Thursday Links, News and Notes: Anderson’s Departure and Bubble Hockey
Plus another great BGHC initiative!
- I’m starting out this week’s LNN with a fascinating and slightly disturbing look inside the NHL bubble, courtesy of ESPN. The bubble has been a bit of a mystery so far, with so few people allowed inside, so this was a super interesting read. It definitely looks like, while the bubble may have done a very good job of keeping players safe from COVID-19, the mental and emotional toll was a lot. It’s also disappointing to hear about the false promises made by the NHL.
- TSN just put out a 30 minute video on hockey’s culture of playing through pain and the issues that arise from it. Definitely relevant today as the NHL recently caught some heat for putting out a promotional video that glorified playing through pain.
- Related to this: here’s Ryan Kesler on abuse of pain medications in the NHL.
- In case you feel like you’ve had to miss a lot of cool online analytics conferences recently, Brendan Kent recently compiled an archive of sports analytics conferences that have happened during the pandemic.
- As always, Ian Mendes has the best reaction to the news that Craig Anderson is moving on. This piece on Anderson’s time in Ottawa is well worth reading, but of course you already knew that, because it was written by Ian Mendes.
- Unsurprisingly, Mark Borowiecki continues to be the absolute best:/
Passed out on the couch for the afternoon and woke up to a big box sitting in the seat of my wheelchair. Mark Borowiecki absolutely rocks, I could not love the guy any more. pic.twitter.com/QNfVqFSRpr
— Justin Morissette 👊🏻 (@JustinMoris) September 22, 2020
- Check out this cool new book by Harnarayan Singh, the voice behind Hockey Night In Punjabi! The author also did an interview with Sportsnet, which you can read here.
- For subscribers to The Athletic: Hailey Salvain looks at Pierre Dorion’s draft picks over the years.
- The Black Girl Hockey Club recently announced an advocacy campaign aimed at making hockey welcoming to everyone, which includes a pledge you can take. Part of the goal of the campaign is “developing a comprehensive set of recommendations on how all entities involved in hockey, at all levels, can meaningfully contribute to the movement against discrimination and oppression of BIPOC communities in society,” so it’s actually really helpful to people who maybe don’t know what to do or how to help. The first step toward this is a pledge to #GetUncomfortable, and work to challenge racism in hockey. It’s very easy to fill out and puts you on an email list. I would highly recommend signing it!
- You can also check out this cool New York Times piece on the BGHC. It’s extremely cool that what started as this niche hockey culture thing has now gotten big enough to get its own NYT piece./