Each year U18 players within British Columbia and Alberta compete within their respective leagues to earn an opportunity to play Junior hockey the following season. The question always comes to what matters? is it points? is it character? is it the role? Is it a combination? 

We wanted to find out, based on the real data, so with the support of a UBC Statistics Class, we did. 

The Data: 

• The top 100 players in the BC Major Midget League and CSSHL U18 league based on offensive production between 2016-2018 
• Players participating in the British Columbia Hockey League, Alberta Junior League, and Western Hockey League between 2017-2019 

The Results: 

• Using a linear probability model, we predict that an additional point per game increases the probability of advancement by 33.9%, while the number of games played and player position are insignificant in explaining advancement
• An average 14% of the players continued on to Junior A or Major Junior each year 
• Team season performance didn’t influence on whether a player advanced 

What does this mean? 

• Points definitely do matter but they only determine one third of the decision making process of advancement. Therefor additional qualities that influence success could be character, relationship, age, among others 
• Your advancement is not influenced by whether you perform well on an under performing team, or perform well on an over achieving team 
• To play junior the following year of playing midget, you should target 1.0+ point per game as well as be a good teammate on and off the ice 

To read the actual report, click here.