What a tool…and no, I don’t mean The Globe and Mr. Ryder’s computer model.

By not-so-randomly placing the beginning of their study at 2003 rather than 2002—or, I don’t know, perhaps 1997 or maybe even the start of the post-lockout era—they skewed the results to say exactly what they wanted to say.

Posted by YzermanZetterberg on 05/05/09 at 03:27 PM ET

It seems to me like the study has a kind of glass ceiling. The lower ranked teams have ample opportunity to improve their score with little risk of hurting it, while for the higher ranked teams it’s just the opposite.

Posted by shep on 05/05/09 at 03:52 PM ET

Exactly, this study is so incredibly biased, its obvious on its face.

The real statistic is what they showed with probability.  That comes from almost a hundred year history of keeping track of regular season and playoff statistics.  When a team like San Jose or Detroit has the edge in statistics, and a probability of winning 70% of the time, that’s the real statistic, character or no.

Not included in this model - injuries, personnel changes, coaching changes, and a host of other factors that would have outcome on playoff series over time.

This is just a pathetic juggling of the numbers to throw another subtle xenophobic slur against Europeans.  It’s sad enough coming from Cherry on CBC, but this continues to be pathetic.

I hope the Wings cream Anaheim the rest of the way, and this author can shove his “character” statistic up his ass.

Posted by CJBear71 on 05/05/09 at 04:43 PM ET

If “winning in the playoffs” is synonymous with “character,”  then by definition shouldn’t the Red Wings winning the Stanley Cup last year have put the slurs and aspersions to rest?

Sad and lame.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 05/05/09 at 05:02 PM ET

Ryder’s a smart guy, but this is bordering on silly.

Posted by Ryan from Toronto on 05/05/09 at 05:44 PM ET

...the Detroit Red Wings have a 69 per cent chance of success against Anaheim, their second-round opponents, the problem is that they are in tough against a team of considerable character.

Really? A team of character? How do you define character? Is it a team that cheap shots the opposition at every opportunity? Is it a team whose “stars” run their mouths like five-year-olds? If that’s the definition, then the Quacks are, indeed, a team of “character”.

The truth is it’s the Wings who are the team of character in this series (and in the league in general). They don’t need to cheap-shot their opponents in order to stand out from the crowd. They don’t need to run their mouths in order to make themselves appear bigger, or better, than they are. They don’t cry about every little thing that doesn’t go their way.

The Wings play the game the way the damn game is supposed to be played. They battle hard. They play fair. And they admit their shortcomngs when that’s the reality of the situation (thank you, Mumbles, for being that kind of coach).

The Quacks may win tonight. If they do, and they do it fairly, the Wings will acknowledge that and move on. Or the Wings may win tonight, in which case Carlyle and his band of crybabies will find something to whine about. And that’s the difference in character between these two teams.

Posted by OlderThanChelios from Grand Rapids on 05/05/09 at 05:49 PM ET

For some reason, I doubt that the r squared value ( the proportion of variance in “playoff success” that can be accounted for by knowing “character”) is all that high. Like one of the posters said above, there are more variables that are likely to have a more significant influence. And, I give him a big FAIL on his college try attempt to write a statistics article. I’ve read many of them, both in school and professionally. They might be god awful boring sometimes, but they are logical and unambiguous, unlike this article.

Posted by UMFan from Colorado on 05/05/09 at 07:23 PM ET