Posts tagged Hockey
Alison Lukan - On-Air Analyst & Writer, Seattle Kraken

Alison Lukan is an On-Air Analyst & Writer for the Seattle Kraken. In her role, she provides analysis for the Seattle Kraken’s local broadcasts on Root Sports Northwest, with her team winning a Regional Sports Emmy for their coverage this season. She holds a degree in Leadership Studies from the University of Richmond and has previously worked as a consultant in Washington D.C. and has a background in journalism, where she is one of the faces of the hockey analytics revolution. She has also written for The Athletic. In this conversation, Alison talks about…

  • Her academic and career path to get to where she is now.

  • How she caught the hockey bug and why she dove into hockey analytics.

  • What data is available at the NHL level, and her access to hockey data.

  • Her preparation and in-game process as an On-Air Analyst.

  • The challenges of communicating data on TV and the key to doing it clearly.

  • How her corporate background informs what she does now.

  • What an NHL team’s analytics staff looks like.

  • Where to get started if someone is looking to get into hockey analytics.

  • Her time as Spidey, the University of Richmond’s mascot.

Then, TruMedia’s Sergio De La Espriella joins the show to discuss Paul’s conversation with Alison.

Show Links

  • Follow Alison on Twitter: @AlisonL

  • To read Darren Brown’s piece on Alison’s first season with the Kraken, click here.

  • To read Alison’s piece in The Athletic’s piece on her time as Spidey, click here.

  • To read Alison’s piece on NHL players’ relationship with their sticks, click here.

  • To read Alison’s piece in The Athletic on the “Hockey Analytics Conference” (HAC), click here.

  • To read Bill West’s piece on Alison and hockey analytics, click here.

  • Follow @TruMediaSports on Twitter.

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts: Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, TuneIn.

Read More
Namita Nandakumar - Senior Quantitative Analyst, Seattle Kraken

Namita Nandakumar is a senior quantitative analyst for the expansion Seattle Kraken, which begin NHL play in the 2021-22 season. Namita came to Seattle from the Philadelphia Eagles, and she’ll talk about…

- The excitement around the Seattle Kraken franchise
- Building a hockey team and an analytics team from scratch
- The state of hockey data in the NHL and beyond
- What she’s looking forward to about player tracking data
- Differences in working in football and hockey analytics
- Differences between doing public analytics and working for a team
- Her public work on drafting perfectly in the NHL and the effect of player size
- Her pitch for using the programming language R
- Advice for aspiring sports analysts
- Getting more women and underrepresented communities into sports analytics

Show Links
- Follow Namita on Twitter: @nnstats
- Profile on NHL.com
- Namita on Hockey Graphs and The Athletic
- Namita’s Twitter thread for people with sports analytics aspirations
- Hockey analytics starter kit
- What Does It Mean to Draft Perfectly: NESSIS poster and slide presentation
- Hockey Graphs mentorship program
- Measurables Office Hours program, Twitter, podcast
- Follow @TruMediaSports on Twitter

Read More
Asmae Toumi - Hockey-Graphs Editor-in-chief

Asmae Toumi is the editor-in-chief of Hockey-Graphs, a site that analyzes and visualizes the NHL, and she’s a prominent member of the online hockey analytics community. Among the topics discussed:

- How to get started in the field
- Challenges of hockey analytics
- What puck- and player-tracking data might do for the sport
- Hockey-Graphs’ mentorship program
- Her love of both R and Brad Marchand

Links Mentioned in This Episode
- Follow Asmae on Twitter
- Hockey-Graphs
- Meta Hockey
- NBA Stuffer
- Evolving H ockey
- HockeyViz
- Charting Hockey

Read More