Analysis of an Analytics System for Player Selection

Ron Watson spent years scouting minor hockey games looking for players that would succeed at the professional (pro) level. He had sat in countless meetings where scouts would put forth their views on various players. Almost invariably, there would be differences of opinion. Additionally, each scout used different criteria to support their viewpoint: some talked about skating, others about hockey IQ. The list was endless.

Watson developed a system to try to make sense of the various opinions. His system relied on scouts using an agreed-upon standard to evaluate players on five criteria. By collecting these data Watson hoped to develop a more analytical, and better, approach to scouting. But did his system work? There are three types of analysis: crosstabs, t-tests, and ANOVA.