Novelty Must Keep an Honest Ledger
From the cricket ground to the new hockey league, an intelligible record is the first courtesy owed to the reader.
LONDON, January 2.—Mr. Mercer has discovered a new hockey league and, with commendable American efficiency, already found grounds for an argument. I shall not object to the XHL merely because it is new. Tradition itself had an opening day, though its more determined defenders prefer to forget the circumstance.
I do ask that the account remain intelligible. A goal worth two points may be a perfectly lawful invention; it is still one goal scored by one player. Cleveland’s six-to-four victory over Cincinnati must therefore be read as a contest of scoring points, rather than a promise that six pucks entered the visiting net. Novel arithmetic is tolerable. Careless reporting is not.
The preliminary shooting contest raises a further question of taste. Its victor receives the decision should the ordinary contest finish level, without those preliminary attempts entering the goal totals. The arrangement is clear enough. Whether it improves the pleasure of the evening will require more evidence than the enthusiasm of its promoters—or my colleague’s Cleveland sympathies.
There is already ample business beyond the ice. The cricket dispatches record South Australia’s victory over Victoria by ten wickets, and Wellington’s defeat of Otago by an innings and 161 runs. Wellington’s 368, followed by Otago’s 126 and 81, provides an account whose severity requires no ornamental adjective. These completed matches began before New Year; their whole histories should not be squeezed into a single day’s label.
Association football offers equal variety: Bolton Wanderers’ seven goals without reply against New Brighton Tower, Grimsby Town’s victory at The Wednesday, and Corinthian’s three-to-nil success against Queen’s Park. The last belongs to a friendly, and awards no league points. A newspaper ought to preserve that distinction, even when its compositor would find one uniform table more convenient.
On the water, Picton has furnished shared honours as well as winners. Wellington’s two senior-fours entries share first; Britannia takes both sailing honours, with Tara sharing the equal corrected gap. The reader deserves those qualifications. A result does not grow less interesting because it declines to fit a tidy headline.
This shall be the intention of our international column: to follow the contest, explain the account, and reserve admiration until it has been earned. Mr. Mercer may supply the sparks. I shall endeavour to keep the paper from catching fire.