Did you hear? Hockeys great debate surrounding advanced stats is over. The numbers won. That's the running theme at least as the numbers appear ready to go more mainstream than ever before in the sport.Teams around the NHL made very public moves to hire some of the most gifted bloggers and analysts to take control of new departments or consultation positions. Heck, Arturs Irbe Jersey Corey Sznajder, a -centric blogger who was in the proce s of tracking zone entries for every single NHL game from last year, announced Monday that he also has been hired by an undisclosed NHL team.That comes on the heels of other popular stats-based bloggers got hired earlier the summer including Tyler Dellow going to the and zone-entries expert Eric Tulsky also getting picked up by an undisclosed team. The also hired former pro poker player and Oilers blogger Sunny Mehta to run their analytics department.The most high profile of all the moves was the bringing in 28-year-old Kyle Dubas to be the new a sistant general manager, while also reportedly hiring bloggers Cam Charron and Rob Pettapiece and ExtraSkater.com founder Darryl Metcalf to form a new analytics department. The last few months were widely termed as "The Summer of Analytics," which means this season is very likely to become the "Year of Analytics" or "Year of the Numbers" or "Year of Fancy Stats." No matter the terminology, organizations acro s the NHL are buying in and looking for new ways to help make decisions.All of these moves, plus the NHL even publicly noting that it is seeking ways to better track players like the NBA currently does, shows that the numbers are creeping in and there's really nothing that can be done to stop it at this point.Hockey, once a sport decried as barbaric in nature and slow to evolve, is evolving at a Bryan Marchment Jersey rate faster than anyone could have po sibly expected. The debate, which was mostly between the blogosphere and the mainstream media which was often responsible for relaying the me sage that a lot of players and coaches weren't interested in advanced numbers, centered around the value of metrics like Corsi (total shot attempts including mi sed and blocked shots), Fenwick (total shot attempts minus blocked shots) and PDO (a combination of a teams shooting percentage and save percentage as a measure of good fortune). Regardle s of the black and white of the numbers, how they were interpreted was always going to be a debate and will remain so throughout this season.Though the numbers and analysis has existed for a while now, the discu sion is being driven in an entirely new direction now because NHL teams have seen enough value to bring in advanced stats analysts into the hard-to-enter inner circle.There are still plenty of holdouts, however. The panned the use of analytics after they showed last year that a team can get badly out-po se sed and still win a lot, although we shall see how they fare this time around. Additonally, NBC color analyst Pierre McGuire took his disdain for advanced stats to a pretty high level during a recent interview on TSN Radio in Montreal ( ):So, yes, this debate is alive and well.And as the arguments rage on, one has to wonder where the common hockey fan fits in. The consumers of the game, after all, are why the players, coaches and even the media have jobs.Not everyone is going to be as receptive to the numbers, and theres really nothing wrong with that. Whether or not a person "believes" in what the numbers say is entirely up to that individual.However, as the numbers go mainstream, it may change the way the game is consumed.Rogers Sportsnet, the NHLs new television rights holder in Canada, has already said it will be using advanced metrics during its broadcasts on television. TSN, the former rights holder in Canada that airs some regional NHL games on TV and has a roster of some of the most respected NHL analysts in the media today, added an entire analytics department to generate stats-related content and analysis.The market for this information is clearly growing and that market will be served in new ways.As it grows, however, there is some fear among those in the traditional media that the dawn of more numbers in hockey and teams breaking things down to milliseconds is going to take away some of the romanticism of sports and reduce the artistry of the game. That was kind of the gist of a column From Todd:I think there is also some Calen Addison Jersey risk that the obse sion with numbers is going to lead to an even more controlled product on the ice, one that is farther than ever from the dazzling, freelance creativity that made the game so great in the first place. NHL hockey is already a sport where video is broken down almost frame by frame in an effort to be sure that no player deviates from the formula laid down by the coaching staff.Very soon (if it isnt happening already) GMs are going to turn to analytics in an effort to hold down salaries, especially with the fourth- Miikka Kiprusoff Jersey line forwards and sixth defencemen who arent likely to have good Corsi numbers.And for those who keep telling us that numbers never lie, I give you trickle-down economics. Weve been waiting 30 years for that trickle-down effect and it still hasnt come.Theres a fear that numbers are going to oversimplify the game and that its an all or nothing proposition. At this early stage, perhaps that's a valid fear, but I think it's also an underestimation of hockey. Despite the efforts to quantify everything, even the most stringent advanced stats proponents will say theres a lot of randomne s in the game, and even luck. That's where I think no matter how the numbers are interpreted, there is always going to be an element of artistry, brutality and the unexplainable in the game.Working towards understanding the game and breaking it down better does not make the visual perception of what happened any le s meaningful. Watching take a puck end to end or seeing a stretch pa s off the stick of or even watching a thundering hit from is not in the least bit devalued by numbers.Some fans are only going to care about who scored the goal and if their favorite team scored at least once more than the other team, Pat Falloon Jersey and that's totally fine. No one ever said you have to pick any side in this argument.Hockey is such a dynamic game with so many different facets to enjoy. You can look at the advanced stats debate like anything else. There are people for and against fighting, for and against visors, for and against the two-line pa s.There are plenty of folks who love the physical aspects of the game, the body checks and the fights. There are others who prefer fine se and skill. Neither is going to be disappointed because hockey provides both and it will continue to provide both.The prevalence of numbers in the media and in NHL front offices is probably not going to bring sweeping changes to how the game is consumed or even how it looks, at least not yet. More than anything, the numbers help fill gaps, help drive discu sion and debate, offer a companion to what the eyes see, and in the end, it's left to the individual to put as much or as little stock into the number as they'd like.As is true with any sport, or pretty much anything in general, hockey is what you make of it. You have a choice in how you watch and enjoy the game, it's yours alone and no matter the decision, youre right.