Oilers Hackathon: Question 3

I am now three quarters of the way through the Oilers Hackathon contest questions. I received an email last week letting me know that I am competing against almost 500 other entrants. The deadline of February 15^th is subject to change pending the resolution of the CBA negotiations. Translation: we might cancel the contest!! That would be a nice piece of PR for the Oil.

One interesting piece to the email was an indication that the 10 winners would be required to sign the confidentiality agreement before receiving their prize. The implication is that we aren’t subject to the CA at this point in time. I am going to revise my post on question #1 and discuss the nature of the players in Appendix A and what I think the Oilers are doing. I will hold off on actually listing the players for now.

For questions #3, I will outlay exactly what I did and include my predictions for each team. Below is question 3.

Predict the goal differential per regular season game ((goals for less goals against) divided by games played) for all thirty teams for the upcoming season.

Oilers Hackathon: Question 2

Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours answering question #2 of the Oilers Hackathon.

Predict next season’s even strength save percentage of the goaltenders listed in appendix A

My approach to this question was to keep my analysis fairly short and simple. I give the illusion of precision, but the reality is a bunch of guesswork. A goalie’s save percentage has a lot to do with luck and his teammates, and a bit to do with his skill and his age.

Oilers Hackathon: Question 1

My thanks to mc79hockey for the retweet of the link to my first post on the Oilers Hackathon contest. It has been awhile since this site has had a bunch of folks stop by.

Over the last couple of days, I tackled the first of the four questions that make up the contest.

1. Predict next regular season’s points/game for the players listed in appendix A.

My interpretation of the confidentiality acknowledgement precludes me from listing the players in appendix A. In my original draft I had characterized the list of players and wagered a guess on what the Oilers were trying to accomplish. My lovely wife, holder of a law degree, kindly informed me that I ought to reconsider.

So I will leave that out for now. Should Appendix A end up in the public domain, I will edit this post and add those two cents.

Edmonton Oilers Hockey Hackathon

The Oilers announced the second running of their contest to allow amateur stat-heads the opportunity to play around with their proprietary data. Up for grabs are 10 prizes, ranging from signed jerseys to a chance to work with the Oilers’ analytics group.

From the confidentiality acknowledgement.

“I have and will learn confidential or proprietary information relating to the past, existing and contemplated operations of RSC and the Edmonton Oilers Hockey Club (the “Oilers”), including but not limited to personal, business, hockey, financial, strategic, statistical and investment information about RSC and the Oilers, their respective employees, subsidiaries, parent companies or affiliates, and the websites containing the information in the Hackathon package (the “Websites”) (collectively, the “Confidential Information”).”

I signed up for the contest. I thought it would be an interesting chance to get a sense of how the Oilers use advanced stats to manage their business. To accompany my entry, I am going to post a few blogs outlining my experience.