A Retrospective on CWHL & PHF Stat-Keeping: How the PWHL Must Be Better

The point of a hockey game is to score more goals than your opponent. To score more goals, coaches and GMs need to build a team full of the best players available to them. To know who the best players are, these coaches and GMs need to start by looking at who scores the most goals and produces the most offensive stats.

To do this, a league needs to have widely available, accurate, and public statistics. Similarly, many fans need accurate statistics in order to properly generate buzz around players and the league. Some players, like Connecticut Whale icon Shannon Turner, donate to charities based on their stats. Players from other leagues need these public statistics to gauge the viability of traveling cross-country or internationally to try out  for a team.

Without accurate and widely available statistics, very few of these things are possible. With that in mind, let’s review the mistakes of the PHF and CWHL so the PWHL can learn from them to avoid taking steps backwards.