In my estimation the site is close to hitting full stride. It finally took another step this week as we unveiled the first ever D3hockey.com weekly rankings.

Prior to seeing yesterday’s results, I have to admit I may have been a bit nervous. I was quite confident that are voting panels are comprised of very high quality voters, but until seeing the results for the first time one cannot be absolutely sure of that assessment.

In this case, I think our polls came as close to nailing it as possible on both the men’s and women’s sides, and for that I’m thankful and grateful and believe they will be a great asset as we move along with things.

Also, as some may have noticed, Dr. Steve Wiitala posted an introductory to his computer rankings tonight. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can here.

Though the explanation of the methodology may seem a bit complex at first, Steve’s results should be quite interesting as the season wears on and I think they’ll be a great inclusion for two reasons:

1. The are unique in that they rank every team in the nation as opposed to just the top ten or 15.

2. Steve volunteered his West Region rankings to D3westhockey last year and I have to admit that after seeing every team in the region play at least once and most multiple times, I found his rankings to be incredibly accurate when it came to matching the overall quality of teams.

Of course, no one knows if that will be the case every season or on a national scale, which is exactly why they should be a quality inclusion to the site and an interesting compliment to the human polls.

I should probably concede at this point that, despite being accused of being a “numbers guy” in the past by some of my friends around Division III, I’m not an inherently big fan of rankings and polls and am probably usually stubborn enough that I would rather trust what I’ve seen with my own two eyes.

But therein lies the problem here: None of us can see it all. Not coaches, not players, not fans…no one.

As is the case every year, everything will be answered for good when a couple of national champions are crowned in March, but in the meantime I think that any tool that might give us any inkling as to how teams actually square up at the national level is a good one.

~mw

Matthew Webb · Poll · rankings · steve wiitala

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