The Oklahoma City Thunder were one of 10 NBA teams to use SportsVU technology to gain an information advantage over their opponents. (Mike Ehrmann, Getty Images)
The future of advanced statistical analysis in hockey is happening right now. The only problem is that it’s happening in basketball.
There are two massive obstacles to the advancement of statistical analysis in hockey, in my opinion. One is the speed and complexity of the game, which makes it difficult to track and isolate specific events. A game like baseball lends itself well to advanced statistics because it is so easily parsed into individual events that can be quantified and analysed. In hockey, it’s extremely difficult to isolate events beyond the obvious, like faceoffs and shots. It’s one of the reasons why a lot of advanced statistical analysis revolves around attempted shots: they’re one of the few isolated, individual events that are available to be analysed.
The second obstacle is the accuracy of the data. Because statistics are compiled by human scorers at each rink, human error and bias enter into the picture, making it difficult to trust their accuracy. For instance, Colorado Avalanche scorekeepers tend to record significantly more shots on goal than league average, while the New Jersey Devils scorekeepers significantly undercount shots. Madison Square Garden scorekeepers consistently get shot location wrong, sometimes by as much as 20 feet, and NHL scorekeepers as a whole apparently can’t even decide where the faceoff dots are.
The technology for overcoming both of these obstacles already exists: it’s called SportsVU and it is currently invading the NBA. While it has a lot of potential to revolutionize basketball statistics, the potential for the technology in hockey is even greater.
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