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Text File | 1996-12-13 | 12KB | 305 lines

Congratulations!  You have at your disposal one of the most powerful
Hockey Statistics Summary and Analysis tools available to the general
public.  Below is some of the necessary information you'll need to
understand and use the program to its full capabilities.

Thank you for your interest.  We don't think that we'll disappoint you.


Project Overview
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The database was designed for three reasons:

1.  The public should have easy access to information.

Anyone who is familiar with baseball statistics and the truckloads of
information that can be produced can understand the importance of
this.  For instance, nobody publishes team shooting percentage.  When
the NHL releases information about players, the shooting percentage of
the individual is available, but you would never know that the Colorado
Avalanche shot 11.8 percent in the month of October.  You may also not
know any team's special team (power play and penalty killing) stats
at any given point.  What you may have WANTED to know wasn't
necessarily something that you COULD find out easily.

This database was designed to change that.


2.  To keep a running history of the teams.

The NHL was founded (officially, at least) in 1917, which means that
there are about 80 years of information about the teams, both active and
retired.  That's a LOT of games.  Those games, taken in their own
context of season and era, take on a certain meaning about just who
those teams were: the personality, skill, consistency and, most of all,
the statistics play a large part in detailing the history of the game.
Those games should be available for analysis and enjoyment.

By designing and producing a database capable of reading in thousands of
games for study and statistical analysis, we are able to settle (if not
inflame) arguements and debates about the best and worst teams in
history.


3.  To win some money.

While that statement might seem simplistic, there is more to it than
just surface shallowness.  With a database capable of in-depth numeric
and statistical analysis, and with numerous seasons and games at your
disposal, the user has an infinite number of possible comparisons to
make.  The database contains two different numeric systems to compare
and predict the outcome of games.  Tragically, we are not even CLOSE to
getting it right 100% of the time, much to the relief of bookies and
gambling establishments everywhere.
But here's something to think about:

If you are a gambler, you are aware that to come out ahead in any series
of bets, you must win approximately 53 percent of the time.
(It's not 50.1% because of the vig, and if you don't know what
'vig' is, then you better stay out of Las Vegas, because the vig can
kill you.)

At any rate, the 7 Test Method that you would have at your disposal was
correct (not counting tie games) around 75% of the time during the latter
half of the 1995-96 season.  That's not bad.

A paragraph to our Canadian readers:

Yes, I KNOW that to win at Pro-Line, you have to be correct on all of
your picks, 3 through to 6.  But hey, nobody says you have to pick 6,
right? If you don't try for the big score, and keep your picks to 3 or 4
per ticket and bet SMART, you can use this program to win.

Back to the general public...

Anyway, if you are right 75% of the time, you are going to come out
ahead.

Now, before anyone says, "But you have to take or give goals when you
bet!", we have a response to that.

If you actually use the Prediction Method, you will see that the Picks
are 'scored' at a certain level.  For example, if you see:

  04/03/1997   CAL(-1) against PHA(3)   H (PHA)    75%

what that means is that in the 7 Test Method, Calgary scored -1, and
Philadelphia scored 3.  Therefore, the last bracket shows that we would
choose the (H)ome team, and the 75% shows that you can be
reasonably confident.  You would consider, if you had faith in the
system, giving away 1 to 1.5 goals in order to choose Philadelphia.
However, if you
see:

  04/03/1997    STL(4) against CHI(3)    V (STL)  56%

you would choose St. Louis to win, but you wouldn't give away more than
1/2 a goal, because the 7 Test Method scored both teams close together.
If you happen to find someone that would GIVE you a goal to take St.
Louis,  you'd want to take that bet.

A word to the wise:

I would try to stay away from games like:

   12/26/1996    TOR(-5) against OTT(-5) H (OTT) 55%

A game like that is a toss-up, because both teams stink.  There is a
long, drawn-out process that measures 8 different stats to choose a team
when the scores are tied, but I would NOT want my ticket wrecked over a
game like this.

That is what I mean by making some dough.  Even if nobody tries
the formulae out, the 7 Test Method will work for us.  I feel
that the database in itself is a valuable tool for the hockey
fan.  For just a couple of minutes of work (or less, if you
register and get the up-to-date numbers emailed weekly to you),
you have a huge amount of information at your disposal.

Enhancements to the database will allow:

Player Statistics in the Game Entry Screen - for each goal, enter the
           scorer's name, the players who register the assists, the type
           of goal (power play, penalty shot, etc.), empty-net goals and
           time of the goal.

Hockey Pool Interface - you put in the team owner and his players, you
weight the statistics that YOU want to put into play, and let the
database do the math for you.

Player Histories - enter the name, call up his statistics, teams he
played,  bio information, etc.

Team Histories - look at the stats for any team, both past and present,
and relive the history of the game.

As you can see, the database you have now is just a stepping stone to a
much larger, advanced database system.  You would no longer have to rely
on books, magazines, newspapers, or any other time-stamped material for
constant updating.  Why wait for the newpaper to publish the player
statistics, when you would have all the necessary information right in
front of you?

Running The Program
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Easy.  Just do the following:

1.  Make a directory on your hard drive called HOCKEY.

2.  Copy all of the necessary files into that directory.  Those files
    are:

    HOCKEY.EXE
    SCHEDULE.HKY
    README.TXT    -   Actually, that file just contains this information.

3.  In Windows 3.1, you must set up the icon as such:

    i)  Make a group called HOCKEY or use an existing group.
        Do this by clicking on FILE, then NEW, then PROGRAM GROUP,
        then OK when in the Program Manager.  The Group Name can
        be HOCKEY, there is NO Group File.

   ii)  Double click the HOCKEY group, or the group that you're using.

  iii)  Click on FILE, then NEW, then PROGRAM ITEM, then OK.

   iv)  The Program Description is HOCKEY DATABASE
        The Command Line is HOCKEY.EXE
        The Working Directory is C:\HOCKEY

        Note:  If you are NOT copying the files to C:, type the drive
               that you are using in place of C: in the Working
               Directory.

    v)  Click on OK.   The icon should now appear.

   vi)  Double click this icon.  You are IN.

4.  In Windows 95, do this:

    i)  Click the right mouse button from the Desktop Screen (Start
        Screen).

   ii)  Click the left mouse button on NEW

  iii)  Click the left mouse button on SHORTCUT

   iv)  The Command Line for the Shortcut is:  C:\HOCKEY\HOCKEY.EXE

        Note:  if you did NOT copy the files to C:, type the drive you
               are using for the HOCKEY files.

    v)  The Name for the Shortcut is HOCKEY DATABASE

   vi)  The icon should now be on your screen.


When in the program, you need to know the following:

1.  To enter a game boxscore, double click on that game in the
    Schedule window.

2.  You may change the widths of the columns in the Standings window
    by clicking and holding the mouse on any column line and moving
    the mouse to the width of the column that you want, then releasing
    the mouse.

3.  The prediction formulae are NOT available until the necessary payment
    has been received by Crystal Software, at which time the requisite
    key will be made available to you.

4.  Certain options in the Help menu tree are not available at this time.

If you have questions or problems, please let us know.


Personal Information
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Designer And Formula Guy:   Patrick Houle

Programmer And Co-Designer:   Chris Bruner

Strictly speaking, the first real reason that this database was created
was to make some cash, and I got tired of having to add up the columns
in the newspaper.  Unfortunately for Chris, he thought he could help me
with what was initially a small project.  The more we worked, the
more we decided that if this was something I could use, it was
something others could use.  The formulae were just something that
I was playing with to see just how accurate I could be.  Newspaper guys
are always predicting the results, and I figure that if I could read a
newspaper, that made me qualified to predict games, too.  The database
just sprung from that -

if you were going to do some predicting based on numbers, you might as
well have the numbers in a format you can use.

Anyway, in Winter 1995, I got serious with the formulae, but I didn't
spend ONE CENT on bets from the predictions. (We actually know one guy
that DID ask me what the predictions were, and I do know that he didn't
come out ahead, but hey, I did warn him!)  In Summer 1996 we got serious
with the layout and preparing the schedule in a format that was easy to
work with. Our thanks to U.S.A. Today for their schedule....it was the
first one we came across that did NOT have Philadelphia playing two
games on October 6.  Phoenix was actually playing one of the games, but
NOBODY caught it.  (I called two different newspapers about this mistake,
and both blamed the CP wire for the error, but when they reprinted the
schedule later in September, the mistake was STILL there.  See why I
have a certain contempt for certain Sports Departments?)

Nonetheless, what you see when you run the program is the result of over
one year's analyis and 6 months of planning, programming, debugging,
hostility (both Chris and I are married...), understanding (see
'Hostility'...), patience, re-programming, more debugging, and
the odd "Will you get off the ()*@^#$* computer and come here!"
Hopefully, we got it right the first time.

Anyway, give this a try.  I hope you like it.  Please remember to send
us an email telling us what you like, don't like, tips, suggestions,
and general comments.


REGISTRATION COSTS


In order to register the program in order to get the weekly update of
hockey stats for this season you need to send $9.95 (think of a
newspaper subscription).
In order to register the program to use the predictions
you need to send $20 for each prediction type (that's $40 in total)

Weekly update           $ 9.95
Prediction Key1         $20.00
Prediction Key2         $20.00
Shipping                $10.00 North America, $20.00 beyond

If you order both the prediction keys ($40.00), you will be given the
weekly update for free.


Please enclose your email address so that we can update you with the
weekly stats.

Crystal Software (Canada) Inc.
Re: Hockey Stats
157 Sunpoint Crescent
WATERLOO, Ontario, Canada
N2V 1T9


The only way we can make it better is for hockey fans and computer users
to tell us how to improve.  If you think you've got a formula that works,
we'd love to see it and give it a try, and I think that others would too.

Good luck to your team, and we'll talk to you again soon.

Patrick Houle,
Chris Bruner,
1 December 1996