Julia Duncan, Author at Atlantic Girls Hockey Federation

Our Atlantic Girls Selects team were unstoppable at the PeeWee Quebec International Hockey Tournament. They took on teams from all over the world and made it the first ever Girls Division PeeWee Quebec Finals after beating the Mauricie Stars 4-3 in the Semi Finals. The team fell short in the Championship game against Durham West Lightning but still brought home a 2nd place trophy for the AGHF.

Alongside their wins, players were exposed to the rich history and traditions of the game and had the opportunity to be fully immersed in French-Canadian culture and customs. The girls attended a Remparts game, went to the aquarium, attended the Quebec Carnaval, skated on a frozen pond, traded pins, and more.

We couldn’t be more proud of our team for all their accomplishments throughout the week! We thank the coaches, parents, and manager for making this week possible.

hat is it? – KRACH is short for “Ken’s Rating for American College Hockey.” Ken is Ken Butler, a statistician, and the mathematical model he used is known as the Bradley-Terry Rating System.

The KRACH rating system is an attempt to combine the performance of each team with the strength of the opposition against which that performance was achieved, and to summarize the result as one number, a “rating”, for each team. The higher the rating, the better the team.
KRACH accounts for strength-of-schedule (SOS) as it ranks the teams.
KRACH is calculated purely from the results(win/loss/tie) and does not use goals scored or goal differential like myhockeyrankings.
Overtime wins count as wins.

Why we use it rather than points? – KRACH ratings are used instead of traditional points for the following reason:

Teams play an unbalanced schedule, teams will not play all the teams in teams’ age division
- Teams that play a more difficult schedule would be unfairly punished in the traditional points-based standings
- KRACH does not put greater emphasis on blowing out teams like myhockeyrankings
The THF offers 2 season structures, full-season and partial season. Using KRACH rather than points earned will allow for fair rankings such that teams playing fewer games are fairly measured within their division

What is the process for the Federations – The KRACH algorithm is written in python and consists of a data organization routine and an iterative strength of schedule solver.

The algorithm takes the Team win loss data from an excel file output by the GameSheet online scoring platform used to store game data.
This data is then organized by division using tags provided by GameSheet.
This divisional data is then organized into pairwise comparisons based on wins and losses to feed into the solver.
The pairwise team input can be visualized as a matrix with each time represented as a row and wins against other teams in the columns.

	Team A	Team B	Team C	Team D
Team A	–	2	0	1
Team B	3	–	5	0
Team C	0	3	–	1
Team D	4	0	3	–

The solver utilizes a Bradley-Terry model to solve for rankings (P) using the paired comparisons. Pairwise means that given a pair of teams i and j drawn from a population P the algorithm estimates the probability that team i will win over team j:

To get to this probability an iterative algorithm with “regularization scheme” and pairwise team win records are used. Per the CHN a logistic regression is used as the solver of the iterative algorithm. The regularization scheme used is an ‘alpha value,’ a regularization scheme so that the solver does not go to infinity when teams have zero wins. The alpha value is 0.85 for every team input as a win against a ‘Dummy Team’. This is because you cannot have zero as the numerator.

The solver then initiates a ranking of 1 for every team, then solves the following equation for each team. The ellipses (…) at the end of the equation represents the sub formula for Team A (Tm A) against Teams C and D.

P Tm A = Total Wins Tm A / ( Sum ( (Losses Tm A vs. Tm B) / (P Tm A + P Tm B), …)

The new P values for each team are calculated using the existing P values as shown above for Team A. These values replace the 1s used to initiate the algorithm. The same calculations are conducted on the new P values for the next iteration of the algorithm. This is repeated 200 times or until the difference of P values between iterations is less than 0.00001. The output (P) is then scaled by 10,000 to make the results all over 1. The iterative nature of the algorithm allows for the strength of schedule to be taken into account automatically without any initial rankings. Thus, no initial rankings are made by hand and no favoritism is possible. Strength of schedule is included in the calculated P value by including the P values of all teams played while calculating each team.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley%E2%80%93Terry_model

https://www.collegehockeynews.com/info/?d=krach

https://github.com/bjlkeng/Bradley-Terry-Model/blob/master/update_model.py

The THF, AHF, and AGHF each strive to provide the best youth hockey experience in the country. In response to an inquiry from an AHF family, on Friday February 3rd senior management responsible for scheduling began reviewing the data feed from GameSheet to the KRACH program and continued investigating this throughout the weekend. By Sunday February 5th, they discovered that the score report used to calculate the weekly rankings had a faulty data feed. Rather than recording the win/loss result from shootouts, KRACH recorded a tie for both the winning and losing team. Therefore, the KRACH ratings and rankings that were posted throughout the season were wrong, particularly impacting teams that had a relatively high percentage of shootouts. Black Bear Sports Group, which controls the Federations, apologies for not identifying this flaw earlier in the season and recognizes the disappointment faced by those players, families and coaches who were most impacted by learning so late that their relative ranking was not reliable, especially as relates to playoff placement.

On Tuesday February 7th, we communicated this issue with the boards of the three Federations and had calls with the Hockey Directors of the participating clubs. We chose to make the necessary adjustment to the calculation and then published the correct KRACH ratings the next day on Wednesday February 8th. Please be assured that the rankings are now accurate, and the correct teams are in the right playoff brackets. Yesterday morning, we explored with various Hockey Directors the idea of making changes to the Championship brackets, including expanding the size and/or changing the format. The consensus was that this would create significant logistical challenges for a greater number of families given the ripple effects of changing bracket sizes and playoff locations.

We have followed closely the feedback on social media, in particular the AHF discussion group on Facebook. Below are a few points to highlight:

Again, we wish we had learned of this glitch in the data feed earlier and are sorry for the
confusion it caused. Moreover, we should have sent to the families this notification clarifying
what happened when the new rankings were published on Wednesday.
We want to be responsive to our families and players. Based upon your recent feedback
relating to this issue, we plan to revisit the championship bracket size and format going
forward.
We will revisit the treatment of tie games, including specifically the appropriateness of
shootouts.
We believe the presence of partial season teams in our leagues makes us stronger, allowing
for better competition and higher MyHockeyRankings for our teams. This is especially
important for our AAA and AA teams.
Many questions have been raised about the reliability of KRACH. We want to reassure you
that the formula, which was created by a third-party Python programmer is accurate. We will
be publishing the KRACH formula later this week. Again, the error was in the data feed from
GameSheet and not in the formula itself.
We offered to the Hockey Directors our willingness to get on a call with any team that has
been impacted or with anyone who has any further questions.

The mission of the Federations was to create an unbalanced schedule that maximizes competition for those interested in the highest levels of hockey and minimizes travel for those looking for a balance of competition and travel. We believe the short season teams help us form the best hockey leagues in America. The unbalanced schedule along with our spring parity event minimize blowout games. Our results speak for themselves as our blowout games are a fraction of those experienced in other local leagues. We hope this provides context to help you understand that the ranking issue was simply a data feed error, not a flaw in our league operating model.

We truly appreciate the passion of our families and coaches. You commit so much to this great sport, and it is our duty to listen to your concerns. Your feedback makes us better and we are truly grateful for your support.

For the week ending on February 5th, the Atlantic Girls Hockey Federation rankings are in. KRACH is a team’s win/loss ratio multiplied by strength of schedule. You can view all rankings here.

The teams that are in first in each division are Saugerties Fillies (10U), Princeton Tiger Lilies Black (12U), Princeton Tiger Lilies Black (14U Diamond), Philadelphia Jr Flyers Sakers (14U Platinum), NJ Bandits (16U Diamond), York Lady Devils (16U Platinum) and York Lady Devils (19U).

The final rankings are determined when the last game of the regular season is played.

Atlantic Girls Hockey Federation is pleased to announce Academic Honor Roll, with a total of 247 AGHF athletes being recognized. To earn a spot on the AGHF Honor Roll, the student-athlete must have a 3.5 GPA or higher. Congratulations to all our scholar-athletes for this academic achievement! It is a reflection to their commitment in both the classroom and our league.

Click here to view the complete list of honorees

The AGHF Quebec team (Atlantic Girls Selects) takes flight next week for the 2023 International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament.

Puck drops on Friday, February 10th for an exhibition game against Team Fury. The team takes on Quebec A’s Sunday at the well-known Videotron Centre, the 18,259 seat home of the Quebec Remparts.

Along with exhibition and tournament games, the team has events planned to experience the culture of Quebec. A carnival, pond hockey, Ice Castle, a Remparts game, and the infamous exchanging the pins are just a few activities the team will participate in during their week.

To see the full schedule for the tournament, click here. Follow along on social media as we post matchups, scores, and photos throughout the week.

For the week ending on January 29th, the Atlantic Girls Hockey Federation rankings are in. KRACH is a team’s win/loss ratio multiplied by strength of schedule. You can view all rankings here.

The final rankings are determined when the last game of the regular season is played.

The AGHF announces the Players of the Week for the past two weeks (1/20-1/29). The Players of the Week is a weekly feature during the 2022-23 season that honors players in all divisions. Only players that are nominated by their respective teams are considered.

Age Level / Division: 10U
Team: Princeton Tiger Lilies
Player: Hannah Babapulle (F) – Games: 2, Goals: 1, Assists: 0
“Hannah is developing good situational awareness. She blocked several shots which led to strong offensive plays. She is becoming more confident with the puck and able to execute smart plays. She finds herself in the right spot which allows her to get good scoring opportunities,” said Coach Julie David.

–

Age Level / Division: 12U
Team: WBS Lady Knights
Player: Marion Koester (G) – Games: 2, Goals Against: 0, Saves: 0
“Marion Played phenomenal in Net this past weekend helping her teams win 2 big games. Marion did not allow a goal in the 1.5 games she played! She continues to be a leader on and off the ice to her teammates!” said Coach Andy McDonald.

–

Age Level / Division: 14U Diamond
Team: South Pittsburgh Rebellion
Player: Leah Eichhorn (F) – Games: 2, Goals: 3, Assists: 0
“Leah had both goals against St James on Saturday, and chipped in a third on Sunday as South Pittsburgh won both of their weekend games,” said Coach Hammel.

–

Age Level / Division: 16U Diamond
Team: Princeton Tiger Lilies
Player: Kalena Gruby (F) – Games: 2, Goals: 1, Assists: 0
“Kalena Gruby was a presence on both sides of the ice using her skating ability to create havoc both offensively and defensively. She adopted a fire and forget attitude this weekend as she led her team in shots on goal,” said Coach John.

–

Age Level / Division: 19U
Team: Princeton Tiger Lilies
Player: Clare Schaffer (F) – Games: 2, Goals: 0, Assists: 2
“Sparked a lot of offense,” said Coach Stephen Lorincz, III.

–

HONORABLE MENTIONS

10U
Addison Ellis (D) Princeton Tiger Lilies

12U
Neve Kothare (F) Princeton Tiger Lilies
Keira Sturchio (F) NJ Bandits
Alexis Moslin (F) Princeton Tiger Lilies
Juliet Faughn (D) Princeton Tiger Lilies

14U
Emma Scrudato (F) Princeton Tiger Lilies
Tasneem Abbassi (G) NJ Bandits
Mariana Lee (D) Princeton Tiger Lilies
Josephine Basora (F) Princeton Tiger Lilies
Samantha Dandy (D) Princeton Tiger Lilies

16U
Abigael Gallagher (D) Princeton Tiger Lilies
Ema Niculescu-Mizil (D) Princeton Tiger Lilies
Isabel Bright (F) Princeton Tiger Lilies

19U
Lucy Fassler (G) Princeton Tiger Lilies

For the week ending on January 22nd, the Atlantic Girls Hockey Federation rankings are in. KRACH is a team’s win/loss ratio multiplied by strength of schedule. You can view all rankings here.

The final rankings are determined when the last game of the regular season is played.

Gabby Moss of the Atlantic Girls Hockey Federation has committed to Liberty University for the 2023-2024 season. The D2 Flames are a member of the American Collegiate Hockey Association and are located in Lynchburg, Virginia.

This forward from Temple, NW has been playing the sport for around 9 years. Moss started playing with the New Mexico Mustangs before relocating to Pennsylvania and playing with the Phi l adelphia Jr. Flyers. Gabby will be pursuing a degree in nursing alongside playing hockey.

Last season, Moss scored one goal and had one assist for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. With the Jr. Flyers this season, she has 11 points (8 goals, 3 assists) in 21 games played.

Click here to see all AGHF commits and/or submit your commitment to be recognized