Djsasso (talk) 03:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

List of IIHF World Championship tournaments‎

There is a bit of a disagreement at the page over whether the Soviet Union and Russia's counts should be combined or not. Wikipedia convention is to list the nations seperately but some feel differently (and one user thinks it's a giant plot to make the Czechs look like not as good of a hockey nation). -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 13:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, we have three Russian ubernationalist carpetbaggers claiming consensus.  RGTraynor  15:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

No need to get personal... Resolute 16:09, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh, when we're talking people with a marked lack of hockey-related edits and including at least one SPA suddenly showing up and edit warring on the subject ...  RGTraynor  16:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

What does IIHF say about this? For example FIFA recognizes Russia as the successor of USSR. --necronudist (talk) 16:19, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

They contradict themselves. They don't actually have a listing of medal count. They do have a few opposing sports writers articles posted that conflict with each other. I do believe for olympic medals the IIHF seperates them. But these guys based on a sports writer argue that that is not the case for the world championships. -Djsasso (talk) 16:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that the IIHF does list Russia as a member since 1952, which would lead to the inference that Russia and USSR are the same in their eyes. However, wikipedia does not follow federations, e.g, FIFA considers Russia and USSR the same yet the FIFA World Cup wiki article lists them separately. And no compromise seems to be possible. Alaney2k (talk) 17:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Look, talk page has 90 updates in under two hours. I cannot possibly catch up, but it must be something more than a disagreement. --Bamsefar75 (talk) 16:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, they are pushing a nationalist POV pretty hard. Though they deny they are. -Djsasso (talk) 16:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

"Is there simply some plot here to make the Czech Republic look like a lesser hockey nation" - that pretty much sums things up. If this ever makes WP:LAME, that quote has to be mentioned. I've been forced to withdraw its FLC due to this edit war (that would also have to be mentioned)

Would it be worth getting a checkuser done on the users, because I agree that it really looks like sock/meat puppetry. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 16:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't think so. SergeiXXX and Berkunt have reasonable enough contribution histories. It's this Lenev fellow who I think is a meatpuppet.  RGTraynor  17:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

You could try putting one in, but it would likely get rejected. Couldn't hurt. -Djsasso (talk) 17:10, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Based on this comment (which he made after not editing since December 2006) I think it's safe to say that he is at least a sock of one of the IPs that has been involved. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 17:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Lenev accidentally posted one of his comments while logged out, so I have his IP address. That one accidental post was that IP's only edit. I don't believe he is a meatpuppet. I don't think a checkuser would accomplish anything here. Thus far, no actual policies or guidelines have been broken, though a few of us (myself included) are dancing on the edge of 3RR. I'd say let the discussion settle, and see how things shake out before pushing for anything more drastic than the protection of the article that exists now. Resolute 17:33, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

* Whoa ... the plot thickens. Take a look at the contribution histories of Special:Contributions/87.80.215.198, Special:Contributions/Mystery_man_2008_alen, Special:Contributions/91.78.185.39 ... there has been a positive flurry of SPAs and others piling on to conflate Russia/Soviet Union all of a sudden. I'm not nearly so sanguine about a lack of chicanery.  RGTraynor  17:38, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I would not be surprised if User:Roitr was behind some of this. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Team payrolls

Hey, I just created a new article—team payrolls in the National Hockey League. This is a logical conclusion to the article I created on player salaries in the National Hockey League. Please have a look. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 16:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Cool list, that's quite a lot of numbers. Were you planning on simply adding each year onto the tables, or keeping only the last seven years (as it is now)? If you keep adding on, it could get very long; Possibly we could limit it to ten seasons and start a new article after the 2010-11 season. Blackngold29 01:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Win percentage or point percentage?

On the List of National Hockey League head coaches, we calculate percentages based on points, not on actual win/loss. For example, Craig MacTavish is shown (after I fixed an error) as 222–182–47–41 in 492 games, for a percentage of 0.541. I was looking at the paperback Oilers media guide (which I would claim is a WP:Reliable source), and it shows MacTavish (through the end of 2007) with a 222–203–67 record, for a percentage of 0.519. Clearly, they are adding the OTL numbers through the end of the 2003–04 season to the regulation "L" totals (since the point for the OTL was already counted in the "T" totals for those years), and the OT numbers from 2005–present are added to the all-time "T" totals. This seems a bit confusing at first, but it might be a much better number to use on articles that compare performance over many years (i.e. from the W-L-T era to the W-L-T-OTL era to the present W-L-OT era). Are there any WP:reliable sources that use "point percentage" instead of "winning percentage"? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Comparing across eras like this is misleading, and imo, useless, since the changes in the point format renders comparisons obsolete. Given the NHL uses point percentage for teams, it is reasonable to assume that they also do so for coaches, though I'd have to look into it. I believe the Oilers go by winning percentage on their media guide of their own accord. I'm fairly certain that the Flames list their coaches using point percentage, but I can't check their media guide until either tonight or Monday night. Resolute 18:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Where do you see the NHL using point percentage? All I can find on their website is point totals but no percentages. I don't have an Official Guide and Record Book at my disposal at the moment either. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The most obvious example is that it is the first and third tie-breakers are based on point percentage: [4]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Resolute (talk • contribs)

Hmm, ok. I'd like to see an actual table with numbers at some point. (Certainly, the whole OTL point fiasco has made it impossible to compare across eras, and artifically inflates current team performance. A 100 point season isn't what it used to be....) — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It always was meaningless to compare across eras; just in my own lifetime, the league's fluctuated between 70 and 84 games, and there were vastly fewer players for much of it. Look at it this way: exactly how great a team would you have to be when the worst goalie you'll have to face in your six team league is the likes of a Henrik Lundqvist, and the "third-liners" you face are going to be guys like Rick Nash, Cory Stillman or Paul Kariya?  RGTraynor  20:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, yeah, but I'm talking about comparing winning percentages between teams, coaches, etc. from the mid to late-90s and today. A team with 33 wins and 37 losses from the 1998–99 NHL season (82 games) has a 0.478 percentage, but what of a 32 win and 34 loss team from the 1999–2000 NHL season (also 82 games)? In this case, one method of calculation shows 0.537 because 8 of those losses came in overtime, but another method shows 0.488. I think the latter is more representative of the success (or not) of that team. More importantly, if we're making tables that show percentages for coaches than span either side of that season, then we're comparing apples to oranges if we use point percentage. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

We're not comparing apples and oranges, or anything else, actually. Our job as an encyclopedia is to give the raw data (which, after all, is the same raw data listed in every other source), not to work out interpretations according to our lights of statistical accuracy, which in the best of circumstances involve judgment calls. Is there a cross-era divide that might seem to produce differing results in a psychologically jarringly short amount of time? Possibly, yes ... but there was a time when the Original Six wasn't safely forty years in the past. In 1967, it was just the previous season. That mid-90s to now timeframe is the exact same time that encompassed the Original Six (1966), a doubling of team size (1967), 2nd expansion (1970), 3rd expansion and the WHA (1972), 4th expansion (1974) and a united hockey world (1979).  RGTraynor  21:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, but at the start of this thread, I pointed out one WP:reliable source in my hand that calculates career coaching percentages differently from the unreferenced List of National Hockey League head coaches article. Shall we get rid of the WP:original research we're apparently using on that list? None of the references we're using for any of the coaches who span all those years (like Lindy Ruff) show a career percentage. Hockeydb etc. show per-year percentages only. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

We've got List of New Jersey Devils head coaches as a featured list, and it claims to show a "Win %" when it really doesn't. Damn sloppy. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:51, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to close on this thread, see my rewrite of List of Edmonton Oilers head coaches to see how I handled the Win% vs. Pts% issue. I used Pts% in the main table but added footnotes for Win%. I also explained how to calculate them in the "Key" section. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Team pages concerning the 2004-05 NHL season

How should these be addressed? As there was no season played should the page simply be ommited or a messege concerning the lockout be left?

Also I believe that it is likely many pages concerning the seasons after the lockout have been mis-labled by users who forgot about the lockout season (through no fault of their own); for example it would be inaccurate to state "The 2006–07 Atlanta Thrashers season was the seventh season of the franchise" because it was really their sixth season played, due to the lockout. Unless it is meant as the "seventh season in the NHL"? If there was a previous discussion about this please direct me to it. Thank you. Blackngold29 04:19, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I would include them anyway. There was still the draft, player transactions and minor league results. You'd be amazed how much there is for some teams. I would correct the Thrashers page to note that 06-07 was their 6th season of play though. Resolute 04:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks I'll do that. Also, that claim was never made on the Atlanta page, I was just using it as an example. Thanks! Blackngold29 04:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Stanley Cup

Stanley Cup will be on the Main Page on May 25, 2008. Because of its high-profile placement, it will have a lot of vandalism, so please keep an eye for the more subtle types... Maxim_(talk) 19:04, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. - Rjd0060 (talk) 04:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

We should also double-check for errors! I noticed that the date of Stanley's first hockey game was wrong. Alaney2k (talk) 23:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if the finals will start on that date. Hopefully, there is at least a game on May 25. :) -- bmitchelf•T•F 04:22, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It turns out that it's going to be between games one and two. -- bmitchelf•T•F 21:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Correct. Game 1 May 24, Game 2 May 26, both in Detroit. Series moves to Pittsburgh May 28.Mdb1370 (talk) 22:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Aw, why couldn't they put the Stanley Cup and the FP of Gretzky on the main page on the same day? --Krm500 (talk) 00:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Wayne Gretzky

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this but Wayne Gretzky is up for delisting as a featured article. It'd be nice to keep this one.-Wafulz (talk) 16:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Three users have been updating and sourcing the article for the past couple weeks. I don't expect it will face delisting. Resolute 19:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I recommend taking a look over it all around. I did yesterday and picked up two factual errors and one typo at a casual glance.  RGTraynor  16:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

A few editors have made major contributions to the article, and it is looking much better. Because of these improvements, the article has retained its Featured Article status. Thanks to everyone who contributed. I think it would be nice to nominate it for Today's featured article in the near future. Stanley Cup is already scheduled to be the TFA on Sunday, but what about sometime next month? GaryColemanFan (talk) 23:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Too late. However, Dominik Hasek has yet to appear on the main page....-Wafulz (talk) 17:10, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

He is on the main page today! --Krm500 (talk) 14:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Standardization / Use of Template:NHLPlayoffs

Are there plans to implement Template:NHLPlayoffs into playoff articles before 2008? I've been working on standardizing the format of the playoff articles as far back as 2003, but before that they acquire a much different look than the 2003 – 2008 articles. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 18:23, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe we wanted to see how the 2008 article was size wise once all the prose was added into it before we started implementing it on other articles. As of right now its starting to creap really close to 100k with about half the prose not there yet. -Djsasso (talk) 18:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense. Just for reference, the readable prose of the article is only about 16.5 kB (see my sandbox). − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 18:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I have no problem with it being used on all the other articles. I just thought we should see how the article turns out before we spread it to all of them. I know that last years article had a form of this template and it did get rediculously large so it was stripped out of the article. But the template author has done alot to make this version much more streamlined so it will probably work out great this time. But definately once the finals are done we should look at moving it towards other articles. -Djsasso (talk) 19:05, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that a guideline as to what belongs in the prose recaps of the series should be included. I wrote the Eastern conference finals recap; I included a mini recap of each game, using the recap on the Pens page as my basis. I cited sources (which I seem to be the only one who has) for each game. Other series recaps were a lot shorter. Are there any suggestions as to what should be included? Thanks! Blackngold29 19:15, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the shorter ones are mostly there just to be place headers. If you look at 2007 Stanley Cup Playoffs That is a good example on the size and what should be included. Yours looks pretty good to me. As long as not every insignificant goal or play is added its probably decent. The more prose the better really, as long as its notable. -Djsasso (talk) 19:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Do you think that each individual game should be cited? I don't really think it could hurt. Blackngold29 19:37, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Ideally you can find a cite that includes all of them for a series. But whatever works. -Djsasso (talk) 19:41, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Why not simply include an external link to the NHL.com or ESPN box score for each game, and eliminate the inclusion of the detailed scoring/goaltending information from the template? That would cover the desire to cite the information, and reduce the already ridiculous size of the article. Failing that, we might want to look at splitting the playoffs article along conference lines. Resolute 21:17, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally I agree, I liked the tables we used in 2007 Stanley Cup Playoffs better than the template. But there were a few people quite vocal that they thought we should have more details added. Go check out the talk page for this years playoffs. There is alot of chatter about it. -Djsasso (talk) 21:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

In response to Resolute, I have proposed a new field (or, in case of technical limitations, a new template) at Template talk:NHLPlayoffs#Game Recap field. Have a look. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 22:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The changes proposed regarding the addition of a recap field have been implemented into the template. Please check out the template page and it's talk page for further details. Thanks. —Sukh17 ^Talk 02:46, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Stanley Cup Finals

Since it will affect more than just the current year. There is a discussion going on about whether the Stanley Cup Finals articles should be spelled with an S or no S. Feel free to go and give your opinion either way at Talk:2008 Stanley Cup Finals. -Djsasso (talk) 17:38, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Task Force

Can I just start one or do I need someone permission?Trakrecord 04:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a good idea to see who else is interested first. If it's just you, then it's not much of a force. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a good idea to see who is interested as Twas Now mentioned. We currently have a number of them where the people didn't really look into if there was much interest and almost all of them are not really all that active and could have been served just as well by the normal project. So it is a good idea to let people know what you want to create task force wise. -Djsasso (talk) 14:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Justin Azevedo

I was looking through the junior leagues and noticed that the Justin Azevedo artcile has been deleted twice. Since he has won some notable awards, he is now notable for an article? Thanks. Patken4 (talk) 21:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yup I will undelete him. Please add the award info to the article. -Djsasso (talk) 21:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I added in the awards he won. Thanks! Patken4 (talk) 21:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hal Gill

I think there's a forum targeting Hal Gill. I've semi-protected the page, but an extra pair of eyes is appreciated.-Wafulz (talk) 16:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Probably the same radio station in detroit that has sent people after wiki pages in each of the last few rounds...this time we semi protected the team pages ahead of time I think so they probably are going after players instead. -Djsasso (talk) 16:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm throwing out single warnings and blocking vandals for one month. I figure that's a long enough time from the playoffs.-Wafulz (talk) 16:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd be glad to add any article to my Watchlist that seems targeted. Wafulz: I'll let you know if I revert any vandalisms. Blackngold29 18:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Well it wasn't a Detroit radio station, that I can tell you. Chaldean (talk) 14:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Gary Bettman - What the hell?

Something is up. Looks like Bettman's article was the subject of a coordinated attack given the number of different IPs that hit it today. I've semi-protected it for three days, but given this is a high profile vandalism target, it might help to have more people watching it. Resolute 17:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I just added it to my watchlist. -Djsasso (talk) 17:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Same here. This has been happening a lot lately.-Wafulz (talk) 17:19, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't doubt that they all stem from the one radio station telling people to do it against colorado, and then people on a message board have continued the tradition since then after getting the idea from the radio station. -Djsasso (talk) 17:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

That's probably the case since a lot of them have history editing Hal Gill/Steve Ott/Colorado Avalanche.-Wafulz (talk) 17:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you know which message board it is? -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 17:25, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the unofficial scapegoat is letsgowings, but I haven't actually seen any coordination there, so idunno.-Wafulz (talk) 17:35, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Jeepers, doesn't anybody in the hockey world, like Bettman? GoodDay (talk) 17:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Can't we ban the annons? --Krm500 (talk) 17:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm handing out long-term blocks (at least one month) to those with previous problematic edits.-Wafulz (talk) 17:47, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Come down hard! :D I'm all for it. These attacks are despicable. I'll watchlist it too, but when the coordinated attacks happen, I can't do anything because it's too hard to keep up. Need an admin there to protect it immediately, and then the work on sorting out the vandalism edits can begin. Enigma ^message 17:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Luc Bourdon

Bourdon has died in a motorcycle accident. His article will see a lot more activity as details become available. It might be a good idea to watchlist it, just in case. Resolute 18:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I was just looking on google to see why he was removed from the Vancouver page. I guess that explains it. -Djsasso (talk) 18:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Very tragic. I had just heard about it, but couldn't find an English language source until just a couple minutes ago. Resolute 18:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Very sad. This wasn't exactly my most enjoyable edit on wikipedia.... --Krm500 (talk) 18:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The article is quite comprehensive, if we put some further work into the article do you think we maybe could get it featured? --Krm500 (talk) 13:36, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Lack of a picture would be an issue. Perhaps you could write the Canucks, explaining your goal, and seeing if they would be willing to release a photo of Bourdon to a free licence? Resolute 14:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

It might be more complicated than that. Aren't the photo rights owned by the NHLPA? Anyway, since he died, we could at least claim a fair use photo. I searched Flickr and the best photo I found was of his back.-Wafulz (talk) 14:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Mmm ... my gut instinct is that Wikipedia is not a memorial. There are many, many articles on all time greats who don't have FAs. Heck, if we're going to work to get FAs for hockey players who died in an untimely fashion, Howie Morenz doesn't have an FA; neither does Hobey Baker, Georges Vezina, Tim Horton, Charlie Gardiner, Steve Chiasson, Pelle Lindbergh, a whole bunch of others who had major contributions to hockey.  RGTraynor  14:39, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I have already contacted a few members on Flickr asking for images. And my idea wasn't getting his article to FA as a memorial, I was just thinking that it was already quite comprehensive and with a little work it could get to FA class. --Krm500 (talk) 14:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yup, I with agree with Krm500. There is no reason why this article can't be made up to FA standard. He was clearly notable so its not a memorial issue. The more articles made up to FA the better, no matter what/who the subject is. -Djsasso (talk) 15:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Image of memorial site added, still waiting for replies from two photographers with images of Bourdon. --Krm500 (talk) 23:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with RG. Chaisson, Lindbergh, Morenz etc should be given priority. This sudden push to have Bourdon as an FA, seems emotional. GoodDay (talk) 23:21, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

That's like saying 'why write an FA article for Ray Emery when the Patrick Roy article isn't FA yet?'. Any hockey article that gets to FA is great. Chaisson and Lindbergh articles doesn't even come up to B class yet, Morenz however has potential. And it's no an "emotional push", I'm not a fan of Bourdon, I just think the article is in good shape and with minimal work could push for FA. --Krm500 (talk) 00:10, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Krm has a point, its more about the fact that an article is almost at FA quality already whereas many of those others you mention are in horrible shape. Why not take advantage of the fact alot of people have come to the article lately and edited it into a decent article? -Djsasso (talk) 14:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree as well. Putting aside the fact that by it's nature, Wikipedia will have a systemic bias towards recent topics, we all focus on what interests us the most. Sure, there are a great many teams that are more important, but that didn't stop me from putting the Calgary Hitmen up at FAC before them. If editors have an interest in bringing Luc Bourdon's article to FA status, I'd say we should encourage them. Resolute 14:14, 3 June 2008 (UTC)