“How many minutes has each team led in the Stanley Cup?” my friend Drew wondered the other night as we were watching the tail end of Game 5.

Using the Sparkline feature in Excel 2010, I have looked at the minute-by-minute scores and the results are interesting.

Despite the series being all square now at 3-3, Boston is dominating minutes lead 164 to 36 (45% to 10%).

I’ll post an updated graph after Game 7…

Update: Here’s the chart with Game 7 updated:

Boston lead 50% of the minutes compared to Vancouver which only lead 9%.

It would be interesting to see how this compares to other series that have gone on to Game 7′s.

Update: Here is the 1994 Vancouver vs. New York Rangers series.

I’m running for charity at this year’s Broad Street Run, a ten-mile race in Philadelphia. I’m going to start at the back of the pack, and collect donations for every person I pass. This way, it incentivizes me to run faster, because every person I pass means more goes towards charity.

The charities I am supporting are the American Cancer Society, the Lupus Foundation of America, Philabundance, and the SPCA.

I’ve set up a sub-site website where I’m accepting pledges for donations.  If you pledge a per-person amount, after the race I’ll tell you how many people I passed and how much your donation will be.  If you pledge a flat donation, you’ll have the opportunity to donate now.

http://www.coreyhulse.com/run/

Thanks in advance for your support!

Back in November of 2009, I decided that I needed some kind of fitness goal. I was involved in intramurals and used to walk a lot around campus back in college, but since that point my daily exercise now normally consists of video games.

I decided that the Broad Street Run was the way to go. It’s a 10-mile race in Philadelphia that’s been held for more than 30 years, and the course is a simple straight line down Broad Street, starting up near Onely Street, a slight curve around City Hall, and all the way down until you hit the Naval Yard.

I started training post-Thanksgiving, giving myself about five months to go from my couch to a ten mile mark. So, how do you get from zero miles to ten miles? I asked Google.

I found a site with two good pages. One talked about how to go from nothing to a 5K (3.1m) in about 2 months, and then the second page talked about going from a 5K to 10 miles. Perfect! I mapped out my weekly plan for when and how much I needed to run each week, and set out to work.

Unfortunately, I didn’t stick with the plan. As a busy man who is always parasailing with movie stars, I would sometimes push out or completely skip workouts. Here’s a chart comparing the max mileage I should have been doing against an approximation of what I actually did.

I haven’t been keeping on track with the pace I wanted, but what I have noticed is that I can go much longer distances at a higher pace without stopping or slowing down. When I started, I could hardly go a 1/2 mile without slowing down to a walk. Now, I can get through 2 miles at a high pace when I run outside, and can easily get through a 5K on a treadmill without slowing down.

In the meantime, I also found a running group that I joined, called KOP Runners.  It’s a small group of relatively new people to running, and it was a great fit for my beginner status.

Skip ahead to April. I’ve been happily chugging along with training, but haven’t done any races yet. I set out a schedule to quickly ramp up distances in the final month leading up to the Broad Street Run.

04-11-10: Penn Colleges Against Cancer 5K – 38:03 (12:15 min/mi)
04-18-10: Valley Forge Revolutionary Run 5-Mile – 54:14 (10:51 min/mi)
04-26-10: Miami Beach Boardwalk Run 8-Mile (Self-Timed) – 1:35 (11:57 min/mi)
05-02-10: Broad Street Run 10-Mile – ???

I’ve also found a great iPhone Application called RunKeeper, which uses the GPS in your phone to ping your location, and give you real-time feedback on speed and mileage.  It also has LiveTracking of events, so the goal is to use it during the Broad Street Run to let people know where I am at the race (and where to find me if I collapse during the race).

Bookmark this link and follow my progress on race day! http://runkeeper.com/user/coreyhulse/activities

I’m hoping to finish the race in 2:10, giving me a 13:00 min/mi pace.  Is it fast? No, of course not. But it will be an accomplishment for someone who’s idea of exercise is watching sports on TV.

Update: I’ve completed the Broad Street Run!  2:01:52 (12:11 mi/min), beating my anticipated time by about eight minutes.  When I got to the final mile, I gave it a push to finish in under two hours, but I new I had to pace myself properly.  However, this gives me motivation to come back next year and try to get it under two hours.

So what’s next?  I’m debating doing a half-marathon, and there’s the Rock n’ Roll Half-Marathon in September.  Hmmmm… Stay tuned, sports fans.

A lot of offense by both teams, including a beauty of a grand slam by Angel Pagan.

And, as luck would have it, I was able to snap a picture as soon as it left Pagan’s bat.

All in all, a good time.  Let’s Go Mets!

This site we found combines two things that are awesome: sports and graphs.

It’s called Flip Flop Fly Ball and the man behind it, Craig Robinson, hasput together visual representation of various sports statistics. Two of my favorites are below, but be sure to visit the site to check them all out!

Assembling and Disassembling the 1986 New York Mets

Ballpark Home Plate Orientations

Be sure to check out his site for a bunch more!

Oh yes, that’s me at 0:34, predicting the win.

The idea came to me yesterday while trying to think of ways to avoid Valentines Day. Really, who needs a made up holiday? I resolved that instead of sulking around and thinking about being alone and heartbreak and girls on the 14th, I would spend the day celebrating the rebirth of hope: 37 pitchers and a handful of catchers, all decked out in orange and black, reporting to Orioles’ spring training in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

And so, even though I have a very lovely girlfriend (hi sweetie!) she is currently 2,508 miles away so I will also be spending Valentines Day celebrating Sports New Years.  That and getting my car inspected, but that’s neither here nor there.

I have two resolutions this year.

1. Attend a New York Mets game at their new stadium.  I didn’t get to go to Shea during the final season there.  I HAD tickets to the playoffs, but oh yeah, they blew their lead for a second year in a row and didn’t make it.
2. Be better New York Rangers fan.  This is mainly because I am consistently embarassed by my 10-year old sister who knows 90% more about the team than I do.  I’ll have two pretty solid opportunites coming up, with Flyers vs. Rangers on NBC on Sunday and Rangers vs. Blues on Versus on Monday.

Also, to celebrate, I think I’ll make Mets brownies.  I think I’m going to include the Mets logo and add the message “Dear Mets: Don’t Suck This Year”. Pictures will be posted this weekend.

Now, for your first ever TMOBITI:

As you may or may not know, there is a new football stadium being built in the Meadowlands complex which is to replace Giants Stadium.

Since the Jets have always had a minority complex about playing in a stadium that was built for the other team, measures are being taken which will make both teams seem like their new stadium is home.  This also is extended so that if they really want to, other teams that play here at home (For example, if Vince McMahon ever brings back the XFL).

The outside of the stadium will be aluminum louvers, and there will be interior lighting which can be switched depending on whether the Giants or Jets are the home team.  The design was inspired by a soccer stadium in Germany which has two home teams and the stadium lighting changes colors to red for Bayern Munich and blue for 1860 Munich.

Here’s a picture which shows the two colors.

I haven’t found any images yet which show the stadium with the new lighting scheme, so I’ve put together some (badly) photoshopped pictures on what I think it should look like.

Meadowlands Stadium

New York Giants Home

New York Jets Home

No word on if they’re going to add other colors besides blue and green, but you’ve got to think that if they add a red in there, then the color possibilities go through the roof.

If you’re counting the 2004 NHL lockout year as a “season of futility”, then indeed we are at 100.  If you don’t, well, you’ve got 99 problem and the NHL lockout ain’t one.

*Pause for groan over the Jay-Z lyrics reference.*

The years refer to when the championship for that game was played.  So, the 2005 Eagles stat refers to the 2004 regular season and Super Bowl XXXIX, where they lost to the New England Patriots 24-21.

…

More bowling stats here: http://www.balmoralsoftware.com/bowling/bowling.htm

Also, did you know that there was such a thing as five-pin bowling?  Neither did I.  It’s apparently popular in Canada.  You have five pins set up in a V-shape (Think “Flying V” from Mighty Ducks).  Different pins are worth different points.  For example, if you knock out the head pin, it’s worth five points.  Sometimes, you knock out just the head pin which leaves a split, and you’ve created a “five-hole”.  Sound familiar?  Legend says that the term “five-hole” then spread to hockey, which describes the area between a goaltender’s legs.