Maybe I'm the Solution

Just a few short weeks one damn off-season eternity ago, I wrote a piece about how maybe I'm the problem. (July 8, 2011: Maybe I'm the Problem). As it turns out, every story has an opposing side, and so I feel that now, in the dog days of August, this other side should be told.


2007-08: Because DGS goes off to college and starts living in Philly, he decides he needs a change in his life, the change, growing and keeping a goatee for the entire season, this goatee becomes a playoff beard when the regular season ends. However, cracking under of pressure of a now ex-girlfriend, DGS shaves the playoff beard right before the Pittsburgh series, the Flyers are soon eliminated.


2008-09: DGS once again keeps different variations of facial hair during the entire regular season, but in March of 2009, DGS starts a new job and decides to make a good impression on his new employer by going clean shaven for this job. The Flyers are quickly dispatched by the Pittsburgh Penguins.

2009-10: DGS is clean shaven for the start of the season. The Flyers totally suck more than anything. On December 31, as a joke, DGS decides to to let some facial hair start growing. When DGS doesn't shave, the Flyers kick ass. DGS lets a full chinstrap grow from Jan 1 which eventually turns into a playoff beard. DGS never shaves the playoff beard willingly but on the morning of Game 6, while frying bacon for his breakfast, DGS singes part of his beard and it falls out leaving an empty patch of playoff beard (not to be confused with DGS empty patches on his playoff beard caused by inability to grow facial hair.) Game 6 OT the puck trickles through Leighton's 5-hole.

2010-11: DGS goes into the season with a goatee as always, other than November where DGS does "Movember" and has a Carcillo-like Porn-stache instead. The Flyers are easily one of the best teams in the league. Right around the ASG, DGS drops the facial hair in favor or long sideburns and a Danny-Briere clone look and the Flyers collapse faster than the 2010 Boston Bruins. During the playoffs, the playoff beard returns but with a problem, right before Game 1 of the Boston series, DGS plays a pickup game of hockey with some friends. During the game, DGS loses some hair in his helmet. (if you check the playoff beard update pics, I started wearing a hat to hide it.) After DGS lost this chunk of hair, the Flyers never won another game.


Luckily, this year, I plan on keeping a Ville Leino beard until the playoffs, then going all out with (what I hope ends up as) a Hartnell-esque amount of hair.

PS: If it doesn't work, Blame Steve Whyno!

Here's to a successful season! GO FLYERS!

Social CORSI, or how to pick better friends

If you follow me on twitter, read my serious pieces or know me, then you know that I love math and Corsi. I crunch numbers, it's fun. In fact, it's so fun that I've come up with a Social Corsi scale that can be used to help you pick friends.

This doesn't bode well for Social
Corsi ratings.

Now most people use "feelings" and "emotions" when picking their friends. Or they use a +/- like system that's too dependent on the environment, just like +/- is heavily influenced by the play of the goalies.

So let's create a standard of Social Corsi to determine who are really the best friends. Also, with them, I have some examples of people you should get to know because they have high Social Corsi ratings. Oddly, I'm not one of them. Also, in order to show how Social Corsi works in accordance with perception, I'm going to compare the Social Corsi test subjects to current NHL stars. This should help you understand the rankings of Social Corsi.

First off, in Corsi, a player gets a +1 for shots on goal, missed shots and blocked shots while getting a -1 for the same 3 categories against. In Social Corsi one gets a +1 for good social things like: telling jokes, giving compliments, having fun Twitter banter, being insanely polite, starting clever twitter hashtags and funny trolling and a -1 for being unfunny, stupidly trolling, giving into RT requests from idiot fans, making silly RT requests.

More importantly, but when on Twitter checking a persons "follower" count for a high number doesn't guarantee quality.

For instance LeBron James has a ton of followers, but he's unfunny, a douche, an egotistical dirtbag and always disappears after 3. This is a bad Social Corsi rating. Now, on top of it all, he's competing with the NBA. A place where people pull guns on teammates. This is a low relative competition setting. Conclusion, LeBron James has the WORST Social Corsi Rel to QoC. Or, in short. LeBron is a douche.

On the other side, Steve Whyno. (@SWhyno) is a guy who seems like he's a horrible guy. He's always causing trouble to the point that #BlameWhyno will probably trend on Twitter at some point. Also, he openly admits to having a huge ego and finally, he ditched Philadelphia for DC faster than Jayson Werth. But, when you look deeper you see a few things. 1: #BlameWhyno is actually funny. 2: He will give quality banter. 3: If not for the humor he makes at his own expense, the world would be boring. That's a super high Social Corsi rating. In fact, Whyno is so misunderstood, he's like Jeff Carter. Many people perceive him to actually be the cause of their problems and take #BlameWhyno too seriously. They also assume that because of his ego, he's always wrong about everything and a bad writer. Just like Carter, people dwell too much on single-issue anecdotes not realizing that in the big picture Carter was a top tier NHL Center. Now, stop #BlameWhyno and realize, Steve Whyno is awesome. The only place Whyno loses points, Philadelphia is filled with "rude" people (according to Dan Carcillo) so therefore, Whyno's Social Corsi Rel QoC is still moderate.

Finally DGS Podcast guest Jaye Horbay. @HorbayJ is a guy who has a top social CORSI. He's always polite. He's great with jokes and getting involved in hashtags. Not only that, but he's a super frustrated Avalanche fan who is from Edmonton and now lives in Vancouver. Being in enemy territory like he is, it would be so easy for him vent his frustrations on the world constantly, but he NEVER does. Instead he gives out great advice with regards to his job and is a politely awesome guy. He's the king of Social Corsi as his Social Corsi is high and he puts up this high Social Corsi while seeing top competition making him the "champion" of Social Corsi Rel QoC.

Please note: this is the first time that Vancouver will EVER be the Champion of anything.