ROCHESTER, N.Y. - The punchline arrived early.
A half hour into a day-long gathering of hockey geeks on the first Saturday of the NHL’s regular season, the room was chuckling at Minnesota Wild staffer Andrew Thomas.
“Never, ever use the term ‘R-squared’ with a coach,” Thomas had quipped.
It was 9:30 a.m., and the people Thomas was speaking to were probably half-asleep.
It didn’t matter, though, because the half-joke, half-directive resonated with the crowd of 150 statistically inclined hockey analytics conference goers.
Fans, bloggers, mainstream media, coaches, agents and analysts this weekend filled an auditorium on the Rochester Institute of Technology campus in Upstate New York.