Comments on: Living Large and in the Past: More on Size in the NHL http://www.depthockeyanalytics.com/uncategorized/living-large-and-in-the-past-more-on-size-in-the-nhl/ Tue, 16 May 2017 18:47:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 By: Brian http://www.depthockeyanalytics.com/uncategorized/living-large-and-in-the-past-more-on-size-in-the-nhl/#comment-33 Thu, 13 Mar 2014 17:09:30 +0000 http://www.depthockeyanalytics.com/?p=113#comment-33 Do you guys ever feel kind of embarassed that the Star dubbed you the "Department of Hockey Analytics"? People who do real statistical analysis of NHL hockey like Tyler Dellow eat your lunch. Were you told to dumb it down for the benefit of Star readers, or was your analysis really just that superficial? Was there any consideration to the eras involved, given that scoring in the late 70's was almost two goals a game higher than it is now? Did you stop to think that the fact that the average height and weight being something like 2-3 inches taller and 10-15 pounds heavier now than they were in 1967 might've been important? Analysing how much a player is bigger/heavier than average rather than pure height/weight would've been a lot more instructive. How many guys actually played at 220 between 1967-1979 anyway? If it was more than 10 per season I'd be shocked; there are 118 listed as being on NHL rosters today. Ever hear of small sample sizes?

How can you just present this data without taking at least some stab at actually explaining it? There's a slight implication here that the number of talented players who were also big in 1979 might be more than today, given today's goon culture. How about actually expanding on that? I don't have a statistics background, and I don't find your explanations trite, but I think your overall analysis is poorly considered and of very little value. You guys have got a real platform here in the Star to actually bring advanced hockey stats to the masses, but stuff like this is a waste of time.

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