Ordering the Chaos

I have been thinking about statistics since reading my new site-mate, Matt Souva’s “Shedding the Underdog and Embracing the Probable”. I have been specifically inspired by this section: “Even without approaching perfection (which won’t happen anyway), having some way to measure “goodness,” some way to predict beyond use of helpless intuition? It’s important, and we should use the information.” It speaks to the state of statistics in hockey, and how they are used. To Matt, who came to the game as an adult, it helps him (and countless others) make sense of the chaos. It creates an order to the most chaotic sport in existence.

I get something different from stats. The order of the game is ingrained, and where some see chaos, I see ten players each doing something specific. The chaos is already ordered. This also speaks to the disconnect regarding “advanced” stats between players, coaches, and front offices, and the fans who subscribe to the value of these statistics. To those in the game, there isn’t chaos that needs ordering. They understand the minutiae of the game. However, this does not mean the stats are useless. Those who dismiss them are in too deep, unable to see beyond what they already know.

This brings me back to where stats fit for me. Among people who understand the game from a playing and coaching perspective, I would consider myself an early adopter of “advanced” stats. I like to think of myself as an open-minded person, willing to absorb any knowledge from any source. That doesn’t mean I’m going to take that knowledge as absolute fact. It does mean that I will apply the newly-gained knowledge towards what I already know. This is where stats fit for me. If I am looking at stats of any sort and something doesn’t fit with my current thoughts on a certain player or team, I take that as a sign that I may be missing something. I re-evaluate my perception of that team/player, and usually come away with an altered perspective.

This is my first post at Buckeye State Hockey, a site that identifies with the statistical (r)evolution of hockey. It’s right there in the Twitter bio. Most of my posts have very little stats in them, and tend to be based around breaking down video. As the anti-stats folks may put it, I “just watch the game”. Oddly enough, breaking down video used to be denigrated in similar ways. Most people know Roger Neilson was known as Captain Video, but this wasn’t a compliment when it was coined. Video coaches are seen as an important part of a coaching staff now, but it wasn’t that long ago they were viewed the similar to how the stat guys are viewed now.

Breaking down video, watching a replay a couple of times until I figure out what every player was doing, and determining (as best as I can) what each player was intending to do is my version of ordering the chaos. It’s order on a micro level, but do it enough and it builds into the “helpless intuition” Matt referenced in the quoted section of his post. Without the tools to create that order, it remains helpless intution. No one outside of full-time professional scouts can analyze enough hockey to completely build that intuition for every player in every organization. Anyone claiming differently is blustering.

This is where stats live. They live in the margins of what we know. They fill in the gaps between what we see when watching games, and the long term results we see in the standings. Those margins are not the same size for everyone, but pretending they don’t matter is willfully obtuse. This isn’t about one approach being better than the other. It’s about realizing that we can all take different approaches to this game. That is the great part about the state of hockey stats. There isn’t one be all, end all stat. We can figure out the stats we like and understand, how the context of those stats influence what we are seeing on the ice, and blend them together as we see fit. Matt and I may take different paths, but come to the same conclusion on a player. We may come to a different conclusion. But when we do disagree, we both know the other person has done their homework and has a valid basis for those opinions. We’ve each ordered the chaos in our own way.