Hockey Standings Question

[MHSL82]

What's the point of having the "Games Played" column? All it does is make me mis-take that as the win column and the win column as the loss column. Virtually every league has teams with different numbers of games at any given point (with it equaling out by the end of the season), except football, where it's all the same for most teams, except for bye weeks and temporary Thursday or Monday night gaps.

2012-13 NHL Regular Season Conference Standings

 

[TiLoBrown]

If I had to guess I would think its because of the points system

 

[sabresfaninthesouth]

Because it allows you to see where your team actually stands relative to others.

Since they normally play 82 games, it's not uncommon for some teams to have 4 or 5 fewer games played than others, so even though they may be 2 points behind in the standings, when they've got 4 games in hand, it makes it more apparent where they actually stand.

 

[BadMotoWeazal]

Because it allows you to see where your team actually stands relative to others.

Since they normally play 82 games, it's not uncommon for some teams to have 4 or 5 fewer games played than others, so even though they may be 2 points behind in the standings, when they've got 4 games in hand, it makes it more apparent where they actually stand.

Yep....^ This

 

[juliansteed]

It's there to confuse some casual fans into thinking the "Games Played" column is actually the "Win" column and the "Win" column is actually the "Loss" column.

That way if your team is doing really shitty and you take a look at their record, you'll think they are doing really well and buy tickets to all the remaining games.