Here's an interesting little piece for those following the NHL Playoffs. Well, to be more accurate, this existed during the regular season. But for those who have their IMs on all day, you can also chat with an NHLStats bot to find the latest scores and stats.
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Add nhlstats@hotmail.com to your Live Messenger contact list.
2. Ask a question or type in phrases (command-like style).
An Example Snippet is shown below.
Yow-Hann says:
How is Roberto Luongo doing?
NHL Stats Agent says:
PLAYER STATISTIC CARD:
NUM NAME POS
1 Roberto Luongo Goalie
TEAM
Vancouver Canucks (Canucks)
PLAYOFFS STATISTICS:
GP GS W L OTL GA GAA
1 1 1 0 0 4 1.74
SO Shots SV SV% W% PIM
0 76 72 .947 1.000 0
>>> Would you like to see regular season stats for Roberto Luongo?
Yow-Hann says:
Canucks Playoff Record
NHL Stats Agent says:
TEAM STATISTIC CARD:
CITY NAME ALIAS NICKNAME
Vancouver Canucks Van Canucks
CONFERENCE DIVISION
Western Northwest
PLAYOFFS STATISTICS:
GP W L OTL PTS GF GA GAvg
1 1 0 0 N/A 5 4 5
W% SW SL PPO PPG PP% SO PIM
1.000 0 0 7 1 14.3 0 14
>>> Would you like to see regular season stats for the Canucks?
Yow-Hann says:
Canucks Season Record
NHL Stats Agent says:
Hmmm... I'm unable to answer this type of question at the moment.
I'm making a note of your question so that I can learn how to answer it in the future!
For now, my expertise is limited to providing statistics for teams and players, as well as scores and standings for the current 2006-2007 season.
Please ask me your question again soon as I am being updated frequently! In the mean time, try the "menu" command and look for the examples of questions that I can answer.
As you can see, the chatbot is still fairly primitive as it cannot differentiate between playoff and season record. But still kind of neat nevertheless. And in the worst case scenario, you can use this mechanism much like typing into a command line. I'm not exactly sure how much value this will bring to users (since they can just as easily have quick access to scores/stats through desktop gadgets and feeds). But in any case, this is a novel chatbot that was worth blogging about simply because they thought of doing it for Hockey as opposed to other sports (at least that I know of. Feel free to add others to the list.).