quote:

Originally posted by FAN4Ukid:
New rankings,
This week, what stands out for the BTHL is the fact that none of the BTHL AA teams posted new scores on the myhockey website. Any reasons why, all knowing ones?

The Myhockey site either has a person that enters all of a leauges scores. If there in no person doing that then each team is responsible for sending a email to the scores section of the website to have them update it.

Understood. Perhaps the BTHL teams rankings would go up if they were more consistant in posting their games against non league teams. For example, any additional scores would have to help Indianapolis Pee Wee Silver's ranking number. I think the only games posted are the Dayton peewee AA huge losses. Tanking this example further. How accurate can Dayton AA current ranking number be if a team they played has no other games included in their ranking but the two huge losses. Wouldn't Indy Silver's ranking number "Likely" go up or down if other games were averaged into their ranking. Then, wouldn't this effect Dayton's ranking since they played them.

Am I looking too deeply? Will this all play out, and take time, too? I do have valid number crunching issues.

quote:

Originally posted by FAN4Ukid:
Understood. Perhaps the BTHL teams rankings would go up if they were more consistant in posting their games against non league teams. For example, any additional scores would have to help Indianapolis Pee Wee Silver's ranking number. I think the only games posted are the Dayton peewee AA huge losses. Tanking this example further. How accurate can Dayton AA current ranking number be if a team they played has no other games included in their ranking but the two huge losses. Wouldn't Indy Silver's ranking number "Likely" go up or down if other games were averaged into their ranking. Then, wouldn't this effect Dayton's ranking since they played them.

Am I looking too deeply? Will this all play out, and take time, too? I do have valid number crunching issues.

From the web site in the FAQ section:

6. We won both our games this past weekend and our rating went down, how is this?
Your rating can go down even though your team wins. This can happen for a couple different reasons. First, if your team is rated 3.0 points (1 point = 1 goal) better than your opponent and you win two close games by 1 goal each, your average goal differential (AGD) is +1.0 against a team that it was expected to be +3.0. This would likely have a negative impact on your rating. Another scenario has you doing as expected against your opponent, but a large percentage of the teams you played earlier in the season doing unexpectedly bad. This lowers your strength of schedule and would lower your team's rating. It is almost impossible to guess how much and in what direction your rating will move each week because of the complexity of the math.


7. What does a team's overall rating number mean?
Everything is relative. The number specifically means nothing, but might be used to understand the relative competitiveness of two different teams. A 1.0 point differential equates to a theoretical goal 1.0 goal advantage by the team with the higher point value. Squirts, Peewees and Bantams are all calculated separately. While a Peewee Minor AAA team can get a pretty good sense on how good they would fair against a Peewee Major AA team because all Peewee ratings are calculated relative to one another, one cannot compare a Squirt Major AAA team to a Peewee Minor AA team in the same fashion. MYHockey has some limitations and figuring the relative difference between stronger squirt teams and weaker peewee teams is one of them.

wouldn't read too much into it. 2 Indy CSDHL teams near the top of 94 and 93 went 3-0 and 3-0-1 in league play last weekend and dropped in those rankings. Buckeye doesn't get much credit for schedule strength, CSDHL gets a little more and LCAHL gets too much. So going up or down doesn't so much mean winning, it's who you beat,what league they're in and their record.

quote:

Originally posted by FAN4Ukid:
Perhaps the BTHL teams rankings would go up if they were more consistant in posting their games against non league teams. For example, any additional scores would have to help Indianapolis Pee Wee Silver's ranking number. I think the only games posted are the Dayton peewee AA huge losses. Tanking this example further. How accurate can Dayton AA current ranking number be if a team they played has no other games included in their ranking but the two huge losses. Wouldn't Indy Silver's ranking number "Likely" go up or down if other games were averaged into their ranking. Then, wouldn't this effect Dayton's ranking since they played them.

The simple answer is "it depends." If BTHL teams play non-conference, highly ranked teams, and win or do better than projected, then "yes" there will likely be a favorable impact on their points which might translate into a higher ranking, particularly early in the season. But reality is that the BTHL teams, by playing in the BTHL league will typically be negatively impacted (comparatively speaking) when strength of schedule is calculated. Some leagues are just stronger than others. If BTHL teams want to player higher competition, they can schedule teams in the CSDHL or LCAHL. Some of the teams in the CSHL are also very strong (NO 94s and Strongsville's 96s come to mind).

To improve your ranking, the formula is simple: play against highly ranked teams that only play against other highly ranked teams and do well against them. Put another way, go find three legitimate AAA teams and crush each by 8 goals and you will see a favorable move by your team of choice. The hard part is doing it.

You are correct that more data will make for more accurate rankings. Give them a couple more weeks and assist in getting as many games input as possible and you will see pretty accurate rankings.

One final point -- the rankings should be used to schedule good games, rather than the reverse. Meaning, you shouldn't schedule games or refuse to schedule games for "fear" that it might negatively impact your ranking. Nor should you run up the score for fear that the failure to crush the "lesser" team might negatively impact your ranking. My understanding is that they are for fun and to assist in scheduling, not for parental bragging, wagering or any other negative use. Take them for what they are worth -- one way to gauge the competitiveness of a game when putting together a schedule. While it is easy to figure out how to "work the system" for a higher ranking, that doesn't mean it should be done. Just MHO.

Learning more all the time.
Thanks for all your feedback. It's going to be a fun hockey season, for all of us I think.

Just as some update to the scores. Indy Silver went 3-1-0 this week beating St. Louis Rockets 6-1, Southern Illinois IceHawks AA 6-2, and Twin Bridges AA 7-3. They lost to the Tulsa (OK) Flames AA 6-1. How did everyone else do?

Also, I can't find Indy Silver in the MyHockey rankings. Where are they at?