In April of 2022, I somewhat randomly decided to track zone entries and exits in my notebook during a regular season game between the Boston Bruins and Columbus Blue Jackets. At the time, it was a tool to help me stay interested in what would likely become a boring game. What I found was that it not only mitigated my risk for losing my attention, but it also kept me engaged in a meaningless game. I remember having a firmer feel for how each player was doing and was at no surprise when the Bruins changed up their defensive pairs midway through the game as one of the defensemen (Mike Reilly I think) was struggling mightily on his off-side.
Ironically, a few months later, I found myself looking to move to Columbus. Having never lived outside of Massachusetts, and searching for a new job, I pinned the very average, laid-back city as a great potential place for me to explore. However, the second week in August would change all of that. It began with the Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci signings and ended with me taking a job offer in Massachusetts myself.
Excited for the upcoming “last dance” season for the Bruins, I decided I would track zone entries and exits for the entire season. The project took me from one-on-one interviews at Warrior Ice Arena, to presenting at SEAHAC, to live-tracking at a bar.
I’m very glad I made the decision to take on such a mighty project as it was incredibly enjoyable, and ultimately led me back into writing. As I plan to continue it next season, the off-season is a great time to do a post-mortem to pinpoint potential improvements. And with how public I’ve been with my process, I figured I’d share that with the world.
What Went Right
My goal for the tracking project was to be able to gather, provide, and analyze zone entry and exit data in as close to real-time as possible. I would say, I accomplished that mission (Yay!). I occasionally missed a live game with trips to Texas, Florida, Colorado, and Washington, but I was able to make up those games rather quickly. The vast majority of the time I was able to watch the game live, where I was able to track the game live, essentially having the data in real time.
There was a cost to accomplishing my goal, which I will get into in a minute, but ultimately, I did just what I set out to do. This allowed me to use it in writing, or other channels where I expressed my opinions on players and the team. It also provides a unique angle as, despite my transparency, no one else is using the data.
The project was simple, transparent, and accessible enough for me to share my process and advice to those who were interested in doing the same thing themselves - either for a team or for their own enjoyment. That element of passing down lessons to others makes me feel great, and hopefully I will inspire others to do great things in this sport someday.
What Went Wrong
As I just mentioned, there was a cost to accomplishing my goal. For one, my choice to bypass recording the time the event occurred was limiting. For example, someone had asked me if it was possible to use my data as a tool to identify events that they wanted to talk about using video in a piece of content that they were producing. I wasn’t able to provide that - and ultimately that would be helpful for my own content creation.
Additionally, by not timestamping, I limited my ability to combine my tracked data with other sources of data - like the NHL play-by-play. It would’ve been helpful to have the context of the entry or exit attempt (i.e., score state, time since last faceoff, time since last shot) in order to properly analyze the data. I wrote about the importance of including additional context such as neutral zone faceoffs prior to an entry attempt, but I didn’t have the data with enough granularity to properly account for that.
Furthermore, before starting the season, I never wrote down strict definitions for myself. I vastly overestimated how far my field knowledge would take me. When we think about a controlled entry, we think about (or at least I do) a skater clearly carrying the puck over the blue line and making some sort of unimpeded hockey play - like a shot attempt. And while the majority of entries are easy to identify, there are gray areas that are not so simple.
For example, if a player was able to skate with control three feet inside of the blue line, stop for two full seconds, and then dump the puck in deep to change, is that a controlled entry or a dump-and-change? I lean towards and recorded that as a dump-and-change (not an entry attempt), but I think you could make the argument both ways. By not having a strict definition, you leave yourself open to bias.
Moreover, by not publicizing my definitions, the data lacks credibility. I mean that in the nicest way possible to myself, but how I define entry types will vary to another source like SportsLogiq. Someone looking at both sources would find these to be off, and the established third-party vendor who serves almost every team in the league is going to be far more credible. If someone looking through my database or reading my content isn’t able to fully understand what is in the data, it loses utility and should be a catalyst for questions.
Where do I go from here?
The months of June and July are going to be great brainstorming months for me. While I’d prefer not to sacrifice what made my project successful, I need to address some of the things I can work on. Addressing timestamping sounds easy to most, but there are obstacles to that such as in-arena tracking where it’s difficult to view both the clock and play at the same time. I will work to finalize my new procedures through August and early September before publishing it prior to training camp.
If you have questions with how to implement your own project, please feel free to reach out to me.