Stripes and Increased Home Ice Advantage
by J.P. on Nov 30, 2009 2:30 PM EST
31 comments
When Bill McCreary whistled Alex Ovechkin for a highly questionable third period roughing penalty last Monday in Ottawa, CapsNation was hardly surprised - it was merely McCreary's blatant anti-Caps bias rearing its ugly, mustachioed head yet again.
Or not.
But fans and non-rooting onlookers alike wouldn't necessarily have been wrong to have expected a call in that situation from McCreary based on where the game was being played, not which teams were playing it. It turns out that Billy Mac has demonstrated a bit of a home team bias in his years wearing the stripes. Dating back to 1993, and including playoffs, visiting clubs have received 11.75% more penalties than their hosts in McCreary-reffed games. [One note on the more than 25,000 lines of data - and huge thanks to Gabe at BtN for providing it - there are plenty of "missing" games, but they seem to be random enough that the data that is there is still good.]
That a visiting team would be penalized more than a home team isn't terribly surprising. One would expect that home ice advantage, if it exists (and it does), would lead to a bit of pressing on the part of the disadvantaged squad and that, combined with the crowd's partisanship, might impact the way the referees call a game. And that's precisely what the data shows - that over the 15,363 games analyzed, road teams were dinged for 5.82% more penalty minutes than home teams.
But McCreary's home-team bias sticks out at more than double the average rate... and he's not alone. Have a look for yourself after the jump.
[Notes: Minimum 50 games in the data available; Active referees per National Hockey League Officials Association in italics; Home Team Win % excludes ties.]
Hell of a table, eh? Oh, and if you're looking for our buddy Mr. van Massenhoven, as I noted, there were holes in the data, and apparently one of those holes swallowed up Dutch surnames.
Anyway, there's an awful lot in that table and, it's worth noting that it includes both pre-and post-lockout games and one- and two-man refereed matches. But whether we're talking "new" NHL with it's heightened enforcement of the rules on the books or the not-so-freewheelin' '90s shouldn't make a difference when we're looking at which team is getting whistled more. Neither should whether a referee was on his own calling a game (though obviously the calls made are not fully within one man's control in games with two referees)...but it does, albeit the difference is small. McCreary, for example, doled out 10.0% more penalty minutes to visiting teams than he did to home teams in the 365 games analyzed in which he was the only referee and there was a 12.9% difference in games in which he had a partner, and that differential is pretty much in line with the overall difference here - visiting teams were assessed 6.74% more penalty minutes than their hosts in dual-reffed games and 4.26% more when only one referee was out there.
To put all of these number in some perspective via an example, a referee with a 10% "bias" here who calls ten minor penalties on home teams over the course of two games will whistle the visitors just one more time over that span. So it's not much, but it obviously can be the difference between winning and losing on any given night.
Bottom line? Seeing that Bill MCreary is going to be calling a game featuring your team isn't in and of itself a reason to panic, but if your squad isn't the home team, you should have some idea of what to expect.
Post script: I see BtN has tackled this today as well. Go read another take with similar results when you get a chance.
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How often does a Ref tackle Home/Away players?
by Steckel Me Elmo on Nov 30, 2009 2:34 PM EST reply actions
And how does it count if the tackle takes place in Europe? Is it a neutral site despite an official “home and away” designation? Is there some crazy conversion rate?
If consequences dictate the course of action, then it doesn't matter what's right, it's only wrong if you get caught. If consequences dictate the course of action, then I should play God...
by Fehr and Balanced on Nov 30, 2009 2:41 PM EST up reply actions
much admiration, JP. this post goes in the pantheon of all-timers. bummer that BtN beat you to the punch, but it’s obvious from the post that you put quite a bit of work into this one.
maybe i shouldn’t be, but i’m pretty shocked that every single ref save one calls a higher percentage of penalties agaisnt the road team. you always know the bias is there, any sport, but to see it illustrated like this is remarkable.
speaking of other sports, if the rink rats haven’t stopped by deadspin to read excerpts from the book the NBA doesn’t want you to read, they are WELL worth your time. the referee wields an enormous amount of influence in both sports, and keeping ref evaluation as transparent as possible should be a priority for all professional leagues. anyone have a take on how the NHL stacks up against the NBA, NFL, etc., in providing these types of numbers, continually overseeing and evaluating referees, etc.? the NHL has term limits on a referee’s career, yes?
Thanks, Natty. I had this teed up this morning then saw Gabe’s post and, fittingly, uttered a “D’oh!”
As for the bias, I don’t think that just because more penalties are called on visitors, there’s necessarily a bias – I think it’s safe to assume that home teams have some inherent advantages in a game (from line matching to pre-game travel to feeding off the crowd, etc.) and that a disadvantaged squad sometimes has to cheat to overcome that advantage. I’d expect a small edge in home team power plays overall. It’s when you start getting into the outliers that the eyebrow goes up for me.
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Another interesting take on this would be to look at two-man advantages given (home vs. away), consecutive power plays for one team (home vs. away) and also power-play-neutralizing penalties (home vs. away) – since those things might say even more about the “bias” than just the flat out number of advantages (as percent). The raw values are interesting, but timing is more important to the outcome of the game, or at least one would think.
That would be interesting, but some poor sucker would have to spend his free time looking through the game logs for this info.
"If you're gonna die after 24, might as well jump out at 23:59, no?"
by Laich It Or Lump It on Nov 30, 2009 3:36 PM EST up reply actions
Tonight’s refs, btw? Kozari and Meier… more likely than average to screw the visitors (in this case, the Caps).
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yeah, but the Canes are pretty good are screwing themselves, so maybe it’ll even out. (seriously, who gives up 5 goals in the third period two games in a row?!)
Well, we all know about Caps third periods, so it may be the resistable force against the moveable object. Or something.
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Over/under on 3rd period goals tonight? I’ll put it at 7.5.
If consequences dictate the course of action, then it doesn't matter what's right, it's only wrong if you get caught. If consequences dictate the course of action, then I should play God...
by Fehr and Balanced on Nov 30, 2009 3:22 PM EST up reply actions
Wow. Three posts in addition to the regularly scheduled Caps Clips. That’s not counting tonight’s GDT and PGT. Pretty epic day at the Rink.
"If you're gonna die after 24, might as well jump out at 23:59, no?"
by Laich It Or Lump It on Nov 30, 2009 3:10 PM EST reply actions
Makes a rainy Monday bearable.
"Camaraderie, that's what the Washington Capitals are all about."
by CapitalCentre on Nov 30, 2009 3:38 PM EST up reply actions
I guess the refs at the top of the list think all teams are equal, but some teams are more equal than others.
by Steckel Me Elmo on Nov 30, 2009 3:53 PM EST reply actions
1) Sorry if this was answered somewhere within the post/responses already, but does the data say how individual teams fair with respect to this bias? That is, do the Caps get the same 11% home ‘bump’ from McCreary?
I find sometimes it's easy to be myself
sometimes I find it's better to be somebody else
They don’t, actually. But going team-by-team is a bit dicier without context. The Caps, for example, had some pretty awful teams that no doubt deserved to be whistled more than their opponents, and so on.
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Aren’t the guys at the bottom of this list just as interesting as the guys at the top? Are they evening out games?
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If anything, after reading Boudreau’s story about Paul Stewart in his book, I’d have presumed that the long-times would be far and away at the top, er, bottom of the list.
"Good luck and God speed, Ben. See you on the other side of the pitch."
by Bald Pollack on Nov 30, 2009 4:00 PM EST up reply actions
quick summary of BB's paul stewart story?
the NHL’s dick bavetta?
by Natty Bumppo on Nov 30, 2009 4:12 PM EST up reply actions
I think it was an AHL game where Stewart was, and Boudreau suggested a penalty/infraction should be called, and Stewart essentially said “it’s a stupid rule, so I’m not going to call it.”
I only really know Bavetta for the Chaz Barkley smooch.
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by Bald Pollack on Nov 30, 2009 5:20 PM EST up reply actions
Regardless of officiating conspiracies or lack thereof, it is certainly in the interest of the league for home teams to win at home in front of their fans. And it’s probably not preferable for the home team to lose a close game due to a questionable penalty call.
In this vein I do like to see the overall tendency towards the home team in the interest of “hockey”, but not on a call-per-call basis.
As I said in the GDOT, it pays to have drinking buddies in high places.
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This chart makes Devorski look like the most unbiased referee to ever ref a game. If anything, I think this will give me another thing to watch for while watching hockey games.
::Committing bottom 5 and top 5 names to memory::
One guy just drove his semi as a float. I guess semis are cool.
Or is he actually quite biased in that he’s evening up games?
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One hand in the fire and one hand in the freezer
Individual game evenness isn’t implied by the data presented, though, is it? They could call 20 games with the home team having an advantage and 20 games with the away team having an advantage. It would probably make the stats more illustrative if they were accompanied by some sort of “evenness” metric.
Another factor to take into consideration is what TYPES of penalties are being called? More restraining fouls? Physical? Other? Are they subjective calls, like “was that really a hook? Really?!”, or objective calls, like “delay of game when the player clearly shot the puck right over the glass and the entire arena groaned.”
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Southeast Standings
| GP | W | L | OTL | PT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Washington
|
82 | 54 | 15 | 13 | 121 |
|
Atlanta
|
82 | 35 | 34 | 13 | 83 |
|
Carolina
|
82 | 35 | 37 | 10 | 80 |
|
Tampa Bay
|
82 | 34 | 36 | 12 | 80 |
|
Florida
|
82 | 32 | 37 | 13 | 77 |
(updated 4.12.2010 at 9:21 AM EDT)
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