A bit of Friday charting and rambling here…

For those unfamiliar, TPL’s staff is pretty into charts.  We’ve got charts on player production and team depth, charts on our holiday weight gain and loss, charts on pickup lines that worked and didn’t, gants that explain site traffics and backup charts to keep those charts honest.  Why not a bit of statistical analysis on search volume for a few issues close to our heart, namely Wings vs Hawks and Willa vs Duff?

A few observations and speculation on the chart above:

• Being competitive on just about everything, we couldn’t help but be slightly pissed that we (mistakenly here in blue) rounded off the past 30 days behind the Hawks (the red line) in terms of global search volume, but as you can well see, we’ve had our day in the sun over the past 30.
• Kane’s Superman routine at the ASG probably had something to do with him pulling ahead slightly last weekend.
• Hillary Duff (orange) briefly overtook the Wings during the All Star game, which is somewhat amazing given her horrendous performance in the ongoing Willa/Duff debate on TP60.  Is this revenge?  Feels calculated…though we’d all probably agree there’s nothing wrong with a Duff on top.
• Can’t help but think Jimmy’s underwhelming performance in the fastest goalie skating contest somehow led to the slippage here.  Beating J-Quick around that stack of tires would have shot his search volume through the stratosphere and undoubtedly taken the team’s with it.
• Nice to see there isn’t a direct correlation between search popularity and…you know…your team’s standing.

Interested to get the crowd’s thoughts on news drivers here driving search vol.  Any theories?  Any news jocks out there want to venture a guess?

With the Coyotes game coming up next Monday, we reached out to the gentlemen over at Five for Howling for a round of 5on5.  As is customary, our responses to their questions over at 54H.  Big thanks to Carl for the back and forth.

1.  When people talk about relocating your team, what is your
typical fantasy “beat the shit out of them” fantasy?
We fantasize about running these people over with a Zamboni while listening to Alice Cooper sing “Billion Dollar Babies.”

2.  A lot of expansion market teams (can we still use that term?)
have big Northern “traditional hockey town” transplant populations,
which in theory is a great thing for developing a hockey market.  How
many converts are there in the Phoenix fan ranks?  How strong a force
is that for you guys?
Based on our experiences, large numbers of Coyotes fans are transplants from other parts of North America.  Here at our blog, The Dude, Jordan, and Carl come from the East Coast and have allegiances to teams from our hometowns. The problem has been the Coyotes’ inability to convert more folks to become fans for all but the 2-4 games they play against their hometown squads. It’s not that hard, but it requires work and the lack of a committed owner has really hurt in developing a loyal fan base. The kids who have grown up here and are reaching their teenage years playing in developmental leagues are going to be the hardcore fan base in the future.  People tend to forget that as a sports town Phoenix is still in its infancy.  Only the Suns have generations of fans to draw from.  Not surprisingly they are the most popular team in town.

3.  Rate the following statement in terms of truthiness: “I have
been to Dallas, which makes a trip to Phoenix pretty much redundant.”
How can Phoenix compete with a city whose greatest attraction is “the place where a president was shot?”   Phoenix was built in a beautiful Valley surrounded by majestic mountains, not in the flat lands of nowhere. Phoenix has Steve Nash, while Dallas has an NBA title. Phoenix has a World Series title, while Dallas has Nolan Ryan. However, the two cities do have a few of things in common: urban sprawl, downtowns in a state of revival, good Mexican food, and lots of Cowboys fans.  8/16 on the truthiness scale.

4.  If Shane Doan weren’t on your squad…if he weren’t a good guy
there for the fans and the franchise…do you think there is any chance
in hell you would like that guy?”
Illogical.  Hockey Jesus will only ever play for one franchise.

5.  Which program gets better ratings in Phoenix – RuPaul Drag
Race or the average Coyotes game?
Phoenix does have a lot of Drag Queens and stupid people who think the show is actually about drag racing.  Plus, given three years of bad press off the ice and little press about the team on the ice, we are fairly certain a test pattern could get higher ratings than a Coyotes game at this point.

I’m swamped, so this is my only contribution to Team TPL’s battle this weekend, except for cheering.