Magic Numbers

December 17th, 1991...........A chubby young boy opens up a paper door labeled "17" on his chocolate Christmas calendar, takes out the piece of molded chocolate, crams it into his mouth, and then happily counts the number of days until Christmas.  The boy makes sure no one else is around before opening up the number 18 door of the identical calendar that sits next to his and then consumes that bit of chocolate before closing the small paper door as if it had not been opened at all.  What can we deduce about this young boy?

1) He may be south suburban Chicago's version of Augustus Gloop.

2) He enjoys pissing off the owner of the second calendar, his little sister.

3) He loves counting down to special events.

The third point is the key folks, find out why after the jump.

Common amongst baseball fans in September is the observance of their favorite team's magic number.  Baseball's number is easy to understand, it is simply any combination of your team's wins + opposing team losses that is needed for your team to win its division, league, etc.

Hockey's magic number, while not too difficult to understand, is a bit more complicated and there are many more interesting scenarios to keep track of.  With our Blackhawks having a nice lead in the division and in the playoff hunt, hawk fans are to the point in which magic numbers can be useful to look at, if you are into that sort of thing.

With 21 games left to play, here are the Magic numbers.

The creator of the site has also provided a useful page of FAQs, I will highlight some of the more important ones.

To get one team's magic number over another team, here is the formula.  (the team with the greater number of points is A, the team with the lesser number of points is B)

I will use the Hawks and Nashville as an example, so this would be the Hawks magic number to win the division and obtain a top 3 seed.

# of points that B has = 71

+

max number of points B can earn for the rest of the season = Nashville has played 61 games, they have 21 left.  A win each game would be 2 X 21 = 42.

-

# of points that A has = 87

71 + 42 - 87 = 26

As you can see from the magic number website, the Hawks' magic number over Nashville is 27.

An additional point has been added as a tie breaker.

Here is my understanding of the tiebreaker point.

The number of games B has left is Z.  In this case Z = 21.

For team A to achieve the magic number (26) on its own, it would need X wins. In this case X = 13.

if X > Z, there is no need to add 1 point to the magic number

if X < Z, add 1 point to the magic number

In the Hawks-Nashville example, 13 (X) < 21 (Z), so the magic number of 26 goes to 27.

To me, the most practical way to use this magic number in countdown fashion is this.

If Nashville plays a game and loses in regulation, take 2 pts off of the magic number.

If Nashville plays a game and loses in overtime, take 1 pt off of the magic number.

If Nashville plays a game and wins, the magic number doesn't change.

If Chicago plays a game and loses in regulation, the magic number doesn't change.

If Chicago plays a game and loses in overtime, take 1 pt off the magic number.

If Chicago plays a game and wins, take 2 pts off the magic number.

As you can see, the most points a magic number can be reduced in one day is 4.  The least amount of points a magic number can be reduced in one day is 0.

A quick example: The hawks play tonight against NY, the preds also play tonight.  Hawks win and nashville loses in regulation, the magic number is now down to 23.

In closing, I'd like to leave you with some noteworthy magic numbers.

Hawks to secure a top 3 seed.................27

Hawks to secure the 2 seed....................32

Hawks to secure a playoff spot................23

Hawks to obtain top seed in the West.......42

Hawks to obtain the Presidents' trophy......43  

and that's a magic number.

Happy counting,

Augustus Hack