TCS Live features outstanding presentations from the best minds in the hockey world, but we’re not afraid to mix it up and look outside of hockey for great ideas.
That’s where Joey DiCresce comes in. During our 2023 TCS Live, DiCresce, a Football Analytics Assistant with the University of Michigan who also works in analytics with The 33rd Team, a website producing NFL content from current and former players, coaches and executives, gave a thorough presentation on how a project he recently co-created can apply to hockey.
DiCresce submitted a presentation titled Using Player Tracking Data to Optimize Defensive Formations to the NFL’s Big Data Bowl, an annual sports analytics contest from NFL Football Operations that challenges members of the analytics community to contribute to the NFL’s continuing evolution of the use of advanced analytics. The theme was pass rush, so DiCresce tracked the probability of a player getting a sack based on the game state and where the player is lined up in relation to others pre-snap.
This 21-minute presentation goes through the project, including the data and goals, model features and set up, the results and dashboard and use cases, ultimately crossing over into how analytics can help a hockey team. He discusses player and puck tracking data, goal probability prediction, player evaluation and forecasting and evaluating strategy & scheme.
If advanced analytics are of interest to you, this presentation is worth watching!
Noteworthy timestamps:
- 1:10 Data and Goals
- 2:30 Model and Features
- 4:20 Results of the Model
- 8:40 Dashboard results
- 13:00 What can analytics bring to a team?
- 17:30 NFL analytics idea applied to hockey
