Points per game, often abbreviated PPG, is the average number of points scored by a player per game played in a sport, over the course of a series of games, a whole season, or a career. It is calculated by dividing the total number of points by number of games. The terminology is often used in basketball and ice hockey. For description of sports points see points for ice hockey or points for basketball. In games divided into fixed time periods, especially those in which a player may exit and re-enter the game multiple or an unlimited number of times, a player may receive the same credit (in this context, a liability) for participation in a game regardless of how long (i.e., for what portion of the game clock's elapsing) they were actually on the field or court. For this reason, the points-per-game statistic may understate the contribution of players who are highly effective but used only in certain specific "pinch" or "clutch" scenarios, such that a points-per-unit-time figure (e.g., "points per 48 minutes" in the case of professional basketball) may better represent their effectiveness within the context in which a coach or manager plays them. Although the points-per-game statistic has the advantage of factoring in the breadth of scenarios in which the player is effective, in that a player effective in many different scenarios will play more minutes per game and therefore contribute more to the team's overall performance, it still fails to distinguish between an ineffective player, an effective "pinch"/"clutch" offensive player, and a player assuming a primarily defensive role in a position whose title does not necessarily make the nature of their role obvious (e.g., basketball forward and star rebounder Dennis Rodman).
Ice hockey is a contact winter team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It is one of the fastest team sports on ice belonging to a small group of four ice skating team sports which now includes bandy, ringette, and rinkball. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hockey sticks to control, advance and shoot a closed, vulcanized, rubber disc called a "puck" into the other team's goal. Each goal is worth one point. The team which scores the most goals is declared the winner. In a formal game, each team has six skaters on the ice at a time, barring any penalties, one of whom is the goaltender.
Pythagorean expectation is a sports analytics formula devised by Bill James to estimate the percentage of games a baseball team "should" have won based on the number of runs they scored and allowed. Comparing a team's actual and Pythagorean winning percentage can be used to make predictions and evaluate which teams are over-performing and under-performing. The name comes from the formula's resemblance to the Pythagorean theorem.
Fantasy hockey is a form of fantasy sport where players build a team that competes with other players who do the same, based on the statistics generated by professional hockey players or teams. The majority of fantasy hockey pools are based on the teams and players of the ice hockey National Hockey League (NHL).
Fighting is an established tradition in North American ice hockey, with a long history that involves many levels of amateur and professional play and includes some notable individual fights. Fights may be fought by enforcers, or "goons" —players whose role is to fight and intimidate—on a given team, and is governed by a system of unwritten rules that players, coaches, officials, and the media refer to as "the code". Some fights are spontaneous, while others are premeditated by the participants. While officials tolerate fighting during hockey games, they impose a variety of penalties on players who engage in fights.
Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required to have a clear winner, as in single-elimination tournaments where only one team or players can advance to the next round or win the tournament.
In baseball, a pinch hitter is a substitute batter. Batters can be substituted at any time while the ball is dead ; the manager may use any player who has not yet entered the game as a substitute. Unlike basketball, American football or ice hockey, and in a similar way to association football, baseball does not have a "free substitution rule" and thus the replaced player in baseball is not allowed back into that game. The pinch hitter assumes the spot in the batting order of the player whom he replaces.
In tabletop games and video games, game mechanics are the rules that govern and guide the player's actions, as well as the game's response to them. A game's mechanics thus effectively specifies how the game will work for the people who play it.
In sports, a time-out or timeout is a halt in the play. This allows the coaches of either team to communicate with the team, e.g., to determine strategy or inspire morale, as well as to stop the game clock. Time-outs are usually called by coaches or players, although for some sports, TV timeouts are called to allow media to air commercial breaks. Teams usually call timeouts at strategically important points in the match, or to avoid the team being called for a delay of game-type violation, such as the five-second rule in basketball.
Roller inline hockey, or inline hockey is a variant of hockey played on a hard, smooth surface, with players using inline skates to move and hockey sticks to shoot a hard, plastic puck into their opponent's goal to score points. There are five players including the goalkeeper from each team on the rink at a time, while teams normally consist of 16 players.
The following are statistics commonly tracked in ice hockey.
Austin George Carr is an American former professional basketball player who played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Dallas Mavericks, and Washington Bullets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is known by Cleveland basketball fans as "Mr. Cavalier". He was part of the Notre Dame team which defeated the UCLA Bruins on January 19, 1971, which was UCLA's last defeat until being beaten by Notre Dame exactly three years later, breaking the Bruins' NCAA men's basketball record 88-game winning streak.
In sports, a winning percentage is the fraction of games or matches a team or individual has won. The statistic is commonly used in standings or rankings to compare teams or individuals. It is defined as wins divided by the total number of matches played. A draw counts as a 1⁄2 win.
In most North American sports, the phrase games behind or games back is a common way to reflect the gap between a leading team and another team in a sports league, conference, or division.
Advanced statistics in basketball refers to analyzing basketball statistics through objective evidence. APBRmetrics is a cousin to the study of baseball statistics, known as sabermetrics, and similarly takes its name from the acronym APBR, which stands for the Association for Professional Basketball Research.
Statistics in basketball are kept to evaluate a player's or a team's performance.
The three stars in ice hockey are the three best players in a game as chosen by a third party, with the first star considered the best of the three players, akin to the Player of the match in other sports. Usually, the top point scorers or outstanding goaltenders are designated as the three best players of the game, but other players may be considered by affecting the game by other means.
The 2015–16 AHL season was the 80th season of the American Hockey League. The regular season began on October 9, 2015, and ended on April 17, 2016. The 2016 Calder Cup playoffs follow the conclusion of the regular season. An attendance record was set with a league average of 5,982 spectators per game, surpassing the record set in 2004–05.
Clutch performance in sports is the phenomenon of athletes under pressure or "in the clutch", usually in the last minutes of a game, to summon strength, concentration and whatever else necessary to succeed, to perform well, and perhaps change the outcome of the game. It occurs in basketball, hockey, football, esports, and other sports but the phrase is most common in baseball. The opposite is "choking": failing to perform as needed, when under pressure.
The 2016–17 AHL season was the 81st season of the American Hockey League. The regular season began on October 14, 2016, and ended on April 15, 2017. The 2017 Calder Cup playoffs began on April 20, 2017.
Playing period is a division of time in a sports or games, in which play occurs. Many games are divided into a fixed number of periods, which may be named for the number of divisions. Other games use terminology independent of the total number of divisions. A playing period may have a fixed length of game time or be bound by other rules of the game.