SALT LAKE CITY — As competition continues to increase and organizations seek to make the most of their assets, analytics has become an important part of professional sports over the past decade.
Utah Hockey Club general manager Bill Armstrong has also noticed this trend and is turning to the Internet for new ideas and a new contributor to his analytics team.
Utah announced Tuesday that it is hosting a “Summer Analytics Challenge,” which gives participants the opportunity to win a part-time, remote, paid internship with its analytics department for the first half of the 2024-25 season.
“We are excited to tap into analytical minds through the Summer Analytics Challenge, which provides an opportunity to engage with our organization in a unique way,” Armstrong said. “We look forward to seeing the great creativity and ideas from the challenge participants.”
Challenge participants must choose a hockey-related topic of interest to analyze and submit a report that provides a detailed analysis of their topic. The best submissions will be able to share their findings with Armstrong, and the winning candidate will be selected shortly thereafter.
Almost everything that happens on the ice can now be analyzed, from how a team or a specific player performs on the power play to tracking who leads in ice time or where a player spends most of his time on the ice.
It’s no secret how much analytics has changed the game.
“It’s a growing phenomenon, and I always say in the scouting world, different scouts and different eyes see different things. I think that’s true in the analytics world as well,” Armstrong said. “With the young talent coming up these days, they see things differently, they think differently and they’re certainly able to create different analytical models, and that’s what we’re looking for.”
Armstrong also believes that the difference between wins and losses can also be found in the data.
“We’re looking for the numbers that can win hockey games,” Armstrong said. “There are so many different ways to approach it, but we’re looking for the best player that we can get that can definitely stand out in our analytics department.”
Not only will the winning candidate earn the internship, but it may open doors to other opportunities within the club or elsewhere in the sport of hockey.
“For someone who comes in as an intern, you never know where that job might take you,” Armstrong said.
