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To tell the truth
Updated: Tuesday October 09, 2001 12:21 AM
By Marc Foster and Chris Apple, Special to CNNSI.com It's not uncommon, especially at the minor and junior levels, to find players who lie about where and when they've played. It probably used to happen more than it does today, but it still takes place. Due to hockey's decentralized organizational structure, verification of a player's career could be quite difficult. Someone could claim to have played in Europe, or on a defunct team or in defunct league, and one would be hard-pressed to find any evidence in favor or against that claim. Until recently. Players may not know it, but for the past five years there has been an online database that can be used to do just that. Used by leagues, teams, and fans,the Internet Hockey Database is the most complete source for hockey statistics. The site's creator, Ralph Slate, has seen it all -- players claiming to have been on a certain team; claims that stats are wrong; requests by coaches to have a player credited with fewer games played so he'll fit under the cap for minor league veteran's rules -- it can all get pretty silly. Take the first example. Slate often gets emails from people claiming to have played on a team years ago. Often, these issues involve someone sitting on the bench, but never stepping on the ice and thus earning proper credit. This most commonly occurs among goalies from the 1960's and earlier, when most teams only carried a single goalie, and emergency backups may have been on the bench for 70 games. There are recent examples, however. Scott Branum used to serve as the emergency backup for the defunct Fort Worth Fire, but never stepped on the ice during a game. He does not appear in Slate's database, nor the league's, nor Howe's (Howe Sportsdata keeps the stats for all of the minor leagues). However, upon examination of the team program, he is credited with a game played, but that might have to do with his father having been general manager. Other claims are related to players in college, junior, or senior amateur leagues. Slate has been slowly building the database in those areas, but likely will not add junior league data below major junior. You have to draw the line somewhere, and not everyone cares about Squirt-level stats from Flin Flon. Then there's the case of a coach from a minor league team wanting Slate to change the number of games played for one of a player so that he would be eligible under the veteran's cap. This may be a legitimate request -- the player in question apparently didn't dress for a couple of games because of coaching responsibilities, but Slate can do nothing about it unless the league decides to make the change, and that's unlikely. Not that it really matters. In 1998 the Central Hockey League approved Trevor Converse of the San Antonio Iguanas as a non-veteran, when simple addition of the games played in his professional career to that point would have showed clearly that he was a veteran. The CHL had access to the same source data the Slate uses (Howe Sportsdata), but apparently ran out of fingers and toes to count with. More recently, the America West Hockey League (Junior A) has seen its share of resume enhancers. In August a league news release claimed that Mike Butters, one of the new owners of the Helena Bighorns, "played eight seasons in the National Hockey League with the Detroit Red Wings and Quebec Nordiques." I contacted the league about this and received a response from Butters stating that when asked about his background he had "been a part of both the Detroit and Quebec organizations" and that he has no control over how that is interpreted or written. It's difficult to determine if the release originated with the Bighorns or the league, but in either case I believe that Butters can control what is said about him, at least in hindsight. The release in its erroneous form remains posted on the league Web site, and the same statement concerning his career has appeared twice, two weeks apart, in the Helena Independent Record. Butters certainly has not gone out of his way to correct things. In another AWHL case, the Tupelo T-Rex put out a release late September saying that new coach Bill Kidd played professionally with the Vancouver Blazers of the old World Hockey Association. Neither Slate nor Scott Surgent, author of "The Complete Historical and Statistical Reference to the World Hockey Association, 1972-1979" has any record of him. Kidd also claims Major Junior league playing experience in the Western Hockey League, but the WHL didn't exist as junior league until 1978, well after he claimed to have gone pro with Vancouver (who moved to Calgary in 1975). Prior to 1978, it was known as the Western Canada Hockey League. His claims continue downhill from there. One "WHL" team he claims to have played for, the Lethbridge Sugar Kings, never participated in the WHL, and therešs no record of him playing for the Calgary Centennials. If Butters' claim deserves a minor penalty, Kidd's deserves a gross misconduct. Perhaps the above offenders thought that no one would or could verify the information, but it didn't take long before fans of the league had done their own research and questioned the validity of the claims. Still, in neither case has the league amended their copy of the releases on their Web site. A lot of players consider themselves to have "played in the NHL" when their experience is limited to preseason games. It's not really correct to claim NHL ice time, of course, since the level of competition is usually a much lower caliber. Some players consider the rookie camps to be "playing in the NHL". Perhaps these rookie camp memories appeal more than a memory of "so close but yet so far." Then again, maybe some players are just total blowhards. But at least they can't get away with it as easily anymore.
Marc Foster is a research analyst in Fort Worth, Texas. Chris Apple is a database analyst/Internet specialist in Lincoln, Neb. Together, they operate HockeyResearch.com, and hope to one day elevate statistical research in hockey to the level seen in other sports.
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