Home Ice Advantage: Fact or Fiction?
by
David S.
The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether or not the home team has an advantage over the visiting team when playing in its home arena. To carry out this experiment, statistics were collected for 23 NHL teams. The statistics for the 1996-97' season were organized according to home and away wins only. The data was recorded as a ratio of home games won over total home games played, this was also done for away games. This step was repeted for all teams in the sample.The ratios of home wins versus away wins for all the teams in the sample were analyzed.
After completing the experiment, it was found that the majority of the teams won more games at home than they did on the road. 19 out of 23 teams won more games at home than they did on the road. These results validade the hypothesis that home ice advantage does exist.