Reporting of Game Scores

[HShockeywatcher]

After following high school sports for a while and now ranking teams for a while and seeing how some sites get updates almost as they happen and others take a day or so to get them in. And even then, some are accurate and others are not. I have been associated with different teams before, and never once have a seen a coach, or school official, call anyone or let anyone know of the score.

How does this happen? Is there someone the officials call? And how then do websites gain access to this information and why do some get incorrect info while others get the correct info?

Seems like it would be in intricate system to set up and make work on a state wide, or national level.

[PuckU126]

After following high school sports for a while and now ranking teams for a while and seeing how some sites get updates almost as they happen and others take a day or so to get them in. And even then, some are accurate and others are not. I have been associated with different teams before, and never once have a seen a coach, or school official, call anyone or let anyone know of the score.

How does this happen? Is there someone the officials call? And how then do websites gain access to this information and why do some get incorrect info while others get the correct info?

Seems like it would be in intricate system to set up and make work on a state wide, or national level.

I was at the Stilly/FLake game yesterday, and I saw a gentleman with a laptop in the stands. I stood behind him, look at his screen, and saw that he was giving scores and shots to the MN hockey hub via e-mail.

This is one way it happens, but you can also use your smart phone now days.

I don't see how people get the scores wring though. Maybe they were not at the game and got some bad information.

[blueblood]

Before the advent of the HockeyHub, I was an official scorekeeper for a boys west metro team. After the game concluded and refs reviewed the scoresheet we would fax it in to StarTribune for next days publishing.

I'm now assisting a different team and our scorekeepers use HockeyHub for real-time game reporting. Most of the teams we play also use HH in real-time, others are taking the scoresheet and entering in the data right after the game into HH.

What I've seen with HH is that:
1 - Goals are accurate (ES, PP, SHG)
2 - Assists are usually accurate and often get updated after the fact
3 - Penalties are accurate
4 - Very few team keep individual player shot or face-offs totals

The biggest stat on HH that IMO, is not accurate is +/-. If you take a look at a game sheet that is generated by HH, the +/- often reflects the individual scoring; i.e. if you get a goal and an assist, HH will show you as +2 for that game.

For our team, we record the +/- manually and go back into HH and update those stats after the game film is reviewed and confirmed against our statisticians notes.

[HShockeywatcher]

blueblood, thanks for all the info.

So, is Hockeyhub the official record for the MSHSL? Is that where they go to get info? Is there some "official MSHSL site" with info on all sports? Or are they all different?

Do those who run other sites wait for Hockey Hub to be updated, then manually enter all their scores? Follow the Puck seems to be quite fast and accurate with goal scorers and such as well. Just seems like before this year there had to be a simpler way everything happened.

[karl(east)]

blueblood, thanks for all the info.

So, is Hockeyhub the official record for the MSHSL? Is that where they go to get info? Is there some "official MSHSL site" with info on all sports? Or are they all different?

Do those who run other sites wait for Hockey Hub to be updated, then manually enter all their scores? Follow the Puck seems to be quite fast and accurate with goal scorers and such as well. Just seems like before this year there had to be a simpler way everything happened.

Hockey Hub is the official site of the HS' Coaches Association.

There is an official MSHSL website, www.mshsl.org They keep track of rosters and records (though each school must update them, so it's unreliable there), have section tournament info, and more info on things like section assignment and the bureaucratic side of HS hockey.

The guy at FTP gets text updates, but I think his scoring info comes from the Hub.

Before the Hub there was Pointstreak, which was less reliable, but it got most of the info there. Not sure what people did before that, but there's a reason it's hard to find historical scoring data. Newspaper archives might actually be the best place if you want to go way back.

[seek & destroy]

blueblood, thanks for all the info.

So, is Hockeyhub the official record for the MSHSL? Is that where they go to get info? Is there some "official MSHSL site" with info on all sports? Or are they all different?

Do those who run other sites wait for Hockey Hub to be updated, then manually enter all their scores? Follow the Puck seems to be quite fast and accurate with goal scorers and such as well. Just seems like before this year there had to be a simpler way everything happened.

The Hockey Hub is the official MSHSL site and is a welcomed addition to High School hockey in Minnesota. Up until them, teams used different sites (pointstreak, Star/trib etc.) to keep track of their stats and information and you had to go all over the place to find information. Hockey Hub has now even got the Star/Trib using them as their primary source for all stories etc. and they share back and forth. They also have teamed up with the Elite league so you have a one stop place for H.S. information.

There are several teams that are now inputting game information into the Hockey Hub while the game goes on which allows fans to 'watch' the game online...no picture but you see the stats as they are input. They also have their spotlight games where you have blogging and other things 'live' from the game. It is not as good as going to the game but allows fans a great opportunity to be at numerous games online.

Follow the Puck does a great job but he is dependent on outside people to get him the information (he sometimes gets the score before people have input the game into the Hockey Hub). They do provide a nice way to see highlights of all the games (scoring/assist/saves) without going through each individual game tab on the Hub.

The Hockey Hub is dependent on the coaches/or assigned person to input their data. Most coaches at the H.S. level do not take the time to calculate +/-, individual shots on goal etc. so those stats are rarely accurate. For example, most coaches don't want to keep track of how many shots on goal an individual player has but they do keep how many shots on goal a team has. So when you look at the 'scoring percentage' for an individual player you will see that some players have scored more times then they have shot (18 goals on 0 shots)...kind of meaningless. I think the High School coaches should agree on what universal stats they want to keep (i.e. goals, assists, gaa, etc.) and then eliminate the ones that the majority don't want to worry about.Perhaps the Hockey Hub can provide them with the ability to keep all the stats but only show online the ones that are agreed upon.

You will also see some teams who try and give extra assists on top of what the refs called. Other teams just input the data from the refs unless there is a gross error that didn't get corrected. It seems that some teams will have 2 assists for virtually every goal and others do not and quite often those extra assists are added after the game. It is ultimately up to the coaches to make changes and some coaches decide to award a lot of extra assists and others let it slide. No matter how you look at it, it is way better than the systems of the past.

[goldy313]

To echo what blueblood said...When I worked at a rink we had an 800 number for the AP, after each game we would call the number and give them the box score. They distributed it on the wire and the newspapers would pick it up and print it, the newspapers used to do a lot better getting scores than they do now in my opinion. One would think with the internet it would be easier to get scores out but it doesn't seem to be that way. My theory is the Ap was very good at what they did and newspapers really don't care about high school sports anymore.

When it comes to sections this site is as about as good as it gets for updates and scores. The MSHSL site gets scores in pretty quickly as well, so if you're looking for a basketball or football score they're pretty darn good, also if you want to see who won the state Class A 400 meter dash or how a girl from Albany did in the state cross country meet they're almost real time there now as well.

[EREmpireStrikesBack]

St. Thomas just sends in the score before the game starts, then tries to match it on the ice.