Included in the exhausting list of statistics that the NHL publishes at the conclusion of each game is the “ice time” of each player. How on earth is the NHL able to keep track of each player’s movements during the game, right down to the second, considering there are a total of 40 players (excluding the goaltenders) who enter and leave the game at will dozens of times? It would seemingly take 40 people to track the movements of 40 players.
To compound my amazement, these stats are published mere minutes after the conclusion of each game.
So, does anyone know how many NHL stats trackers are employed for each game?
Well, only 12 of them are on the ice at any time, and it’s a big deal any time 2 of them leave the ice, so you’re really only tracking 10. And they tend to leave and enter in groups, so really, you’re just waiting for a shift change, writing down the time, the 2 or 3 players who left, and the ones who replaced them. I doubt it’s really accurate to the second, more like the time represents some point in the 2 to 10 second interval during which the line change happens.
It’s probably not as hard as it sounds, and if they make mistakes who would notice? Not all the line changes are on the fly, there are around 60 faceoffs per game and many of those involve player changes.
It’s all done with software now except when the PC crashes and then they write it down.
We’ve addressed this before, but my weak search skills couldn’t pull up the relevant thread. As others have said, it’s not as hard as it seems. When a shift change occurs, the scorer notes the time, and then the numbers of the players who have entered. Because these are usually done in fixed groups, an experienced scorer just needs a few seconds to note the change.
Well, you all seem to have much better faith in the skills of one mere mortal than I do, but I understand what you’re saying. I disagree, however, that shifts are usually changed in fixed groups. While it does happen from time to time, defencemen and forwards don’t change at the exact same time. And how the official scorer can track shots on goal as well as ice-time is a mystery to me.
But if the consensus is that there is one official scorer, I will go with that!