Doan, Miller and Crosby named finalists for Messier Award

Hockey Betting Lines

06/02/2010 - New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Phoenix Coyotes captain Shane Doan, Buffalo Sabres goaltender Ryan Miller and Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby have been selected as 2010 finalists for the Mark Messier Leadership Award.

The award recognizes an individual as a superior leader in hockey and as a contributing member of society. It honors an individual who leads by positive example through on-ice performance, motivation of team members and a dedication to community activities and charitable causes.

Messier, a six-time Stanley Cup champion in a 25-year NHL career, solicits suggestions from club and league personnel, as well as fans, in compiling a list of potential candidates. However, the selection of the three finalists and the ultimate winner is Messier's alone.

Doan, who has played for the franchise since the 1990s when it was known as the Winnipeg Jets, has been captain of the Coyotes for the last six years. He presided over the club's best season in team history, which saw Phoenix win 50 games and compile 107 points -- both franchise highs -- while it reached the playoffs for the first time since 2002. All of this occurred as the status of the team was up in the air with bankruptcy proceedings and rumors of relocation swirling constantly.

The 33-year-old has maintained a constant presence in the Valley of the Sun since he arrived in 1996. He currently serves as an ambassador for Coyotes Charities, and works with Phoenix Children's Hospital, Phoenix Rescue Mission and Flashes of Hope -- an organization which allows photographers to visit terminally ill children and take uplifting family portraits.

Miller led the Sabres to a first-place finish in the Northeast Division this past season, and was also the tournament MVP as the backstop for the silver medal winning Team USA squad at the Vancouver Winter Games.

As the primary face of the franchise, Miller works closely with the Buffalo Sabres Foundation during its numerous events within the community. However, his best work comes with the Steadfast Foundation -- an entity Miller himself founded -- which works to benefit those who have been affected by childhood cancer.

Crosby, the Penguins' captain, has helped his club to a pair of Stanley Cup Finals appearances with a Cup victory in 2009. The native of Nova Scotia also etched his name in national lore after tallying the game-winner in overtime for Canada against the USA at Vancouver.

The 22-year-old superstar hosts a suite for underprivileged children at every Penguins home game in conjunction with the Make a Wish Foundation. He funds and serves as an on-ice instructor for the Penguins' Learn to Play Program that introduces the game to youngsters and, with support from Reebok, outfits them from head to toe.

The winner will be announced Wednesday, June 23, during the 2010 NHL Awards ceremony in Las Vegas.

Last year's winner was Jarome Iginla of the Calgary Flames. Chris Chelios of Detroit won the inaugural award in 2007.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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