Plus/Minus

My fellow hockey-loving readers are well-acquainted with the curious and frequently debated player statistic known as the plus/minus. But even if you couldn't care less about hockey, the plus/minus has some life lessons to teach us all. Non-hockey people, I see you shaking your heads, but bear with me and I promise I'm gonna get you there. Hockey buddies, you can laugh at me if you wish, because I'll probably deserve it.

Simply put, the plus/minus is a way of measuring the net result of the good and bad elements of a players performance when they're on the ice. When good things happen, like your team scoring a goal, you get a plus towards your rating - the hockey version of a gold star on your kindergarten activity report. If something bad happens, like the OTHER team scoring, you get a minus. Easy enough right? But here's the REALLY fun part. When your team scores a goal, EVERYONE on the ice gets a gold star, not just the shooter that put the actual biscuit in the basket. Of course, this also means that when bad stuff happens, everyone gets penalized, even if only one player made a real big mistake. The assignment of credit or blame to everyone, and how it impacts individual players, is what rankles fans when their particular player starts taking a hit on his plus/minus stat.

Let's look at my pal Drew Doughty for example.



He logs more time on ice than any defenceman on the Kings entire team. Walking around in every day life, he's a hell of a player. But when the team struggles, his plus/minus goes down with everyone else, even if he did everything right on a shift and the other 4 dudes out there on the ice were completely slacking. How is this fair? Drew is AMAZING, but some hack that doesn't follow the Kings looks at me like, "Why do you like this guy? His plus/minus sucks." Now for the record, Drew is a +8 right now, so no one that knows anything about hockey would say that to me, but you get the idea.

It's fair because the plus/minus process is a lot like life. When we have success, it's rarely achieved alone. We have the support and love of others to help get us there, even if they don't get direct recognition. The same goes for failures. While we may ultimately make the decision alone that leads there, we impact others in big and small ways. This is the reason I love hockey - it's a true team sport, where success and responsibility are shared. Just like life.

So I thought it would be funny to give myself a plus/minus rating for the first official Monday of the New Year. Here's are my stats:


(-) Failed to get up as early as planned, and started entire day behind schedule

(-) Felt strap on lucky purple bra break while I was sitting in the car on the way into work (this is actually a -2 since this bra has a 4-1 win record at home Kings game since date of purchase)

(-) Bra managed to break on a "hair up" day, making MacGyver'ed solution of tying straps in halter configuration in Starbucks bathroom less than ideal

(+) Consumed morning Starbucks out of reusable car cup (new environmentally friendly me)

(+) Remembered to bring lunch to save expense of buying

(+) Survived entire day at work wearing MacGyver bra without being detected by co-workers

(+) Limited caffeine consumption to 1 Starbucks and avoided customary second stop on way home

(-) Arrived home and logged into Facebook to the dismay of continued flap over my Caps jersey episode at the last Kings game

(+) Successfully completed first date with elliptical training in over a month

(+) Spent evening listening to tremendous Kings win on radio! Drew makes 4 assists and is #1 Star of the Game! (That's a plus 2!)

So if my math is correct, I'm a +2. Not bad for a Monday....