Welcome to NHLNumbers
Kent Wilson
May 09 2012 05:06PM
To those who are only now discovering advanced analysis in hockey, the entire endeavor must be slightly overwhelming. The collection of foreign sounding terms and acronyms, the array of tables and graphs, the intimidating argot of stats speak and often counter-intuitive findings can make the field seem alien and off-putting.
Evidence-based inquiry into hockey (and, indeed, all sports) isn't a conspiracy by calculator weidling nerds to usurp the jocks and anger the established decision makers however. The current thinking, from general theory to common terms, grew over a period of time: through hidden conversations in the first internet unenet groups to the recent, rapid evolution due to the explosion of online stats resources, self-publishing and crowd-sourced data.
The goal of the new NHLNumbers site is to bring together some of the most influential voices of that conversation, including Derek Zona and Scott Reynolds of CoppernBlue, Tyler Dellow of MC79hockey and many others. We will firmly root current thinking in the findings of the past as well as establish new measures and methods for the future. We will seek to render the ever evolving project of evidence-based inquiry more cohesive, more accessible and less intimidating to those who are only now discovering "new" stats and ways of analyzing the game. At the same time, NHLNumbers will engage the established, hardcore stat-heads.
With the help of some of the brightest and most strident iconoclasts, we will investigate and analyze not only the quantitative side of winning hockey games, but the economic and behavioral factors that influence team evaluation, player acquisition and fan perceptions.
So welcome to the new NHLNumbers. We suspect the fights in the comment strings will be legendary.
I hope the bathtub is big enough so you can all take a sip. :)
Good work Kent, looking forward to reading what you guys produce. Will be informative I'm sure, and lead to some good convos...
derp derp
Nerds
numbers are for losers
winners go home with 1500 PDOs
"We suspect the fights in the comment strings will be legendary."
Who invited the Wild bloggers?
@Chemmy
Is that a Sean Connery reference?
Results with statistical significance tests are only hypotheses, and with always only be hypotheses.
Numbers are easy. Demonstrating statistical significance is hard.
Hope you guys don't forget about the hard part.
Or to quote Beyonce, "Put an error bar on it."
So, this is a secret conspiracy to ensure my pallid visage is illuminated only by electronic reading devices all summer, isn't it?
Very excited to see the work on here.
Also, give me back my sortable player comparisons. I know I used to be able to look up all centremen sorted by cap hit.
@Tach
Yeah we'll be working on functionality behind the scenes this summer as well.
Any chance we will see advanced stats included? Scoring chances for/against specifically.
Stats schmats; goals, assists, points, plus-minus, and PIM's are the only useful stats!!! Mike Milbury and Glen Healy told me so.
We can neither confirm nor deny this may happen *top secret*
cooooooooome ooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnn...
:p
Watch the games!
Looking forward to this, guys. Best of luck.
In the poll on the side, where is the "all of the above" options. I am a fan of advanced stats but am skeptical of some of them and am certain some of them are used to promote voodoo and/or lies.
Congrats Kent et all. I'm sure it was a lot of work getting to this point.
Reply #1 James Mirtle May 09 2012, 05:09PM
derp derp
Reply #2 Corey Pronman May 09 2012, 05:13PM
Nerds
------------
Interesting 1-2 combo.
This kicks ass. Very excited!
Yay!
$10 says this site does better than Leaf's Nation... because stats are more useful than Leaf's fans and less hated :P
Forget it, that's a terrible bet. I don't need to send more money to Edmonton.
@ChinookArch
Well it was a toss up between Leaf's and Vancouver fans eh ;)
Great idea! Another site "Burkey" won't be visiting! And,time to get Bure in the HOF!
Duh
Woohoo!
lol. This is going to be a wonderful daily visit. GREAT choice of authors and I know there will be great information.
btw, is this why Wilson got a haircut?
although I firmly believe math is a ruse of the devil, much like evolution or gravity, I will visit this site often to stay well informed on my enemies thoughts. oh, and go oilers! derp.
Sweet chicken! Looking forward to this. Is it a site (like Behind the Net), or will you posting articles on this blog?
Can't wait for the analysis of the most important hockey metrics, like DNAClutch/60 or 5v5FightMomentum%
If only we could all be the Chris Kelly of the hockey blogosphere.
I want to post something snarky as a manner of welcome, but it's late, I'm tired and I'm too geeked up about this site. So, good luck, and tell your mom to send down some cookies. Oh, hey, guess I wasn't too tired. Seriously, good luck!
The only numbers that matter are 99, 66, 9, and 4. Everybody else is just a European.