As of 2019, the NHL is in the midst of implementing league-wide technology to aid in the collection of game data. SMT, a sports technology company, utilizes sensors in the puck and the players’ jerseys to record the coordinates of whoever, and whatever, is on the ice. When I first got into hockey (as a band wagoner, of course), I was curious as to how the league gathered data on the players. Most of the data available on NHL.com is easily curated. The statistics measured include penalty minutes, shots, overtime goals, and face-off win percentage – things that can be measured just by watching the game and marking tallies in each category. However, when you go to NBA.com, each player has an individual offensive rating, pace factor, and player impact estimate. These statistics most likely have some complication equation, but to the normal fan, these measurements are extremely abstract. In the NHL, the only equivalent of these abstract measurements would be Corsi, which measures shot attempts for and against a team or an individual player while they’re on the ice. The data that SMT is slated to deliver by the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs is predicted to be a “tsunami” of information.
What really piqued my interest about data-gathering in the NHL was the intention behind implementing such technology. Dave Lehanski states that SMT’s technology is necessary because they “don’t have a lot of the math that supports a lot of the subjective opinions that people have.” This quote reminded me of a running joke that my friends and I have: why do humans feel the need to quantify everything? Originally, we used the joke to commiserate about the difficulty of chemistry, but in this context, it speaks volumes. Is there something inherently bad about having subjective opinions about sports? The whole point of being a spectator and a fan is to support a team for whatever reason, so why can’t we treat players the same way? Is there something wrong with the way that we understand the data the NHL already collects, or is there some other force at play?
Ultimately, my questions about the NHL’s promise of better data boil down to one bigger question: do we rely too much on statistics and numbers to tell us value? I think this is very similar to our class discussion on whether or not we rely too much on technology for solutions. On one hand, you can argue that having as much data as possible is great for betting fans, general managers, and the players themselves. Being able to pinpoint areas of concern or growth does wonders for growing the game and making it more interesting. On the other hand, you can argue that a fixation on data distracts from the things that might matter even more, like a player’s locker room presence or their personal work ethic. Our society’s obsession with numbers is just a subset of the larger issue of the over-implementation of technology. Practicality and common sense take a back seat when we use new products to solve old problems because we want to build our world around technology rather than build technology to help our world. We can look at John Scott’s 5 goals over a 10 year career and shake our heads, but when he’s voted into the All-Star Game and wins MVP, it’s clear that there’s something other than the numbers at work.
Wall Street Journal Article on the New Analytics System in the NHL