Monday, September 19, 2005

 

Yahoo! Outboxes the NHL

Remember when the NHL said it would take measures to be more fan friendly? Remember when the NHL wanted to become the leader in making itself available to the fans via the Internet?

Yeah, I also remember thinking Santa Claus was real and that the lump of coal in my stocking was the result of my own bad deeds and not a cheap father (ahem)

Anyway, since we don't get NHL preseason action on TV here, I would at least like to check the boxscores of every NHL game to see who scored, assisted, played, etc... There are always prospects and rookies that I am interested in checking out and it would be nice to see if they are doing well. I'm also a stat-geek, and those kinds of things just turn me on.

The NHL, unfortunately, seems to believe that the fans don't need to see such 'valuable' information. Looking at yesterday's scores, all I can see are the damn scores themselves! No boxscores, no rosters...nada!

You can look at the official team homepages, but all you get are written summaries that don't tell you the whole story.

How hard could it be to provide a frickin boxscore?!

In contrast, Yahoo! Sports has the boxscores and details from EVERY SINGLE preseason game. They don't have the in-depth game rosters, but they do list all of the goals, assists, and penalties in the usual format.

In fact, Yahoo! Sports kicks the NHL's ass when it comes to statistical coverage and fantasy league options. I've been visiting Yahoo! a lot for their stat pages and the fantasy blogger leagues I've been involved in. It's a quick and valuable resource for fantasy leaguers, that's for sure.

Why is Yahoo! beating the NHL at its own game?

Comments:
Actually, the boxscores are all there on nhl.com. The NHL simply isn't linking to them (if you know the url system, you can get to them). I'm not sure why it is. It might have to do with the scores not always displaying correctly (looks like it might have to do with the shootouts). I assume the NHL will link to them soon, I'll see if I can find out more.
 
The NHL's web product is laughable...
 
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