Garret Craig

The Summit Homeschool Girls’ soccer team (14-0-2) completed their season in exciting fashion with a 2-1 comeback win at Ann Arbor Greenhills on Tuesday afternoon. With the win, Summit secured an undefeated record in the regular season.

Summit found themselves trailing 1-0 after the first half of the contest, and their undefeated season was in jeopardy. But the girls showed great resolve, scoring two goals in the second half and holding on for the dramatic victory.

Maria Mellis pulled the game even with a great effort to beat the keeper early in the second half. After the goal, Summit gained confidence, but both teams battled hard to break the tie. Mellis added her second goal of the day for Summit on a corner kick with about 10 minutes remaining, and the goal would stand to be the winner.

It was the final scheduled game for both teams. Summit played a sixteen game schedule which included tough Division 4 opponents such as Auburn Hills Oakland Christian, Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest, and Macomb Lutheran North. Summit finished the season outscoring opponents 59-11.

Summit will now look forward to the Homeschool State Tournament, which will be played at Great Lakes Christian College in Lansing next weekend (June 4th and 5th). They won the State Championship last year.

The Detroit Red Wings have dug themselves (with a little help) a huge 3-0 hole in their best-of-seven Quarterfinal series against the San Jose Sharks. But as much as there is to say about the Red Wings’ poor play and the suspect refereeing we’ve seen in these first three games, this article isn’t going to look at either. Rather, this is a look at Detroit’s chances (or lack thereof) in this series going forward.

WARNING: If you haven’t given up on the Red Wings yet, you might want to stop reading here.

Okay. Let’s assume that Detroit has a fifty-fifty chance of winning every game. That would give them a 1-in-16, or 6.2% chance of winning 4 games in a row. But that’s generous. Historically, NHL teams in their situation have done even worse.

Teams down 3-0 have gone 56-103 in Game 4 (regardless of site) (35.2 win %).

Teams down 3-1 have gone 98-140 in Game 5 (regardless of site) (41.2 win %)

Teams down 3-2 have gone 129-174 in Game 6 (regardless of site) (42.6 win %)

Given these numbers, the Red Wings have a 6.2% chance of even advancing to a Game 7. That’s still generous. The most realistic statistic is the 2-157 series record for teams who have been down 3-0.

On top of all that, it seems like overkill to say that the Red Wings, in four attempts, have never won a Quarterfinal without home ice advantage.

But let’s imagine that the Red Wings beat impossible odds to even make it to Game 7. It would be played at HP Pavilion in San Jose, which was recently deemed by a poll of NHL players as the toughest place to play for an NHL road team.

In conclusion–well–pray for the Red Wings.

On Sunday night in prime time, the preliminary round hockey game between USA and Canada went far beyond expectations. The most anticipated Olympic event to take place thus far in the 2010 Winter Games (According to Nielsen, 30.6% of all internet postings related to the Games were linked to hockey) was an instant classic; a thrilling, high-scoring affair which resulted in the American upset of Canada in the Olympics for the first time in 50 years.

But this game, which sent the entire nation of Canada spiraling into a severe state of depression, was replaced on the main American network by–wait for it–Ice Dancing, the middle of three rounds, in conjunction with an exhilarating combination of tape-delayed Bobsled, Skiing, and Speed Skating.

NBC moved USA vs. Canada to the far-less prominent cable channel MSNBC, which is available to less than 70% of the households who have access to the main network. Even then, 8.2 million people tuned in to the game. Logically, we can say that the game would have seen at least a 30% increase if it was played on NBC, bringing the number up to 10.7 million viewers. And remember, that’s just the hockey fans that went looking for the game. That means 2.5 million hockey fans who wanted to watch the game, missed out.

It gets worse for NBC. Based on a formula I developed using TV Rating information for programs played simultaneously on both networks, I determined that had USA vs. Canada been played on NBC, it would have attracted about 18.5 million additional viewers, bringing the total to approximately 26.7 million viewers, which bests the 25.4 million posted by NBC during the 8 o’clock time slot Sunday night.

Perhaps most importantly, that also means 16 million casual viewers (or as NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman sees them, potential hockey fans) who would have seen some of the NHL’s biggest stars competing on an International stage in one of the most exciting hockey games in recent history, did not.

The prospect of increasing the hockey fan base is the only reason the NHL allowed their players to participate in the first place, and now it’s going to take quite a bit more effort to get them to participate in the Sochi games in 2014.

Thank you NBC.