Hockey Rankings Formula
The formula relies on several key factors, including the strength of opposition, margin of victory, margin of loss, actual goals scored on the field , home and away status, actual result (W/L/D) and others. Each of these factors garners a team a prescribed amount of bonus points which is accumulated and divided by the matches played to render an “average bonus points” which is ultimately ranking a team.
As you may appreciate when these factors are used in the equation no two teams will be rewarded the same amount of points even if the result (W/L/D) is the same. For example: If TEAM A beats TEAM B by 3 goals and TEAM C beats TEAM B by 2 goals, the result is the same but can we really say that the result is identical and should be valued the same? Not at all, TEAM A clearly, based on scoring more goals and winning by a greater margin, deserves more reward for their effort. What about TEAM B, should they not get rewarded for losing by fewer points when they played TEAM C? Of course, they should. However, what if TEAM C beat TEAM B away from home but TEAM A’s victory was at home? Should TEAM C get an extra reward for their efforts? Yes of course they should. That is just one variable of many that the rankings formula factors in. Multiply that example by the over 300 teams in the system and you may appreciate that all the results from all the teams and all the factors for all the teams will have a bearing on the final rankings table. As any statistician will tell you the more factors that are used the closer one gets to a truer picture.
The formula however does not take into account teams who are ‘unlucky’, or have injured players, or poor umpiring decisions etc. It just looks at the numbers.
With regard to the ‘’average bonus points’’ column which is ultimately ranking a team it must be appreciated that these numbers are always fluid and will go up or down even if a team wins a match because it is an average and reliant on different variables that are being entered depending on the different factors that will vary from match to match even if a team wins every match.
Example: Johnny records the following maths marks for his tests:
70%
75%
82%
71%
His average mark will be = 74.5 %
When Johnny does his next test which are a little more difficult he once against passes the test (wins the match) but this time he gets 64% for his test. A pass. Will his average go up or down now? Obviously even though he passed the test fairly well his average went down to 72.4%. Johnny would therefore not really be taken seriously if he complained that his average went down even though he passed the test.
As mentioned earlier each factor in the rankings equation: Strength of opposition, margin of victory, margin of loss, actual points scored on the field, actual results (W/L/D) , home and away status and others garners a team a prescribed amount of bonus points. These bonus points will vary from match to match as all these factors will be different from match to match. These bonus points are tallied and divided by matches played to render an average.
Weighting:
At the start of every season the teams are weighted. This is based on were last years teams finished on the rankings. For example when it comes to weighting the First Teams that will be based on where the U16’s were ranked last year. So TEAM A’s First Team is weighted this year according to where TEAM A’s U16’s finished last year as it is assumed last year’s U16’s will form the nucleus of this years First Team. This year’s U16’s will be weighted on where last years U14’s finished etc.
