By Sunil Agnihotri

Hockey analytics is an excellent example of fans getting immersed in the game and changing the way they consume professional sports. Along with watching games, and following the narratives that surround teams and players, fans can use various software applications to apply their own ideas and models to analyze the game.

Hockey analytics is also gaining prominence among professional hockey teams to make key decisions regarding player acquisitions and team strategies. The continued growth of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which is attended by teams and managers from various sports, as well as academics, indicates the growing importance of data analytics in the professional sports industry.

Questions have arisen recently about why some NHL teams are not conducting any hockey analytics, as well as why some teams refuse to get into too much detail about their current analytic methods (Friedman, 2013). Questions have…