Hockey Analytics and Visual Design

by John van der Woude

Over the last couple seasons, there’s been a huge rise of advanced analytics in the NHL. Words like Corsi, Fenwick Close and WOWYs are becoming more commonplace not just among the stats guys on Twitter or blogs around the league, but also on television broadcasts and the writings of professional hockey journalists. There’s been hires of advanced stats guys by teams like the Oilers and the Maple Leafs. It feels like the tipping point has been hit and the advanced stats are only going to be further integrated into the hockey journalistic lexicon, so get used to them.

About Analytics

Personally, I’m all for it. I don’t quite understand them all as well as the ones who have studied them for years now obviously, but I’m a fan of anything that gives a more meaningful and accurate analysis of the game I love. Words like grit, character, truculence, intangibles and the ‘eye-test’ are great, but incredibly overused and have started to feel like it’s the equivalent of that scene in the beginning on Moneyball, where the A’s scouting staff dismisses players because they have a “girlfriend who’s a 6 at best”. It’s inspired Twitter accounts who mercilessly destroy those who openly oppose advanced analytics and their “hot takes”.

It’s okay to not understand the advanced stats, as long as you’re willing to learn from and respect those who have spent hours upon hours educating themselves about it. All they generally want is to help others understand the power of what they’ve learned. These guys can help you know why your team is great, or why your team sucks, based on more than just “they lack grit”, or “need a veteran leadership presence”. That might be accurate, but there’s no discernible metric to verify these un-measurable qualities, so it’s just as possible that they’re wrong. Chances are you’re not a professional scout or analyst, so you don’t really know the strengths and weaknesses of your team beyond what you’re told by other professionals.

If advanced stats and analytics can help fans and team management understand their team better and help them win, it would be stupid not to embrace it. Experts giving professional analysis to help others understand things better. Makes sense to me.

About Visual Design

So, what does this have to do with us here at Hockey By Design? Well, it speaks to our whole purpose of existence. Every article on this site is written by a professional designer. Myself, I’ve been working for over a decade as a designer. It’s my career, it’s what I do professionally, and I have enough experience at it to be considered an expert (according to Malcolm Gladwell…and I’d agree with that). Our goal at HbD is to help you understand why the logos in the NHL are great or awful, beyond the ‘eye-test’ – why some jerseys are instant classics or should be relegated to the trash, beyond ‘I don’t like the color’.

Why? To quote Battlestar Galactica: “Symbols matter. Uniforms, flags, banners, even mascots. They’re like pieces of your heart that you can see.” Sounds cheesy, but it’s true. A team’s logo and uniform are the visual representations of the piece of your heart that’s dedicated to your favourite team. It’s the only physical manifestation you have of something that’s completely abstract and emotional. It’s important. Important enough that it demands meaningful analysis. We’re here to help you love visual design, to help educate you about branding, to give you a bigger appreciation of one of the most important parts of the game outside from the game itself.

Design’s “Hot Takes”

Now I’m getting to the real purpose of this post. I recently had a Twitter conversation that can be best described as a professional hockey writer giving their “hot take” on a jersey design. Don’t get me wrong, Sean Gentille is great and I bear him no ill will, but the comparisons between stat analysis and design analysis struck me. Almost no bloggers, team sites, professional journalists or anyone else give any sort of thoughtful analysis of designs in the NHL, preferring instead to rely on “pass or fail”, or just giving a description without anything resembling analysis. The advanced stats evangelists are becoming guilty of what they’ve been fighting for the last few years: letting voices be heard from people who have studied the topic and know what they’re talking about. Without meaningful analysis, it’s as bad as a Simmons’ hot take.

Yeah, it sometimes hurts hearing your team’s logo or new jersey is shit, almost as much as it watching them lose, but it will give you a better appreciation of your team and their presence. Fandom transcends things like advanced stats and branding – your team could be last in Corsi and have the worst jerseys in the league, but you’ll still cheer for them, as you should. No one’s trying to force you to hate your team. And just like advanced stats, visual design is never completely black-and-white. There’s always outliers, exceptions, PDOs that never seem to regress to the mean. In design, there’s always human psychology, design briefs we don’t get to see, management egos at play. It’s never going to be an exact science that can predict absolute success or failure (just like advanced stats), but it’s more than just an eye-test and an opinion based on a personal bias.

Designers Want To Help! Really!

Visual design and branding is not for everyone, I get it. But please, if you’re going to discuss it, leave it to the pros who have dedicated their working lives to it and know what they’re talking about. Don’t become a hot-takist! Call a friendly designer. We’d be happy to talk design with you, on your blog, on your site, on your podcast.

Got a question about visual design? Ask a visual designer, not your advanced stats guy or part-time writer or your wife’s brother’s neighbour’s daughter who took interior design. We love what we do and we’re experts. Trust us.

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