In an era where salary caps have become a challenge for teams in the National Hockey League, one team seems clearly unaffected. In fact, the Chicago Blackhawks are the only team in the National Hockey League’s salary-capped era to win a Stanley Cup more than once and with the Blackhawks advancing to the Western Conference finals, they may well be on their way to winning the coveted cup again this year. With the potential to win their third Stanley Cup in five years, many in sports are beginning to refer to the Blackhawk’s winning ways as a new “dynasty” within the sport of hockey.
There are many explanations that can be offered for the Blackhawks success; however, one of the more interesting theories may be the one linking their use of technology and advanced analytics to evaluate player performance and efficiency in certain areas of play.
“What we do is different,” said Blackhawks General Manager Stan Bowman. “It’s also a competitive advantage which is why I’m really trying not to talk about it. I think what we do gives us an advantage over other teams”.
Given the Blackhawks recent success, it’s getting harder for other teams and the NHL to ignore analytics and the technology currently available. Beginning next fall, the NHL will test new technology that will provide a new array of information and according to John Collins, NHL Chief Operating Officer, a league-wide system could be in place for the start of the 2015-2016 season.
The leading contenders vying to be the system selected are Sportvision and SportVU. SportVU is owned by Stats LLC, a Chicago-based company jointly owned by the Associated Press and 21st Century Fox. SportVU began working with a small number of NBA teams four years ago including the Boston Celtics and by the start of the 2013 – 2014 season was installed in every NBA arena. But what is SportVU specifically?
SportVU is a series of cameras that use Israeli missile-tracking technology to capture the movement of the puck, players and the four referees 25 times per second throughout a game while beaming gigabytes of data into computer servers. This data is then combined with play-by-play information and fed through algorithms to produce the data teams can use to gain a competitive advantage.
The following graphic shows how the Toronto Raptors and the NBA are using SportVU. While it is not the NBA, the graphic gives some insight as to how the system can also be used for the NHL:
A major concern with applying this same technology to hockey is that the game of hockey is much more complex than basketball. For example in the NBA, SportVU cameras identify players by the numbers on the back of their jerseys and there are some concerns that because line changes occur on the fly and do not require a stoppage in play like basketball, there could be error involved in the collection of the statistics. In order to test its validity, SportVU recorded eight games in Washington before the Winter Olympics as an initial trial. The accuracy at which the cameras were able to track the puck left a lot to be desired.
Since tracking the puck was a major challenge for SportVU cameras in the initial trial, this may be where Sportvision – a competitive system – could have an advantage. Like its competitor, SportVU, Sportvision is also vying to be the official system of the NHL. Sportvision is best known for the first-and-ten yellow digital line across football fields to enhance viewership on televisions. It should be noted that Sportvision has worked with the NHL before – dating back to the 1996 NHL All-Star Game. They are responsible for the use of FoxTrax and the glowing hockey puck. Although the glowing hockey puck was short-lived, Sportvision has capitalized on the concept and refined its original idea to the point that the NHL is now considering the new prototype chip-installed puck to collect analytics important to its teams such as puck possession. More recently, Sportvision has worked with the NHL to create IceCast online game tracking application and virtual advertisements featured on the glass for local telecasts.
It is anticipated that most teams would use the information supplied by the system to track simple things at first like standardizing what constitutes as a scoring chance. The expectation is that over time, teams will eventually use the chosen system to track more complex maneuvers like zone entry and exits. Currently, the league does not officially track these analytics though many bloggers do manually.
Another major debate is whether the system will be run by the league itself or individual teams and if the NHL will make data collected public. Adding additional debate to the issues is the notion that there are teams within the NHL like the Toronto Maple Leafs who shun the idea of analytics and its use to evaluate their players. Eventually, it may be difficult for Toronto to distance themselves from the movement if teams that embrace the technology like the Chicago Blackhawks continue to have the same amount of success they have seen in the last few years.