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Category: 2023

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2023 2024 Coaching Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Tracking Progress: The Evolution of Female Coaching Representation in NCAA DI Women’s Hockey

Back in 2020, when Champs App first started, we tracked the female representation in the coaching staffs at NCAA DI and U Sports women’s hockey.  Now, 3 years later, it is time to compare how the number of female coaches has changed during this time.

Over the past three years, there has been a notable increase in the representation of female head coaches within Division I women’s college hockey teams. In the 2020-21 season, female head coaches accounted for 14 out of 41 total coaching positions, comprising 34% of the total coaching cohort. However, by the 2023-24 season, this number has risen significantly, with 21 female head coaches out of a total of 44 coaching positions, representing an increase to 48%. This upward trend highlights a positive shift towards greater gender diversity and inclusivity within the coaching landscape of women’s college hockey, indicating a growing recognition of the value and expertise that female coaches bring to the sport.

While the ideal number is probably not 100% for female head coaches at the NCAA women’s DI level, it is nice to see the numbers continue to climb. Having spoken to so many male DI women’s coaches, it is clear that in most cases they are doing a great job in their roles. However, the much bigger opportunity is in increasing the number of female coaches on the men’s side of the game, where female coaches still represent significantly less than 1% at the men’s college level.  There have been inroads made over the last few years, with NCAA DI head coaches participating in NHL development camps. This season, Kim Weiss is an assistant with DIII Trinity and Jessica Campbell is an assistant coach with the AHL Coachella Valley Firebirds. But when it comes to full-time roles, I am still waiting to hear about female coaches even being considered for a DI or DIII men’s team head coaching job. 

From 2020 to 2023, there has also been a significant increase in the number of assistant or associate head coaches in NCAA Division I women’s hockey teams due to teams now being permitted 3 assistants. In the 2020-21 season, female assistant or associate head coaches accounted for 52 out of a total of 79 coaching positions, representing 66% of the coaching cohort. This number has seen a significant rise by the 2023-24 season, with 65 female coaches out of a total of 98 coaching positions, equaling the same 66% of the coaching staff. Conversely, the number of male assistant or associate head coaches also increased from 27 to 33 during this period, but their overall proportion remained constant.

During the time there has been significant increases in female coaches at the NCAA DI women’s hockey level for both head & assistant coaches, there has been no change in the number of female coaches in Canada U Sports women’s hockey. In fact U.S. teams surpassed Canadian schools in terms in percent female representation. Note: no data was collected for U Sports assistants back in 2020

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2023 2024 College Hockey Recruiting Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Insights and Implications on Recruiting from a Deep Dive of DI Women’s Hockey Rosters

During November and December, I spent a lot of time reviewing the current rosters of all the NCAA DI women’s hockey teams for goalies, forwards and defense. In addition, I re-booted the Champs App process for tracking commits to those schools.  While analyzing all of this data, I had several different observations about the recruiting process that I thought were worth sharing.

1. What are the Pros and Cons to Large Roster Sizes?

One of the key insights was the big standard deviation in roster sizes. There are 9 teams with 28 or more players listed. Based on my conversations with multiple coaches, this likely is due to the 5th year Covid  eligibility for many players.  And there are 6 teams with 23 or less players on their roster. Keep in mind that teams can only dress 20 or 21 (incl. 3 goalies) players for a game. This raises certain points…

  • From a coach’s perspective this gives them more players to choose from and thus the ability to field the best team available for any given game
  • My hypothesis, for which an analysis is coming soon, is that age & experience is highly correlated to success (in addition to talent, of course).  By being able to play the most experienced and talented players from a large roster likely shows up in the standings.
  • This also means coaches having to conduct multiple tough conversations each week to explain why a player will be healthy scratched
  • With only a maximum of 16 scholarships available to schools, many student-athletes are paying their own way to be on the team (and probably not getting much ice time, since schools tend to give the biggest scholarships to the best players). This is where the academics of a school become more important than your place on the roster. 
  • Given the above, I wasn’t too surprised to see several highly-touted first-year recruits at top programs that have been scratched for multiple games so far this season

2. Several 2022-23 Top 15 Teams are no Longer Top 15 Teams

  • Northeastern had been in the Top 15 since 2015, but did not break into the Top 15 ranking until this week. This is almost entirely due to them having lost their top players who contributed over 50% of their goal production from last season. Note: Northeastern still has 29 players on their roster
  • There are a couple of other schools who also have dropped out of the rankings this season. As an incoming recruit, you might need to adjust your expectations if you committed to a team that you expect to be competing for the Frozen Four every year, but now that school may not even make the NCAA playoffs.

3. Small Roster Analysis

  • It seemed odd that Penn State only has 21 players on their roster this season. So I took a deeper look.  Last year they had 23 student-athletes.  5 seniors graduated and 2 highly-talented juniors transferred (one to Ohio State and the other to Minnesota Duluth).  There are 2 first-year players and 3 seniors/grad students who transferred into PSU (from Colgate, New Hampshire and Long Island).  I can’t confirm, but I also think one player deferred to start in 2024 vs 2023.  I suspect the Penn State coaching staff didn’t expect two of their top players to transfer out of the school and that is why the roster is so small. This example shows the fluidity of which coaching staffs must manage their rosters going into the last year of 5th year Covid players and the transfer portal. It also shows that there could be late openings at the odd school come springtime.
  • Ohio State only has 6 D (but 24 rostered players).  Similar to Penn State, I took a deeper look into the OSU roster when I saw only 6 defenders listed. If there is an injury or two to Ohio State blue line this season they will be in trouble. They would likely have to move someone back from forward to play defense.   Last season there were 9 blueliners. 3 players graduated (including Patty Kazmaier winner Sophie Jacques), and 2 underclass players transferred to other schools (Colgate and Maine).  Coming in, two grad students transferred to the Buckeyes – Olympian Cayla Barnes (Boston College) and Stephanie Markowski (Clarkson) , both grad students. There are no freshman defenders in the 2023-24 class.  Once again I suspect the OSU coaching staff did not expect to lose 2 players to the transfer portal. What is interesting is that Sydney Morrow who did not get much ice time in the Frozen Four for the Buckeyes last season, is well over a point-per-game player at Colgate this season.  Based on our commit analysis, OSU is back to being focused on recruiting the top incoming players, with 13 commits in total for 2024 and 2025.

4. NEWHA Schools are the Last to Fill up Rosters

The New England Women’s Hockey Association (NEWHA) conference includes St Anselm, Long Island, Assumption, Stonehill, Post, Sacred Heart and St Michaels. It is pretty clear that the timeline for most of these schools to complete their rosters is later than most other conferences.  I know of at least two schools that were still trying to fill their 2024 rosters before the end of December 2023.  Only a few spots from NEWHA schools have been announced for 2025, while most of the top schools from other conferences are already filled.

5. Only U18 Players Need Apply

It was interesting to discover, but not a complete surprise, that multiple ranked schools only have commits that were U18 Girls National Camp players (Canada, USA or international) or better. I will go into more detail on the data and the implications on recruiting in an upcoming post.

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2023 Development Camp Girls Hockey Player Development Women's Hockey

The USA Hockey 2023 Girls 16/17 Camp Feedback Process – Part II

My Recommendations

Read Part I Here

Feedback is a gift.
Giving feedback is hard.

Having led performance feedback to dozens (if not hundreds) of people I’ve managed in business, I recognize it is one of the most challenging interactions to conduct in my career.  At the same time, I was taught how to take it seriously and learned many of the best practices to ensure a positive outcome from the process for both parties.  

It is pretty clear from the parent meeting at the 16/17 Girls camp (and the letter that accompanied the feedback/rating letter) that USA Hockey  wants to make no doubt that they are providing a variety of different levels of feedback for each player at the national camps. The details of this feedback were clearly explained in Part I on this topic.

And it is important to recognize that they really do care about giving feedback – because they have dedicated time and resources to the process.  I also wanted to also acknowledge that is takes a non-trivial amount of effort to provide detailed feedback to about 400 players across 4 major camps each summer.

At the same time, I’ve spent a ton of time thinking about this topic trying to figure out why almost everyone I have spoken with is disappointed with the USA Hockey Girls National Camp selection and feedback process. And here is what I came up with…

At the end of the day, the current process does not solve the unmet need of the players – which is to have actionable direction on their highest priority development areas. This is because the robustness of the feedback is not commensurate with the level of commitment and investment the players put into making, preparing and attending the camp.

And my reason for this is the following:

The feedback is too generic. For almost all the players, it’s just too simplistic/superficial without personalized examples and not actionable enough.

Here are my recommendations:

  1. Standardize a More Robust Process – The coaches should go through a training session on how the process works and what the expectations are from the coach on the process, content & delivery. All players should receive player-specific information using a common format, but with player-specific examples in the review. While the coaches should have flexibility to adapt the process to their style, each performance review (in addition to the attribute ratings mentioned in Part I) would require the feedback to include each of the following….
  2. Include Player-Specific Key Statistics (e.g. pass completion rates or turnover rates). Nothing is more powerful than data. Being able to show a player how they compared on key attributes compared to their peers makes things much clearer. This became quite evident to me in my analysis of the 16/17 Camp forwards and defenders.
  3. Support with Player-Specific Video Clips  –  showing a player exactly what they do well and how/when they make mistakes provides “hard-to-argue” credibility to the stats and the coach’s feedback. This would likely use a video analytics system like Instat/Hudl so each player’s shifts could be coded.
  4. Prioritize Key Areas to Focus On – Darryl Belfry consistently talks about High Frequency – Low Success Rate Situations.  Video and statistical analysis will surface these situations. Then a coach should be using them to focus on a limited number of these game patterns to prioritize (3-5) situations/skills for a player to work on.

These four recommendations would require a significantly greater amount of time and resources than the current effort being done at the USA Hockey girls camps. There may not be time to aggregate everything during that week.  But the feedback session does not need to occur at the camp. It can be done a week or two after the camp via a video-call.  What matters most is that the players are getting their needs met as to where to focus and improve as a player.  Ideally, there would be someone in leadership who was solely responsible for player development and not directly associated with the selections for the U18 camp or team. I know it can be done, because I have seen first-hand more robust feedback processes on the boys side at both the USA Hockey and junior hockey levels.

Final Thoughts

The best organizations focus relentlessly on their customers. One of the biggest ways to ensure these organizations are meeting the needs of their customers is to ask them for feedback. Specifically their overall satisfaction with a question like “Would you recommend [product/service] to a friend or colleague?” followed by “Why?”. In my few years interacting with USA Hockey both as a coach and a parent, I have never been asked for my feedback on the programs I’ve been been engaged with. In essence, USA Hockey has a monopoly on the national team programs so it is understandable that they may not need to be as customer-centric as an Amazon or an Apple. But, if leadership for USA Hockey female national camps wants to continuously improve their program, just like their players do, it would be great if they solicited their own feedback on areas they can improve as an organization. Who knows…maybe getting the gift of feedback on themselves may translate to improved performance on the ice?

Feel free to send feedback on our posts or Champs App to feedback@champs.app

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2023 Coaching Girls Hockey Player Development Women's Hockey

The USA Hockey 2023 Girls 16/17 Camp Feedback Process – Part I

I have a lot of passion about feedback when it comes to hockey player development, because I think it is probably the most important factor to improve player performance.  Darryl Belfry, who is regarded as one of the best player development coaches in the world, uses actual game analysis as the primary way to provide feedback on improvement areas for players.

As the governing body of hockey in the U.S., USA Hockey understands the importance of player feedback. At the USA Hockey 16/17 Girls Camp which took place in Oxford, OH this past June, feedback was highlighted in the parent meeting as a key component of the camp.  In Part I of this post about the USA Hockey Girls Camp feedback, I wanted to focus on understanding the three levels of feedback  utilized during and after the camp.  Part II of this topic will discuss my thoughts on how effective the feedback process has been.

1. On-Ice Feedback  – During Practice and Games

Just like with their regular teams, coaches were quite consistent in talking to players individually and in groups during practices to share their thoughts on specific, tactical ways to improve a drill or situation.  Same for a player coming to the bench during one of the games after a shift – coaches would lean over to players and give advice on what adjustments could be made to improve a player effectives.  These situations are quite comfortable for all the coaches at an event like this since most were DI coaches or previous DI players.  As I mentioned in my previous post about player feedback, in-game comments are the easiest for a coach to communicate.

2. One-on-One Feedback with one of the Team Coaches

All teams had two head coaches.  On about the fourth day of week-long camp, each player had a 10-15 minute conversation with one of their coaches.  It is my understanding that most players were asked to do a self-review in anticipation of the meeting.  From talking to several parents, the coach-player conversation was then highly dependent on the coach. Some coaches were well-prepared and had video clips to show players as a way to communicate their feedback, some coaches had simple basic priorities for players to focus on while others relied on the player’s self-evaluation as the primary source of the feedback conversation.  Given the variance in feedback methods, I suspect the feedback meeting process was not highly structured by the camp organizers.

3. Letter Grade and Player Development Performance Criteria

About four weeks after the end of the 16/17 Girls Camp, my daughter received by snail mail a form letter which included an evaluation which is supposed to serve as a benchmark for a player’s performance at the camp.  This entails a letter grade and a rubric on the “Player Development Performance Criteria”.  Here are the details.

At the top of the player evaluation sheet, the players was provided a rating of A, B or C with the following explanation

“A” grade = Excellent – ranks in the top 1/3 of players at camp

“B” grade = Good – ranks in the middle 1/3 of players at camp

“C” grade = Below average – ranks in the bottom 1/3 of players at camp.

The Player Development Performance Criteria had 5 possible selections (from best to worst):

  • Excellent
  • Very Good
  • Good
  • Fair
  • Poor

Each skater then had attributes selected within two categories.  General and position-specific attributes with a selection in one of those five boxes (“X” for each attribute).  Here are those attributes:

General:

  • Makes Possession Plays (i.e. keep team on offense; limited turnovers)
  • Angling: pressure to take away time/space; dictate play with body/stick
  • Stick Positioning
  • Deception
  • Quick Transitions
  • Off-Puck Habits & Puck Support
  • Scoring Ability
  • Physicality
  • Athleticism
  • 200-Ft Player
  • Skating Ability (north/south; agility; speed)

Defenders:

  • DZone Execution First
  • Puck Retrievals
  • Good First Pass or Exit
  • Win Race Back to D-Side of Play/Net
  • Wine Board Battles
  • Deter Offensive Opportunities
  • Scan to Make Exit Play; Fast Transition to Breakout
  • Work Well with D-Partner
  • Gap Control: (North/South & East/West)

Forwards:

  • Puck Retrievals & Ability to Stay Off the Wall
  • Ability to Leave Perimeter and Gain Inside Ice
  • Owning Space with Puck
  • Scanning/Awareness of Teammates & Opponents
  • Use Teammates to Make Plays
  • Zone Entry: Ability to create depth/layers/lanes
  • Create & Maintain Offense

I don’t know the process that was used to aggregate the evaluators feedback, but am assuming they collected a populated rubric from all the evaluators for a position and then aggregated the data to take an average of the selections.  (I hope they used some online tool to aggregate this all, because there are lots of ways to simplify collecting this information).  Then I suppose this compiled data was used as the rating for each player’s Development Performance Criteria. I would then assume the average across all Development Performance Criteria was calculated and the each player was force ranked into one of the three tiers to give the letter rating of A,B or B based on which third they ranked.

Other than the rating and the rubric box selection – no other personalized information was included in the feedback. No short paragraph summary (like you would see in a student report card) from the coach or evaluators to provide additional context was provided.  

It is important to note that the ratings are based on the criteria described above.  If different criteria were used (which will be discussed in the next post), then a player’s rating might be different if those criteria were closer or further away from the capabilities of a player.

In Part II on this topic I will share my perspective on the good, the bad and the ugly of this feedback process.

Read Part II Here

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2023 Development Camp Hockey Tryouts Junior Hockey

What I Learned Attending My First Junior Hockey Main Camp

Last month, my 15-year old son was invited to the main camp of a NAHL team in Minnesota.  This was the follow-on event from a Summer Tryout showcase in June, hosted by several NAHL teams, in which my son was invited to attend the July main camp at the end of the showcase.  Here are some details that I learned from the camp:

  • The camp started with 8 teams of up to 22 players – each with 12 or 13 forwards, 6 or 7 D and 2 goalies
  • All the players at the camp were 2003-2007 birth years.  My son is a late 2007, so obviously, he was one of the youngest players at the camp.
  • Each team played 3 games consisting of two 25 minute periods with a running clock.
  • To keep things flowing, icings and most offsides were almost never called. And any puck which touched the netting and returned to the ice did not stop the play.  When the very odd penalty was called, a penalty shot was granted.
  • With 13 forwards, unless you started the game, a forward typically only got 6-8 shifts per game.  This was because everything eats into the running time, goals, faceoffs, penalty shots etc.  Most players were taking ~75 second shifts. So when you do the math with four lines, a forward only received 3-4 shifts per period. Not a lot of time to show what you can do.
  • After 3 games, the first players cut took place with the list of players making it to the next day posted on Instagram and Twitter.  The announcement just showed the team colors and numbers of players who made the cut – no names were listed.
  • Out of the ~160 players who started the camp, 99 players made the first cut. My son was on the list, so he would play 2 more games the next day.
  • The next day the players were then assigned to one of 6 teams. Once again each team had up to 22 players (13F, 7D, 2 G).
  • What was confusing to me was if there were only 99 players who made the cut and the teams reduced to 6, how could there be so many players on each of the 6 teams? That’s when things got real. What I learned was that the first part of camp did not include all the players on the team’s protected list. So about 30 players – made up of players from the past season, draft picks etc. were then added to the rosters of the 6 teams.
  • While there were a few players with half-shields (usually you have to be over 18 to play with a visor) playing the first couple of days of the camp, that number more than doubled for the second round.  In addition, I was impressed by how many of the players also had moustaches to enhance their hockey player look.
  • The age, skill and size of the average player went up dramatically from the first round of games. For one of the games, my son’s linemate was a 2003 player committed to play DI hockey.   The difference in size and skill was obvious. Man vs. boy.
  • While my son played well in both games, including a solid assist to set up the DI player’s goal, he clearly did not have the size or speed of the top players on the ice.  As a result, he made a few mistakes turning over the puck along the boards or missing passes when under pressure.
  • Following the two second-round games, we once again looked online at the end of the day and reviewed who made the next set of cuts. 
  • 81 players (out of ~130)  made it to the All-Star games with a separate 20 players moved to something called the Young Guns Game at the end of the next day.  My son was not selected for either games, so his tryout was done.
  • The next day the All Star games took place.  After they were done, 27 All Star cuts were assigned to the Young Guns Game.
  • We didn’t stick around for the last two days, so I can’t provide any details about the games (LiveBarn feed was blacked out after the first cut).
  • However, I do know that 44 players made the cut for the final All Star Game which included 6 goalies (couldn’t tell how many F vs. D).  Not sure if the team was finalized after the last game or if about 30 of the players then were invited to training camp for the final team cut.

 Some additional thoughts:

  • One real positive aspect of the camp was that the coaches made it clear that all players who were cut could reach out for feedback when the camp was over.  My son had a phone call with one of the coaches and received  helpful feedback (which was much more specific than what my daughter received has from the USA Hockey Camps)
  • This was a great learning experience for my son to see the level of play of the NAHL. The NAHL is known to be an older Tier II junior league with the average player age of about 19.5 years old. So seeing where my son needs to be in the next 2-3 years was an eye-opening moment for him and seems to be quite motivating to him.
  • This spring/summer my son received dozens of invitations to a variety of junior camps at every level (USHL, NAHL, Tier 3 etc.).  I have heard that unless you were drafted by the team or know that a team has specific interested in you, that most of these invites are just a way for teams to make money. I felt I could see this at the camp.  There probably wasn’t a need to have so many players at the first round of cuts with so many players on each team.  Just doing the math on the ~60 players who did not make the first cut @ $375/player is over $20K in the team’s pockets. That is on top of the money they made at the 3 summer tryouts.
  • Each player needs to decide what is right for them, but it is very easy to waste a lot of money (and time) attending multiple events. You need to be realistic about your odds of making a team and self-aware about how close you are to the level of play needed.  We went to see what the level was and learn from the experience – and now we know. And for the next couple of years I don’t expect my son to be trying out for many teams until we think he is ready and there is a reasonable chance he could at least make it to the final round of cuts (if not make the team).
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2023 Coach page College Hockey Recruiting Youth Hockey

College Exposure Showcase Coach Scout List

Go straight to the Instructions on How to Connect with College Exposure Showcase Coaches

Why Create a Champs App Profile? (Video)

How to Create a Beautiful Hockey Profile That Gets Noticed (Video)

Coach Profiles

sean levin

Head Coach – Rider Broncs

Mike HinklE

Equipment Manager – Alvernia Golden Wolves

eric Hench

Head Coach – York Spartans

Dave standley

Assistant Coach – Virginia Tech Hokies

Jon O’Neil

Head Coach – Kuztown University

anthony borelli

Assistant Coach – Alvernia Golden Wolves

Champs App lets players create beautiful, free hockey resume that facilitate the college hockey recruiting process. 

“How do I know coaches will remember me after the College Exposure Showcase?”

By connecting directly with coaches, players can know that coaches will continue to follow them after the CES event during the regular season (see their schedule, video & profile updates). Coaches can not only get more details about each player, but also see their upcoming schedule, regular teams and coaches.

Instructions:

Step 1: Create your free Champs App Profile hockey resume here

Step 2: To make it easier for the College Exposure Showcase coaches to find you make you add your current team to your Champs profile and make sure to include your jersey #

Step 3:  Review the list of the College Exposure Showcase coaches above to connect with and then send connection requests to the coaches/schools you are interested in from within Champs App.

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2023 Development Camp Girls Hockey Player Development Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Analyzing the USA Hockey Girls 16/17 Camp Forward Selections for the U18 Camp

USA-Hockey

The is the second analysis I have done about the selections for the USA Hockey Girls U18 Camp which took place last week. The first was about the defenders picked to go to the U18 Camp. Now that the selections of the forwards from U18 Camp to go to the Women’s Festival were announced a few days ago, it makes this analysis even more interesting because none of the top 3 point-getters from either the Girls 16/17 Camp nor the U18 Camp were selected to advance to the next stage in the process.

WHAT?

Similar to the previous post, rather than engage in a subjective discussion on who was selected, I thought it might be helpful to collect some analytical data and metrics to understand how top players performed at the 16/17 camp and compare them to a couple of the players who weren’t selected.

WHY?

When you don’t select the top 3 point-getters from either Girls 16/17 Camp or the U18 Camp, there are bound to be a lot of folks who wonder what the selection criteria is for making it to the next stage of USA Hockey. I don’t know the answer to that question. But I can analyze the video of each shift for several of the top players picked and not picked to see if there is an obvious difference between the two segments. The purpose of this post is not to say who did or did not deserve to be selected to the U18 Camp. Instead, it is to help provide perspective and context to other players and parents the types of metrics that demonstrate the level of play needed to be selected.  And ideally, individual players do their own self-analysis to see how they compare.

HOW?

I watched and coded specific attributes for every shift in all 4 games for every player in this analysis using the USA Hockey TV footage. I collected more metrics than are listed below, but I feel that the attributes shown, provide the right amount and level of data to gain an understanding of the level of play for this position. Note: Sometimes the live stream footage didn’t always focus on the area of the ice where the play was taking place, so it is very likely the odd play may have not been accounted for.

WHO?

Here is the list of the 13 players selected to go to the 18’s camp

Since I only had the time to watch 5 players – I watched 3 selected forwards plus 2 top players who weren’t selected. Those 3 forwards represented a mix of the forward selections.  I am not identifying the names of any players because singling out any individual player is not my objective.  For full transparency, in this analysis I do know the parents of one of the players.

SO WHAT?

Do I think the 5 selected were in the Top 10 forwards at the camp, almost certainly. Do I think there are 3-5 other players that could easily have been selected instead – also, almost certainly. There is no algorithm to calculate and rank the top players. I don’t know the selection criteria, so whatever they may be (whether well-structured or not) at the end of the day what matters is results. As stated in the parents meeting, the results of the last two U18 World Championships was not the result USA Hockey wanted – so we will see if the current process yields better results.

THE ANALYSIS

2023 USA Hockey Girls 16-17 Camp Analytics for Forwards Selected to Advance to the U18 Girls Camp

Note: Players 1-3 were selected to go to the U18 Girls Camp – Players 4 & 5 were not selected

Some notes on the tracked attributes:

  • Takeaways = a one-on-one situation where the player gains control of the puck from directly challenging the other player
  • Giveaways = full change of possession to the other team (e.g. a missed pass, dump in/out, rim or redirected puck)
  • OZone entries = skating across the blue line with full possession of the puck
  • Team Shots For/Against do not include shot attempts that did not reach the net. Only SOGs were included.
  • I am not including the point stats or PIMs for any player since they can already be found on the USA Hockey website
  • There were additional attributes I tracked like “faceoffs won” but they indirectly show up in other higher-order key metrics. Since not all the forwards played center, I didn’t include the faceoff attribute.  But I did want to note, that one player was very good at faceoffs while another was not.  The one that won most of their faceoffs did see that reflected in other measurement areas since many faceoff wins led to greater possession time.

OTHER THOUGHTS

  • From all the players and games I’ve watched, it seems (and it’s only natural) that really good plays are rewarded disproportionately more than their equivalent poor plays are punished (e.g. creating a “wow” scoring chance vs. causing a “wow” scoring chance for the other team). Forwards tend not to surrender many negative scoring chances unless they are somewhat negligent defensively.  So, it seems likely that creating offense is highly disproportionately weighted in player evaluation.
  • Not all players gave the same defensive effort throughout a game, whether it is being tired or laziness.  But over the course of four games, it was pretty clear who consistently tried to play a 200-foot game (vs. cheating a little defensively or taking some shortcuts).
  • Scouting and evaluating is not an exact science.  In my humble opinion, most of the scouts/coaches don’t watch any player enough to really get the full picture.  It is sampling data – and while it is directionally correct, when there are many players within a close band it is hard to discern who is absolutely the “best” player. And who you pick may vary when you are building a team for a short tournament and need different types of players. 
  • After watching over 20 hours of individual game footage, this process is somewhat exhausting. It takes a lot of work to watch and tag each type of play. I can’t imagine being a scout and trying to watch 10 skaters live on the ice throughout an entire game.  At the same time, the insights are quite valuable.  I hope that college scouts leverage Instat to watch players individual shifts (if a club/prep team uses Instat) to evaluate the full body of their work rather than just sampling one or two periods of a game during a tournament or showcase weekend. To me, it is hard to watch multiple players in a game rather than on just one player at a time.
  • Note: We are still waiting to on the written feedback and letter rating that we were told all players would receive.  If you are a player or parent from 16/17 Camp who has a received this feedback, please reach out and let me know. Update: We did receive the USA Hockey Feedback on July 27th – I will be writing up my thoughts on the feedback process in a upcoming post.
Categories
2023 College Hockey Recruiting Development Camp Girls Hockey Women's College Hockey

Insights on the Class of 2025 Recruiting Efforts of a DI Head Coach

During my time in Oxford, Ohio at the USA Hockey Girls 16/17 Camp I had the opportunity to ask a non-Top 10 DI Head Coach a bunch of Class of 2025 recruiting questions.  Specifically, I wanted to better understand the specifics of how the coaching staff actually went about securing commitments for the incoming class of 2025.  Here is a summary of what I learned about that school’s recruiting efforts…

  • Over a the first few days that coaches were allowed to talk to the Class of 2025 (beginning on June 15th) the coaching staff reached out to ~15-18 players and offered them spots on the team.
  • These players would be considered the highest rated players for 2025 according to the coach. 
  • The coach explained that the top players are likely getting multiple offers on June 15th (or thereabouts) and in order for many schools to be competitive with these in-demand players, the teams need to make offers immediately.
  • The coach told me that most of the players had never contacted their school – so the school was being proactive in reaching out to the players without knowing if the players had any interest in their school.
  • In addition to the players that received immediate offers, the coaching staff reached out to another set of 15-18 players to express an interest in those players and to understand if the players interest reciprocated. 
  • During the weeks following June 15th, the staff is continuing to have conversations with this second tier of potential recruits.  Based on how many commits the school receives from the top tier players, then conversations and visits are likely to progress deeper with the next level of recruits
  • Once again, the way I understood it, a large number of the next level of recruits that were contacted had not necessarily reached out to the school directly prior to June 15th.
  • The coach then explained that their recruiting efforts are likely to progress into the fall and winter. If there were spots still open after working through the first two levels in the funnel of potential recruits, then again, they will continue to scout and reach out/respond to individual players that might meet the requirements for the remaining roles on the team. This might be by position or specific type of players (e.g. goal scorer vs. puck-moving D).
  • The coach also reinforced that the coaching staff was recruiting heavily in both Canada and the U.S. and that one of the challenges was being able to calibrate players between the two countries.  This is likely because there are only a few events that in-season teams from both side of the border compete against each other (e.g. Stoney Creek, PIP Labor Day Fest and USA-Canada Cup).
  • Note: To-date I have not heard of any 2025 players publicly announce committing to the school in question

A Few Thoughts After the First Two Days of the 2023 USA Hockey Girls 16/17 Development Camp

More Thoughts on the 2023 USA Hockey 16/17 Girls Development Camp

Categories
2023 Development Camp Girls Hockey Player Development

Analyzing the USA Hockey Girls 16/17 Camp Defense Selections for the U18 Camp

USA-Hockey

As I mentioned in my previous post about USA Hockey Girls 16/17 Camp, there was a a mix of perspectives on the selections for 18’s camp.

WHAT?

Rather than engage in a subjective discussion on who was selected, I thought it might be helpful to collect some analytical data and metrics to understand how top players performed at the camp.

WHY?

The purpose of this post is not to say who did or did not deserve to be selected to the U18 Camp. Instead, it is to help provide perspective and context to other players and parents the types of metrics that demonstrate the level of play needed to be selected.  And ideally, individual players do their own self-analysis to see how they compare.

HOW?

I watched and coded specific attributes for every shift in all 4 games for every player in this analysis using the USA Hockey TV footage. I collected more metrics than are listed below, but I feel that the attributes shown, provide the right amount and level of data to gain an understanding of the level of play for this position. Note: Sometimes the live stream footage didn’t always focus on the area of the ice where the play was taking place, so it is very likely the odd play may have not been accounted for.

WHO?

Here is the list of the 13 players selected to go to the 18’s camp

For D analysis, I included the 3 players selected plus another ‘top D’ player who was not selected. I am not identifying the names of any players because singling out any individual player is not my objective.  However, I can say, that I personally do not know any of the players or their parents that were included in this analysis.

SO WHAT?

Based on my analysis, I don’t have any issues with the D selections since measuring defense is not an exact science.  I am sure there were other players for whom there is an argument they could have been selected instead – but the differences are hard to discern in just 4 games and I don’t expect the selection committee to be perfect in only picking players based on their game performance.

All selected players made several really good plays (both offensively and defensively) in their four games – many of which were ‘highlight worthy’.  At the same time, these same players made multiple, significant turnovers/mistakes which resulted in high scoring chances for the other team. This goes to show you that none of the D were anywhere close to being perfect. But overall their consistency over 4 games is what you can see in the metrics.

THE ANALYSIS

Note: Players 1-3 were selected to go to the U18 Girls Camp – Player 4 was not selected

Some notes on the tracked attributes:

  • Offensive Shot Attempts does not mean the shot made it to the net – as mentioned in my previous post, I estimate almost 80% of all point shots were blocked or missed the net.
  • Turnover = full change of possession to the other team (e.g. a missed pass, dump in/out, rim or redirected puck)
  • I am not including the point stats or PIMs for any player since they can already be found on the USA Hockey website
  • Note: With only 4.1 goals per game combined between both teams, all the top players played strong defensively and were not on the ice for many goals.  This can be seen in their “On-ice goals for/goals against ratio” (this is different from the traditional +/- stat). 
  • There were additional attributes I tracked like offensive zone entries and good defensive plays. In addition metrics like pass attempts or turnovers could be segmented further by situation – however, given the outcome based of the measurements presented here, I feel they are a good representation of how each player played.

Finally, yes, I did a similar analysis for my daughter’s games (for her eyes only). And we are using the results to prioritize her summer development plan.

NEXT ANALYSIS

I have already started working analyzing the Forwards who were picked for the U18 Camp. This is a little more complicated since there were 5 forwards selected. I will not be doing goalies, because I don’t feel qualified to do so – and as mentioned previously, from what I’ve been told by goalie experts, there is a huge weight given to one-on-one time spent with an evaluator to judge goalies.

Categories
2023 Girls Hockey Player Development Women's College Hockey

More Thoughts on the 2023 USA Hockey 16/17 Girls Development Camp

This is the second post about the 2023 USA Hockey Girls 16/17 Development Camp

You can read the first post here

I wanted to get this our right after the camp, but didn’t have time before taking a week-long vacation.  But here are some additional thoughts that I compiled during my time in Oxford:

  • The operational excellence of the camp was consistent the entire week – kudos to the organizers for such a well-run event. Especially when compared to many other camps, showcases and tryouts I have seen on both the girls and boys side of hockey
  • Unlike the previous camp I attended, I now appreciate all the different paths to hockey excellence there are in the U.S. I could now see where all players came from that I learned about over  the last couple of years – hockey academy, top clubs, prep and Minnesota
  • The last two days of games brought a whole slew of additional DI and DIII coaches to Oxford. I personally saw coaches from just about every school  (over 30 DI teams) – however there were some top programs where I didn’t see a representative (e.g. Wisconsin, UMD, Colgate, Northeastern) and several NEWHA schools (note:  they may have been there, but I just didn’t see them).
  • One DI coach did tell me that some of the players looked tired for the fourth game – while another thought there was better team play the last two games compared to the first two games.
  • 7 players who were at 16/17 camp this year were at 18s camp last year.  1G , 2D  &  4Fs.  Two of them were players who were selected from the 2022 16/17’s Camp to go the 2022 18’s Camp – the other 5 went direct to 18s last year.
  • Here is the list of the 13 players selected to go to the 18’s camp
  • 5 of those 7 2022 18’s Camp players were selected to return to the 18’s camp this year from the 16/17s Camp
  • In  general,  I noticed a big difference between the average 2006 and average 2007 player. seemed to be weaker. That one extra year of development is noticeable not just size, but hockey IQ
  • Interesting stat – the Girls 16/17 Camp averaged 4.1 goals per game (combined both teams) while the Boys 17 Camp averaged 10.0 goals/gm and the Boys 16 Camp averaged 8.6 goals per game. Significantly less scoring on the girls side.
  • Unofficially, I estimated that about 80% of point shots were blocked/never reached the net – surprisingly low for this level of play
  • It seems that just watching games isn’t sufficient to judge players – while important – there really are a lot of nuances you can get from practices that you can’t see from a live stream that likely factored into players selected for the 18s camp
  • Depending on position and length of shifts, most players only had between 40 and 50 shifts to demonstrate their abilities over the course of 4 games. Which isn’t a lot, all things considered.
  • Based on talking with multiple parents and players there was certainly a mix of perspectives on the selections for 18’s camp.  I will hold off judgment on skaters until I spend more time reviewing video of the players selected in comparison to other top players who were not selected.  I do not feel qualified to analyze goalies, especially based on past conversations with expert goalie coaches – but I do know that you can’t just rely on game performance in goalie evaluations.
  • I can’t include everything I want to discuss in this post, so I am going to publish additional posts sourced from the camp including:
    • A candid conversation with a DI coach on their detailed recruiting process for their 2025 recruiting class
    • Applying some analytics to the players selected from the 16/17 camp for the 18’s Girls Camp
    • My thoughts on the 16/17 Camp feedback process – which is dependent on receiving the official player feedback report via snail mail expected sometime this week.

Next:

Analyzing the USA Hockey Girls 16/17 Camp Defense Selections for the U18 Camp

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