The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

[FreshFish]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

Very much enjoyed your rankings and formula. Sorry this response is so late in the game (um, after the game has ended?); did not realize how long the registration process would take.

This is a suggestion for a complementary measure, not at all a criticism!

When you say 'greatest programs of all time' it seems to me that the concept of a 'program' goes beyond the players and coaches to include the fan base as well. No doubt you thought of that; and figured that you lacked an appropriate, objective metric.

Here is a suggestion. You also give points to programs that have a published history. I'm not talking about a magazine article (though if you want to refine it...), I mean an actual book in print from an actual publisher. You might give it half a score if the publisher of the Omega hockey program is Omega University Press; and a full score if the publisher is a commercial enterprise that actually plans to make money on the book (I suppose people who like this idea and want to refine it could add points based on number of copies sold, etc.).

I know for sure that there is at least one program that is memorialized in a published book from a commercial publisher; while I did absolutely no research at all, my bet would be that there are at least 7 - 10 of these books out there.

I'll wait and see if there is any response before I identify the book and publisher....

Again, I really enjoyed your research and your commentary. I came here looking for something else entirely and was hooked into reading the entire thread from start to current.

[Puck Swami]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

Very much enjoyed your rankings and formula. Sorry this response is so late in the game (um, after the game has ended?); did not realize how long the registration process would take.

This is a suggestion for a complementary measure, not at all a criticism!

When you say 'greatest programs of all time' it seems to me that the concept of a 'program' goes beyond the players and coaches to include the fan base as well. No doubt you thought of that; and figured that you lacked an appropriate, objective metric.

Here is a suggestion. You also give points to programs that have a published history. I'm not talking about a magazine article (though if you want to refine it...), I mean an actual book in print from an actual publisher. You might give it half a score if the publisher of the Omega hockey program is Omega University Press; and a full score if the publisher is a commercial enterprise that actually plans to make money on the book (I suppose people who like this idea and want to refine it could add points based on number of copies sold, etc.).

I know for sure that there is at least one program that is memorialized in a published book from a commercial publisher; while I did absolutely no research at all, my bet would be that there are at least 7 - 10 of these books out there.

I'll wait and see if there is any response before I identify the book and publisher....

Again, I really enjoyed your research and your commentary. I came here looking for something else entirely and was hooked into reading the entire thread from start to current.

Books are nice, but obviously, big schools with big fan bases are going to sell more copies than small schools with small fanbases.

I have college hockey books highlighting Minnesota, Michigan, Denver, Cornell, BU, Michigan State, Yale, North Dakota and Wisconsin off the top of my head.

There are probably others, and my favorite two college hockey books are about Princeton's Hobey Baker.

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

Very much enjoyed your rankings and formula. Sorry this response is so late in the game (um, after the game has ended?); did not realize how long the registration process would take.

This is a suggestion for a complementary measure, not at all a criticism!

When you say 'greatest programs of all time' it seems to me that the concept of a 'program' goes beyond the players and coaches to include the fan base as well. No doubt you thought of that; and figured that you lacked an appropriate, objective metric.

Here is a suggestion. You also give points to programs that have a published history. I'm not talking about a magazine article (though if you want to refine it...), I mean an actual book in print from an actual publisher. You might give it half a score if the publisher of the Omega hockey program is Omega University Press; and a full score if the publisher is a commercial enterprise that actually plans to make money on the book (I suppose people who like this idea and want to refine it could add points based on number of copies sold, etc.).

I know for sure that there is at least one program that is memorialized in a published book from a commercial publisher; while I did absolutely no research at all, my bet would be that there are at least 7 - 10 of these books out there.

I'll wait and see if there is any response before I identify the book and publisher....

Again, I really enjoyed your research and your commentary. I came here looking for something else entirely and was hooked into reading the entire thread from start to current.

Interesting. I never really thought of books/published articles to be honest. As Swami said, it basically would give a huge advantage to larger schools and schools with a longer history. Saying that, it's not necessarily a "bad" thing for that to be the case, as it provides further legitimacy to the power of a program. Research would be a little difficult, as there could theoretically be a book about say Yale hockey from 1940 and it sold 10 copies and was put out by their university press. Ultimately, I don't think I'd include it in my formula. My formula is based almost purely on on-ice performance. There are a lot of "intangibles" that could be put together such as Attendance, Stadium Size, Program Revenue, and Graduation Rates (to name a few). It would be difficult research considering the all-time nature of the formula, but doable.

[FreshFish]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

Um....

The suggestion was to find a metric for measuring how alumni, fans, pep bands, etc. contribute to the essence of 'program' so that it is not merely players and coaches.

You can say 'why bother?' or you can say, hmm. what is a good objective metric?

Sounds like what you are saying here is something like 'I don't like the way this one would turn out and so I'm rejecting it, not by arguing whether it is a valid metric, but because I don't think I'd like the result."

Ah, never mind, it looks like this ship has already sailed, oh well....

I could argue that a 'program' could get special recognition if its fans were so fervent in their support, their fervor at a particular event resulted in a rules change! Now that would narrow the field down to one school, I think.....

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

Um....

The suggestion was to find a metric for measuring how alumni, fans, pep bands, etc. contribute to the essence of 'program' so that it is not merely players and coaches.

You can say 'why bother?' or you can say, hmm. what is a good objective metric?

Sounds like what you are saying here is something like 'I don't like the way this one would turn out and so I'm rejecting it, not by arguing whether it is a valid metric, but because I don't think I'd like the result."

Ah, never mind, it looks like this ship has already sailed, oh well....

I could argue that a 'program' could get special recognition if its fans were so fervent in their support, their fervor at a particular event resulted in a rules change! Now that would narrow the field down to one school, I think.....

I don't think Swami was rejecting it completely, just stating that there would be an advantage towards certain schools (I would also argue that this isn't necessarily a bad thing) if that was what was used.

It's going to be very difficult to find a metric. While some programs are so fervent in their support that it leads to rules changes, others are so fervent that they suckerpunch fans on the road. Which is better? Which is worth more? That's where it would be very difficult.

Saying that, I'm up for trying to hammer out a formula for best fan base.

[FreshFish]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

Interesting. I never really thought of books/published articles to be honest. As Swami said, it basically would give a huge advantage to larger schools and schools with a longer history. Saying that, it's not necessarily a "bad" thing for that to be the case, as it provides further legitimacy to the power of a program. Research would be a little difficult, as there could theoretically be a book about say Yale hockey from 1940 and it sold 10 copies and was put out by their university press. Ultimately, I don't think I'd include it in my formula. My formula is based almost purely on on-ice performance. There are a lot of "intangibles" that could be put together such as Attendance, Stadium Size, Program Revenue, and Graduation Rates (to name a few). It would be difficult research considering the all-time nature of the formula, but doable.

Well we could narrow down the metric by going on reputable bookseller websites, like Amazon....speaking theoretically at this point. I found a book about a program that way when I was doing Christmas shopping for progency that attend said school and follow their hockey team. If you lay out the metric I'll do the search, okay? As others have said, it would favor certain programs over others. So what? emphasizing NCAA championships 'favors' the teams that have won the most of them. Besides, as you yourself said, you could take the points and divide by the number of years that the program has been around, whatever.

I'm merely suggesting an element of 'program' that you can include or not; the real challenge is the metric, and the book suggestion was one way to measure it.

[goblue78]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

Let me be the nth to say Nice job. I'm not sure I understand your formula, though. You have 6 metrics which give you six rankings. Now, how did you assign weights? You said something about percentages, but I didn't understand it. Maybe an example would help, if that makes sense.

[FreshFish]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

just stating that there would be an advantage towards certain schools (I would also argue that this isn't necessarily a bad thing) if that was what was used.

We agree here; however in a sense I disagree with the logic that brings us here....the idea is to develop a metric that satisfies certain objective criteria; you should not reject the metric simply because the criteria might favor certain schools over another, because ultimately that is the whole point of developing a metric to begin with, to rank schools.

It's going to be very difficult to find a metric. While some programs are so fervent in their support that it leads to rules changes, others are so fervent that they suckerpunch fans on the road. Which is better? Which is worth more? That's where it would be very difficult.

Not quite as difficult from my perspective, perhaps, to me criminal behavior is never okay, not in the stands, and not on the ice. The incident to which I refer was analogous to vuvuzelas at the World Cup in South Africa, it is now against the rules to hand out noisemakers to everyone attending a hockey game that also serves as an annual 'event.'

(hmm...another possible metric, except that the work might be daunting....oh wait you said you had media guides? it would be really tedious and I am not suggesting anyone actually do it at this juncture....any recurring 'theme' games.....yeah, there's the beanpot, so objections can begin right there, other schools also have 'theme' games.....anything that one could measure that indicates something about the relative level of fan / alumni support....one that is impossible to use would be the ratio of seats filled to seats available, both at home and on the road....

Saying that, I'm up for trying to hammer out a formula for best fan base. [/QUOTE]

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

Let me be the nth to say Nice job. I'm not sure I understand your formula, though. You have 6 metrics which give you six rankings. Now, how did you assign weights? You said something about percentages, but I didn't understand it. Maybe an example would help, if that makes sense.

For instance, you get x amount of points for a NCAA Tournament bid, y amount of points for a NCAA Tournament win and z amount of points for a NCAA Tournament loss. Then let's make p = NCAA Tournament winning percentage. Then what we do is take p(x+y+z). That's not exactly how mine works, but it's fairly similar.

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

We agree here; however in a sense I disagree with the logic that brings us here....the idea is to develop a metric that satisfies certain objective criteria; you should not reject the metric simply because the criteria might favor certain schools over another, because ultimately that is the whole point of developing a metric to begin with, to rank schools.


Not quite as difficult from my perspective, perhaps, to me criminal behavior is never okay, not in the stands, and not on the ice. The incident to which I refer was analogous to vuvuzelas at the World Cup in South Africa, it is now against the rules to hand out noisemakers to everyone attending a hockey game that also serves as an annual 'event.'

(hmm...another possible metric, except that the work might be daunting....oh wait you said you had media guides? it would be really tedious and I am not suggesting anyone actually do it at this juncture....any recurring 'theme' games.....yeah, there's the beanpot, so objections can begin right there, other schools also have 'theme' games.....anything that one could measure that indicates something about the relative level of fan / alumni support....one that is impossible to use would be the ratio of seats filled to seats available, both at home and on the road....

Saying that, I'm up for trying to hammer out a formula for best fan base.

First off, I think we should try to come up with a list of potential criteria. Here is kind of what we have so far:

Historical Books about Program
Attendance/Stadium Size
Alumni support (financial could be doable)
'Theme' Games
Some sort of metric for student sections

Any other ideas out there?

[Ralph Baer]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

Books are nice, but obviously, big schools with big fan bases are going to sell more copies than small schools with small fanbases.

I have college hockey books highlighting Minnesota, Michigan, Denver, Cornell, BU, Michigan State, Yale, North Dakota and Wisconsin off the top of my head.

There are probably others, and my favorite two college hockey books are about Princeton's Hobey Baker.

RPI http://www.amazon.com/Skating-Engine.../dp/073853692X

[goblue78]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

For instance, you get x amount of points for a NCAA Tournament bid, y amount of points for a NCAA Tournament win and z amount of points for a NCAA Tournament loss. Then let's make p = NCAA Tournament winning percentage. Then what we do is take p(x+y+z). That's not exactly how mine works, but it's fairly similar.

OK. But now I'm even more confused. This formula makes any criterion in percentages much more important than a criterion in raw counts, since it multiplies the raw counts. If you don't want to give out the formula, that's fine, but I'm professionally curious. By the way, your basic underlying theory, to pick criteria that make sense and then let the chips fall where they may, is the only logical way to proceed. But once you have the individual metrics, you want to make as robust a set of weights as you can. As you mention, the criteria you use all move pretty much together, which helps. But the question is whether minor formula changes change the rankings.

One suggestion: create rankings for all 6 criteria (1-58) and then add the ranks. If you get the same rankings of that aggregate method as with yours, that forms a excellent test of robustness.

[Runninwiththedogs]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

Ok, here's what's going on here.

FreshFish has an agenda. FreshFish, did you recently author a book about college hockey or something? Of ALL the possible choices for measuring fan participation, you choose books.

I'd reject it completely without even being polite about it. What a stupid criterion.

[Dirty]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

Ok, here's what's going on here.

FreshFish has an agenda. FreshFish, did you recently author a book about college hockey or something? Of ALL the possible choices for measuring fan participation, you choose books.

I'd reject it completely without even being polite about it. What a stupid criterion.

You're only saying that because your fanbase sucks! All you have is that old man who is so old that he babysat Phil, DHG who is now on the downside of his taunting career and Biddy. Pathetic.

[Ralph Baer]

Re: The Greatest Programs of All-Time: #1 - #58

Ok, here's what's going on here.

FreshFish has an agenda. FreshFish, did you recently author a book about college hockey or something? Of ALL the possible choices for measuring fan participation, you choose books.

I'd reject it completely without even being polite about it. What a stupid criterion.

I assume that means that no one has written a book about tUMD. How about total posts on USCHO?