Does Flyers fans yelling “shoot” result in more shots on goal?
On Friday, the Flyers, Sixers, and Wells Fargo center sent a proposal to the city of Philadelphia to have 5,000 fans in WFC starting in March. If the city accepts this proposal, the Flyers should receive a much-needed boost of Flyers fans’ motivation. In their nine home games since the start of the 2021 season, the Flyers home games have seemed hollow and bare compared to the packed arenas that they’ve had during their franchise life. For a lot of people, they miss the booing, chants, and profanity being yelled from the fans the most. The aspect I miss the most from home games is “SHOOOOT” cried while the Flyers are in the offensive zone. If we’re all being honest, we’ve all gotten caught up in the shoot chant when the Flyers frustratingly decide to pass the puck instead of putting it on the net.
Like any great “journalist” does, I put on my best investigator hat and looked to see if the “shoot” chant does motivate the Fly guys to fire pucks on the net. Now, as a disclaimer, these calculations are not exactly the most scientific that you’ll ever find. The 2021 Flyers had to deal with injuries that the 2019-20 Flyers did not have to, so the SOG numbers may be slightly affected because of it. As of writing this article, the Flyers played nine home games, so the data sample is of the first nine home games of the 2021 and 2019-20 seasons.
From the table, you can see that the 2021 Flyers have averaged 24 SOG per game, and the 2019-20 Flyers averaged 37.88 SOG per contest. The biggest thing that jumped out from the data was that the 2019-20 Flyers averaged over 14 shots on goal more than the 2021 team did. The highest SOG game for the 2021 team was 30 (01/19 Sabres), compared to the lowest SOG game for the 2019-20 team at 28 SOG (11/5 Hurricanes). The rosters between the two seasons are not that different besides Sean Couturier’s injury and Matt Niskanen’s retirement, affecting the 2021 team. Nisky and Couts were a significant loss for the Flyers in their current season, but I don’t believe they were worth 14 shots on goal per game. The only reasonable explanations for why there is such a gap between the SOG numbers is no preseason for the 2021 team or the poor play of the defense which caused more time in the defensive zone. If you watch a game from the 2021 season vs. a game from the 2019-20 season you can see from the eye test that the 2019-20 team looked to shoot the puck more and get it on the net instead of trying to set up the perfect opportunity. As hockey fans, we all just want our teams to score and not really care how you get it done but when the offense is stalling then there’s something to be said on why.
For scientific correctness, I calculated the team’s SOG’s total for all of their 14 games so far in the 2021 season and the first 14 games of the 2019-20 team (not including the opener in Prague against the Blackhawks) which includes both home and away games. The average of SOG for both seasons was lower than their home SOG average, which is expected as almost every team in sports tends to play better at home than away. The difference between the 2021 and 2019-20 numbers got smaller as the difference was only 11.28 SOG. So the stats in for both home and away support the influence of the home crowd motivating more shots. There were no calculations done for seasons past the 2019-20 season because Alain Vigneault did start until the 2019-20 season, and the team played different styles under Hakstol and Scott Gordon.
Shots on goal do not perfectly translate to more goals or better play, but it is a substantial number because the more pucks you can get on the net, the more chances you can get to put more into the back of the net. Though in conclusion, there is data to support that yelling “shoot” does motivate the home team to fire more pucks on the net. Even if yelling shoot didn’t work, there would still be hundreds of fans yelling it because as fans we’re always right and never wrong especially in Philadelphia. There are also other factors to be said about fans energizing the home team to play better or light the lamp more to motivate the fans, especially at the end of games when the body starts to get tired. When fans are allowed back in the Wells Fargo Center, it will be interesting to see if the Flyers SOG numbers do see a significant spike upwards.
Featured image – Philly Voice
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