Cooke hit, GM meetings give NHL shot to protect players

Hockey Betting Lines

03/09/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Here we go again.

The NHL has yet another chance to address the issue of blows to the head, and while it's never a good thing when a questionable hit brings the topic into the limelight, the latest infraction may been perfectly timed to affect change.

On Sunday, Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke leveled Boston Bruins star Marc Savard with a blind side hit to the head. Like several hits we've seen this year, it was vicious, and it once again brought to the forefront the debate on whether something needs to be done to better protect players.

Cooke's hit came just one day before the NHL's annual general manager meetings, putting even more pressure on the league to fix the problem. The GMs are currently gathered in Boca Raton and although it was already on the docket, the issue of head hits is really the only issue that matters now.

In short, they need to come up with some kind of an answer before the meetings conclude on Wednesday.

The league owes it players like Savard, who has been diagnosed with a Grade Two concussion as a result of the hit, to finally come up with something concrete that will in some way make players safer from head injuries. After all, Savard is a huge part of the Bruins' offense and may wind up missing the rest of the season because of Cooke's action.

Even Cooke's teammate, Sidney Crosby, seemed open to rule changes after Sunday's incident.

The Penguins captain and resident superstar said, "At some point there's got to be a clear indication from the league, because we've seen this so many times now."

And that's the most important thing for the NHL to come up with in Florida, some sort of "clear indication" as to what is illegal.

As of now, the NHL only considers it to be a dirty hit if an elbow is delivered to the head, and not if contact is made with a shoulder. All hits to the head have been banned in international play, and we didn't see anybody trying to cross that line during the Olympics, so maybe it could work in the NHL.

But what Crosby implied in his statement is what the NHL needs to come up with immediately -- a tangible rule change. It doesn't have to be a drastic change like the IIHF's zero tolerance policy on head hits. Not that we have to worry about that really, after all this is the NHL, which should never be confused with an organization receptive to big changes.

But, under the current NHL rules, the Cooke hit did not even draw a penalty, despite the fact that it caught a player from the blind side and was also delivered well after Savard released the puck. The officials apparently didn't think it was late and they saw that it was a shoulder hit so they let Cooke skate by without a penalty.

Yet when you watch the video, and see Savard lying unconscious on the ice, can you really feel that Cooke did nothing wrong? Is it possible that the GMs could watch that replay over and over and think that the rules of the game, as they are now, are sufficient to protect players?

A possible solution that is being kicked around in the blogoshpere is the banning of blind-side hits by the NHL. That would certainly draw a line against at least one type of dangerous hits.

After all, Savard wasn't irresponsibly skating with his head down, he was simply in the act of shooting when he was obliterated by a player he couldn't possibly have seen. Hardly seems fair.

A zero tolerance policy on blind-side hits, if enforced, would be a good starting point and would prove to the NHL Players Association that the league is serious about protecting its players.

The NHLPA has been way ahead of the league in identifying hits to the head as a major problem. Why wouldn't they be...the NHLPA has seen over 200 concussions reported by players over the last two and a half years and they have to answer to their members when it comes to medical coverage.

As far as Cooke's suspension, the penalty of games should reach double-digits, but as usual, the NHL brass will most likely fall short of expectations. Colin Campbell, the NHL director of hockey operations and the man in charge of suspensions, has routinely shown a lack of interest in making examples of players.

The league even failed to give Philadelphia's Mike Richards a single game for his notorious hit on Florida's David Booth earlier this season. That wasn't officially Campbell's decision, since he recused himself from ruling on the incident because his son Gregory plays for the Panthers, but clearly his underlings were just following the precedent the director has set time and time again.

Oh yeah, about the Richards hit, it occurred on October 24 and Booth didn't see action in another game until January 31. Not that the league knew Booth would miss over three months due to his concussion, but looking back, it seems impossible that Richards didn't have to sit out a single game for his head hit.

Missing the boat with Richards is just another reason why the NHL needs to seize their moment in Boca Raton. If they won't stand up for the players now, it seems unlikely that they ever will.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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