In Defense of the Wave

The Wave is good. The Wave is fun. The Wave is communitarian.

The Wave is not a taunt. The Wave is not a game state celebration. The Wave is not directed at anything.

I regularly get into it with anti-Wave curmudgeons on twitter. They have no understanding of the Wave or its history. Oilers’ fans should be particularly partial to the Wave as it traces its roots back to the glory days when Pocklington would pony up a small wad of cash to fly in Krazy George Henderson to “whoop up the crowd” as Peter Gzowski documents in his iconic The Game of Our Lives (1981):

Northlands Coliseum, Edmonton, Friday, February 13: The Quebec Nordiques are here, and so is Krazy George. He wears rolled up jeans, an Oiler sweater with Krazy George written across the back, and a rubber mask that makes him look bald and wild. Underneath he is bald. His name is Henderson; the George is real, if not the Krazy. He lives in Colorado. The Oilers, along with other professional sports teams around the continent, bring him in at $500 a night to whoop up their crowds. He carries a drum and a stick, and sprints around the upper rows of seats, leading cheers. He has some theatrical tricks: He will start a cheer in one corner and then roll it around the arena, with each section rising from its seats as it yells. The players find it more distracting than encouraging.

I wrote about Krazy George years and years ago in a piece on enforcers and mascots (this site has completely stripped my authorship but happily maintains the article so I’m not complaining, but I want to make clear that I am not the dude listed as the author, which is me), likening his performance, and orchestration of the wave to the work of the team mascot:

A mascot’s performance, by definition, is peripheral to the action of a competitive game. It’s a supplement that adds value (of dubious purpose and quality) to a perfectly sufficient exercise of competition. It takes place at the margins of the game – not on the arena of play or during the game’s course. It is superfluous and that’s just fine. The audience experience of competition doesn’t exclude the fun of stadium music, hot dogs, and visions of a silly, little man running about.

A host of things happen in parallel to attended sporting events that don’t directly relate to the matter at hand (the sporting contest itself). Some of them happen before, or after, or outside the venue. And some of them happen in the venue itself. Most big, modern sports arenas now operate a huge array of parallel entertainment opportunities (kids activities, prize giveaways/contests, restaurants/bars, etc.). There’s a general and pervasive argument by sports curmudgeon’s that these things are, as Gzowski notes above, “distracting” from the game itself, maybe even tainting the purity of the turf. Or, maybe you’ll hear that they are simply cynical time and money-suckers. That they overwhelm the senses with noises, lights, activity, etc.

All of which brings me to the Wave. It’s detractors generally advance two arguments against it:

1. The Wave is Antagonistic; It’s Tempting Fate

On this wise, the Wave is considered a taunt, or hubristic celebration of a goal or lead targeted at the opposing team. It’s a classic “planning the parade route in Spring Training” kind of deal. This would put the Wave in league with the racist and outmoded “Tomahawk Chop,” or the “knee slap, knee slap, clap” of We Will Rock You, or the monotone, duo-syllabic taunt, in hockey almost always targeted at the opposing goaltender, where a name is broken into two parts and repeated in unison, like this famous Simpsons’ scene:

But this completely misunderstands the Wave, its purpose, and target. As a letter to the editor of the New York Times wrote in 1983 (quoted in the Wave’s wiki)

 “There are three reasons why the wave caught on at Michigan Wolverine games: It gave the fans something to do when the team was leading its opponent by 40 points, it was thrilling and exciting to see 105,000 people in the stands moving and cheering, and Bo Schembechler asked us not to do it.”

Echoing Gzowski’s contention above that Krazy George was brought in to “whoop up the crowd,” the Wave is properly understood as “crowd-oriented” and not “game-oriented.” Now, we can certainly argue that there are some intangible knock-on effects (for good or ill) for game play stemming from an energized crowd. But, it’s clear that the whole point is for the crowd to relate to itself as a community, to participate in something, to get up and stretch for a moment, and be rejuvenated from the mostly passive experience of watching something seated. As any desk job hack will tell you, sitting very evidently depresses the animating spirits. It sucks the energy right out of you and in turn the crowd.

The proper analogy for the Wave is the 7th Inning Stretch. Like the Wave, the 7th Inning Stretch has no relation to the game state, doesn’t target the opposition, or even reference the game directly. The 7th Inning Stretch is a communitarian tradition, complete with a silly song, where the crowd is compelled to snap out of the stupor of sitting, stand up, take a breath, and participate in the community. It’s an opportunity to remind the isolated, seated individual that they are part of a community, brought together to share in an experience. Without these contrived moments, we can very easily slip into our own little world. We may as well be watching at home on TV.

But more to the point, the Wave is decidedly not about taunting the opposition, or celebrating prematurely. The very mechanics of the Wave dictate that it is not about the game, or its competitors, or its outcome. In order to catch the Wave, fans need to concentrate on the crowd as the Wave moves around the stands toward their spot. You have to ignore the game in order to participate in the Wave.

2. The Wave is for Kids; It’s Silly and Unserious; It’s Distracting

Now, the detractors have me dead to rights on this one. And, as a self-described inveterate crank, who loathes crowds, craft fairs, noise, bright lights, etc., I should, by rights, be on their side on this one. I don’t like, for example, zany music. I harbor a strong disaffection for the outlandish, theatrical, and earnest.

The Wave, like the 7th Inning Stretch, isn’t simply running in parallel to the event. These are disruptive, invading practices. Even if you choose not to participate they will overwhelm you, and you will feel a soft pressure to join in. They are annoying.

So, what makes them worthwhile?

Well, let’s note that the disruption is distinctly different from the typical disruptions you encounter at sporting events: the drunk guys, the guys that will never sit down, the guys that get up and leave their seat crossing in front of you constantly, the guys that bang on the glass, or blow a horn/noisemaker, etc. This is self-centered asshole behavior. The Wave is essentially communitarian. It’s not an isolated individual, or small group, stealing the show and/or ignoring the community around them. The Wave is a staged community practice and tradition. Just like the 7th Inning Stretch, it is an expected, repeated event. I honestly can’t recall a hockey, or baseball game I’ve attended where the Wave hasn’t taken place. And, crucially, the Wave is a limited event. The Wave doesn’t last forever, or drone on and on, or pop up repeatedly. It happens once for a short period of time and then it’s over.

Now, tradition isn’t an argument in and of itself. Just because we have a habit of doing something, doesn’t make it good. However, and particularly in the case of things that are trivial and communitarian, tradition seems like a good to be argued against. That is, the onus is on the detractors to argue its harms outweigh the status quo.

But, I also want to suggest that the trivial, frivolous nature of the practice, something that might suggest it is bad or unserious, is actually one of its winning features. Families know this very well. Observe a family over the course of the year and you’ll find they participate in all manner of trivial practices (Friday is family movie night!) that are fun, create meaning and opportunity for regular engagement. One of the most rewarding parts of family life is the ability to transform isolated, mundane tasks and practices into rich, meaningful traditions: “we have to go get flu shots” turns into “burger night at A&W!”; “we have to rake the leaves” turns into “who wants to jump in the leaf pile!” and “it’s time to put the kids in the giant leaf bags for our annual pictures!” etc. There’s a stump on the way to/from my son’s swimming lessons. For years now, as we pass it, we give it a little pat, quick to rebuke one another if we’ve forgotten: “you forgot to pat the little guy!” It’s a completely trivial tradition, but it adds a wealth of meaning and fun to our otherwise everyday experience.

The Wave doesn’t have the emotional closeness, or resonance of family traditions, obviously. But it does have the spirit of turning the mundane need to stand up and take a stretch into a meaningful tradition. Moreover, as a properly communitarian activity, rather than intimately closed within the family circle, the Wave gestures at the larger community one inhabits but rarely engages directly. As social scientists have argued, at least since Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone (2000), our modern, autonomous lives have separated the individual from the community leading to any number of harms both individual and collective. This isn’t, of course, to say that the Wave is some panacea to our social ills. But it is to recognize that the value of engaging the community around you in a participatory manner, even in silly and trivial ways, is a kind of personal and public good.

Final Quibble

What I would say, however, is that the detractors have a point about timing. As a best practice, the Wave should, much like the 7th Inning Stretch, take place in the final act of the game, when spirits are flagging, and not during game play and/or not during a tense competitive moment. In my experience, however, this is not generally a live concern. Fans are heavily attuned to the game state and not prone to break off from tense competitive moments to start or join in a silly, communitarian ritual. It just isn’t a thing that happens. That said, the best time to start the Wave is early in the 3rd Period during a break in play.

Ship of Fools: Leverage and the Cult of the GM

John Cale ~ Ship of Fools (1974)

Ken Holland ~ Staving Off Existential Torpor

The Oilers’ true season – the offseason – started with a whimper. Confounding hundreds, Ken Holland re-signed Devin Shore in early June to a 2 year deal. Devin Shore was literally the worst forward in the NHL last year by 5×5 Corsi For Percentage (minimum minutes of 350):

Holland not only re-signed him. He gave him a slight raise and an extra year. It was an inauspicious start.

But, that was merely a prelude to the madness to come.

You see, despite stubbing his toe on a variety of cap problems all his own (buying out Sekera, signing Kassian and Turris, retaining on Lucic and not buying out Neal [yet], among others), it’s true that the majority of the Oilers’ cap issues stemmed from the prior Chiarelli administration.

This season, depending on how he would handle his free agents, Holland would be gifted some 22 Million in cap space. His first real opportunity to shape the team around McDavid the easy way.

What Did He Need?

Here’s a depth chart of Holland’s pros as of yesterday morning:

I’ve included the recently extended Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and noted a few free agents that are likely to return, and a couple of guys that are on the expansion chopping block.

Let me remind you that Oscar Klefbom is unlikely to return and/or may be picked by Seattle in the expansion draft.

So, looking this depth chart over… what would you say is the priority for that 22 million?

For my money the list goes like this, in priority order:

1. A legit tough minute 3C, preferably right handed. Under 3 million.
2. At least 1 legit top 6 winger, preferably a shooter. Hall, or Vrana would be nice. Something from that aisle.
3. A starting goalie.
4. Right Defense: they need someone to play in that 2 spot (it will probably be Larsson), and someone that can slot in for injury and/or Bouchard wobble.
5. Left Defense: with Klef a question mark, they need someone to play top 4 minutes. This is a big role! However, there’s an in-house option: Dmitry Kulikov played very well with Larsson in 2nd pairing minutes down the stretch. He would likely sign a 2 year deal a short $ at this point. Otherwise there are some attractive options via free agency that shouldn’t cost too much $$ or term, and will cost 0 assets.

So, by my estimation, left defense is the 5th priority for Holland this offseason. It’s an important hole, however, with lots of good replacement options that won’t cost assets, or impact the cap long term. The kicker here is the team clearly sees Broberg sliding under Nurse in the near term (next 2-3 years if not sooner).

What’s the Context of a Potential Trade?

For weeks now, the hubbub has been that the Oilers were in talks with the Blackhawks about future Hall of Famer left defenseman Duncan Keith.

Keith is turning 38 in 3 days, has a full No Move Clause (NMC), costs $5,538,462 for two more years (but only a modest 3.6M in real dollars owing) towards the cap and put up some horrendous numbers last year:

CF% = 44.84

GF% = 43.53

xGF% = 41.88

Now, despite being a terrible hockey team, the Blackhawks, as of yesterday morning, we’re sitting at 41/50 contracts and a cap hit of around 76M, with only about 4 million and change in cap.

This is a team that desperately needed cap space, and was sitting on a some dead weight in Keith, who with his NMC held all the cards. That is, Keith could limit Chicago’s trade targets so that he wouldn’t have to go to a location he didn’t prefer (whether for competitive or lifestyle reasons). But it also means that Chicago had to protect him in the upcoming Seattle Expansion Draft (you have to use a spot and protect players with NMCs).

Any Keith trade prior to the expansion draft would solve 4 problems at once: a bad player; cap space; a protection spot; and, a roster spot.

On the cap front, this case mirrors the Leafs’ situation with Patrick Marleau. Having signed Marleau to a 3 year, 6.25M deal with a full NMC in 2017, and having realized Marleau couldn’t perform up to the value of the contract, the Leafs reasoned that their cap dollars could be more efficiently spent elsewhere. And, they paid a heavy price – a 1st Round Pick – to send Marleau to the Hurricanes, who would later buy him out. It should be noted that Marleau did the Leafs a solid by waiving his NMC to allow the trade.

Let’s recap before we get ahead of ourselves:

• the Oilers top priority is not left defense
• the Blackhawks need to shed cap space
• the Blackhawks would love to free up a protection spot for the expansion draft
• Keith controls the Blackhawks range of motion on any trade

In this situation, the Oilers have all the leverage.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that they deem Keith a priority target. As mentioned, this is an asinine position to hold, but let’s roll with it anyway.

According to Holland’s presser yesterday, the Blackhawks approached the him seeking to trade Keith. They were open with him: Keith wanted to play closer to his family, who live in Western Canada. Sounds great. Lovely story. The key question isn’t “wouldn’t it be great for Keith to play close to his family?” The key question is “is Keith better and cheaper than what you can find on the open market with your 22 Million?” —- WHOOPS, I’m sorry. I promised to play along with the premise that Keith is a fine trade target… my apologies, won’t happen again! —- No, the key question is “given the context, under what conditions should the Oilers trade for Keith?”

Keith has requested a trade. To a limited number of teams, as is his right with his NMC. The Blackhawks are tight against the cap. What are the options here?

1. Keith can retire and go live with his family
2. The Blackhawks can follow the Marleau blueprint and spend a pick to have a team take on Keith
3. The Blackhawks can retain salary and/or take on a dead contract to have a team take on Keith
4. The Blackhawks can triangulate a deal with 2 teams, one taking the player, the other facilitating the deal by eating the cap and receiving a pick as payment

What all these scenarios acknowledge is the negotiating position Chicago is in. Their nuts are tied to a chair here. Even on the assumption Keith is a desirable target, the Blackhawks have no leverage to move him without paying the piper.

So, What Happened?

In a comical turn of events, as the day unfolded and details of the deal started being updated, the deal kept looking worse and worse.

It started out being a dramatic overpay: Keith for Caleb Jones and a mid-round pick (3rd or 4th).

Then it got worse: there was no salary retained.

And worse: there was no contract going back.

And worse: the pick was actually a conditional 2nd.

And worse: the Oilers picked up an extra contract (a nothing AHLer) from Chicago, to reduce Bowman’s 50 man list.

This is a laughably bad deal.

Leaving everyone to ask the question: how did Holland fail to recognize and make use of the leverage he had over Bowman. Not only did he lose the trade, he lost it in dramatic fashion, like a guy getting a wedgy and having his shirt pulled over his head while he’s getting fed knuckle sandwiches and saying “thank you, and another please.”

The simple and probably correct answer is this: Holland simply values Duncan Keith that much. In his own words, he got dazzled by the opportunity to nab a guy with 3 Stanley Cup rings and variety of intangibles.

Leverage Complications

But, is that the whole story?

There’s a complicating factor here, that’s nicely put by Jonathan Willis:

The thing that really baffles me in all this is that Ken Holland understands leverage. He used it on Puljujarvi, and he's used it countless times grinding down RFAs over the years, because he knows their other options stink.

He had that leverage on Chicago and failed to use it.

— Jonathan Willis (@JonathanWillis) July 12, 2021

This is true. As I noted in a thread at the time of the last Nurse deal (the expensive bridge that is definitely going to bite the team in the ass as predicted), Holland isn’t afraid of taking RFA players to the limit on negotiations (read the whole thread):

As we game out this Nurse situation, it's interesting to note that during his tenure with the Wings, Holland only once got to the point where an arbitrator awarded a contract.
The Hudler deal, that time Hudler bolted for the K.https://t.co/8qXT8xxlqD

— Romulus' Apotheosis (@RomulusNotNuma) February 6, 2020

So, what’s different?

Asked about his leverage of Bowman, Holland got extremely testy:

This Ken Holland reply about the Keith return is an all-timer: pic.twitter.com/S9YJxvbaeX

— Adam Laskaris (@adam_la2karis) July 13, 2021

His longer answers are interesting, and expand on the context here for Holland:

Daniel Nugent-Bowman thinks I could just sit on the sidelines and smoke out Stan Bowman. I don’t believe you smoke out people. I think I respect that the other 31 managers are very good at what they do. That’s why they got those jobs. At the end of the day it’s got to be a fair deal. Probably Stan Bowman would like to have gotten more in assets and I probably would have liked to have Duncan at a little less cap number. At the end of the day, the solution was what you heard today

Stan made it clear that if he wanted us to eat salary that we’d have to up the assets. Your feeling is that there’s a limited number of teams to go to and I could squeeze somebody, it’s hard to squeeze people in this league. You’ve got to do deals that work for both teams.

Here’s my theory of how this works and incidentally squares the circle on how Holland can manage to leverage his own free agents, but not other GMs.

Holland is a member in good standing of the Cult of the GM.

What does it mean to be a member of the Cult of the GM? It means that you are negotiating among respected peers. It means that you have to respect anyone else in the position, by right of the position they hold. It means that you need to reach a fair deal, a deal that works for both sides. It means that you don’t squeeze the other guy. It means that you don’t touch the other guys stuff without going through the proper protocol or unwritten rules.

A good insight into the Cult of the GM, like anything else, is the way the Cult responds to exceptions. Cases that deviate from the unwritten rules.

Take, for example, Brian Burke’s livid, and highly personal, response to Kevin Lowe offer sheeting Dustin Penner. Calling it “gutless” and still fuming over it a year later, the episode is enlightening. Lowe had broken the rules: you don’t touch another guy’s stuff. You respect the rights of other teams over their own free agents, and if you do make an offer sheet it ~ absurdly ~ can’t be “inflationary,” i.e., it shouldn’t be more than the rights holding team would be normally willing to pay. It’s a circular argument that serves to maintain the racket that is the power dynamic within the league: GMs controlling their property in near perpetuity.

The exception proves the rule here. The relationship and comity and respect amongst the peers is paramount.

None of this applies when a GM is dealing with a player and his agent. In fact, the opposite is the case. The power dynamic is not that of equals, but of a strict hierarchy, with GMs expected to grind deals and maximize their leverage.

[None of this is to say GMs don’t get fleeced by other GMs, or that GMs fully understand and maximize their leverage over their restricted free agents. It means that the among GMs, within the structure of the Cult, certain social norms pertain. And, GMs, particularly old school dudes like Holland, place a premium on values of mutual respect and abiding by the unwritten rules.]