saneopinion

"Keep the opinions sane and well thought out."

Canada, AB • Canada •

Jimirude...this one is for you

I’ve always maintained my opinion is just that, an opinion. Sometimes this opinion break with traditional views, my views can sometimes elicit anger and emotional responses. To be honest there are times I play devil’s advocate just to get us thinking a different way and I invite this sort of response.

The latest couple blogs have had to do with my opposition to a Flamesnation article dealing with Kiprusoff and how advanced stats seem to have been taken too far. There were two opinions here, I stated mine, they stated theirs I broadcast theirs and re-tweeted it to get as many people reading their argument as possible…because it was a damn good one! I have stated my opinions and am done writing about it now but have to wonder at the reaction it provoked from one reader who has the handle “jimirude”. If you go to my last blog he wrote 8 comments on the blog, enough to warrant his own blog so I have laid them out here with my responses:

“Wow... You just got a logical $hit kicking by Kent Wilson huh? Maybe if you spent more of your time actually researching a topic you might be a 1/3 of the blogger Kent is- I have to say this seems like Jimirude has a very personal connection to Kent, maybe I’m wrong but never once have I claimed to be a writing phenomenon, nor in the league of Mr. Wilson who I happen to admire. I also have no idea what a logical $poop kicking is but I guess I got one. I then asked jimirude what fallacies I stated as everything was fact, here was his response…

Firstly, I object to the amount of logical fallacies involved in most if not all your writing. They're misleading and dishonest. This is a problem with most of the writing on this site but seems to be an epidemic in your writing particularly.- Again Jimirude takes the time to call me a liar in essence while not pointing to one thing. For a guy big on research… I mean if it’s an epidemic it should be easy to find ONE thing.

Secondly, the stats you use to round out your own opinion are the most superficial of superficial stats and do little to disprove the assertion that kipper has been gradually slipping over the past 4 seasons. Especially, when weighed against the evidence provided by Robert Cleave, your arguments fall flat and frankly seem juvenile in comparison.- ATTENTION HOCKEY WORLD---WINS ARE SUPERFICIAL. You’re right Jimi why bother with such trivial stats like wins when talking about a team game. My point with the wins was to highlight not all stats were taken into account. Most stats stated were of the 5 on 5 variety and it IS a team game.

Thirdly, you claim Kent missed your point; that you were simply critiquing the assertions made re: kipper. I read your article. It had more to do with your dislike for advanced stats than anything else I'm guessing that's due to the fact that in order to use advanced stats one needs to use the skills learned in 9th grade math. Either way you attempted to oversimplify and discredit advanced stats in a crude and borish fashion and were as such swatted aside.- I do not dislike advanced stats, in fact I’m the opposite but I just do not base everything on them. Sometimes a simple explanation is the best one. I’m not sure what “borish” is…is that like getting Logically $hit kicked? Calling someone a grade nine math student? If you meant boorish (grade nine English class) then I guess it may be. I’ll add it to my list of things to work on.

I have no issue with people sharing their opinions but if you're gonna make an assertion like the one you did I, as a reader, expect some form of solid ground from which the writer should stand upon (ie: research, stats). Particularly, if you're going to write a critique of the stats another writer provides. you did nothing to refute the fact that in every table provided by Cleave Kipper appears in the bottom half if not very bottom.- Well…judging by the above are you seriously stating you don’t have an issue with opinions? I did use stats, you just did not respect them, they were correct as well. Kipper was third in wins, that is a fact. I realize he also had some negative stats, it does not change my opinion that there are weaker links on the Flames of last year. I am do understand the argument that I did not use advanced stats to dispute his advanced stats which would be somewhat ironic considering the context was that I thought using advanced stats solely was folly.

You explain all this simply by saying you watched all the games (holy $hit can someone give this guy a cookie). Is that research? By that logic my 5 year old cousin should start writing blogs too. All I ask is some concrete evidence. Perhaps more than simply going on NHL.com and pulling out the first facts that fit your point... To put it your way, 'C'mon!'”-Is that research… hmmm that would be an excellent question for a scout. We should ask a Pro scout employeed by NHL teams to observe players if watching players play is research. They probably have no idea what they are doing hey…all those NHL teams. In fact I will. I will post my response when I get it. If all you ask is for concrete evidence then I will compile some evidence and post it. By the way, if your five year old cousin wants to write you should encourage it but don’t let him watch hockey…he can just read the stat sheet.

Despite being called a liar, a 9th grader, “borish” , and uninformed I actually like the passion and appreciate the time you took.

S>O>

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