Malcolm Gladwell and hockey's Outliers

by James Mirtle on Dec 10, 2008 6:00 AM CST Comment 13 comments

Back in May, Malcolm Gladwell sent me an email and said he needed a writer to attend the Memorial Cup in Vancouver. It was one or two days work, a bit of research and note taking at what would be some of the biggest junior hockey games of the year.

I rejigged my work schedule and hopped on a plane on a Saturday morning, heading home a few hours after the final on Sunday afternoon.

Gladwell's new book, Outliers: The Story of Success, was released a few weeks ago and is now a bestseller. And it is, in part, about hockey.

ESPN's Page 2 had a good interview with Gladwell about some of the sports-related items in the book and it covers a lot of the bases. One of the things he looks at early on in Outliers is birth dates in relation to hockey players, and how being born earlier in the year is a huge advantage.

Using ESPN's data of NHL players born between 1980 and 1990 sorted by birth month, here's the resulting graph:

Outliers_medium

Even in the incredibly small sample size of a 10-year stretch of NHLers, the trend holds.

I debated whether or not I should even write about Outliers given my involvement, but I've had a lot of requests to address the trend above and Gladwell never requested that I not talk about it. What I will say is that my work was a very, very, very small part of what he's put together, and I'm positively flattered that some of the material made it in.

I'm still working my way through the book, but so far it's a compelling read. I know there's been some negative feedback with regards to the premise, although that comes with the territory given the size of the audience we're talking about here. The New York Times' review is a good one.

As it pertains to hockey, Gladwell's absolutely right, and I think his ideas would actually help players born later in the year succeed in this country.

When I was in j-school, one of the things we always had as homework assignments were examples of great articles to read, and that's really where I first really dug into Gladwell's work from the Washington Post and The New Yorker.

In the journalism world, he is an outlier. And hopefully he continues to tackle hockey subjects down the line.

UPDATE Gabe Desjardins has more on the birthdate trend.

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Comments

February takes a dip – is it because Pisces aren’t any good at hockey? Or their lack of commitment?

Don't be afraid to take a few steps back, but you better keep moving forward.

by wlittle on Dec 10, 2008 7:25 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

Nah

I think it’s those three missing days. Februarians get screwed by losing 10% of the month.

by nathaneide on Dec 10, 2008 8:31 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

I was joking, but I never thought of that. And there’s still more Februarians than July on… wow.

Don't be afraid to take a few steps back, but you better keep moving forward.

by wlittle on Dec 10, 2008 8:51 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

James, as Malcolm points out in his ESPN Q&A, there could be a lot of players helped by having a parallel league with a second registration period in the summer. Is this feasible and is there enough room for twice the amount of kids given a shot to become elite? Or, is there a “scarcity of resources” in the Canadian hockey establishment meaning there is only so much ice time and slots on feeder teams (feeding the major junior league) and there is no realistic way to counteract the birthdates?

The population of Pominville keeps rising!

by Blackcapricorn on Dec 10, 2008 9:05 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

There was an article a while back (link here) on Slate.com that talked about this a bit. Things like relative age and how different deadlines helps or hinders development of athletes. I know we talked about it a bit on HF’s staff board and how it worked with minor hockey cutoffs and birthdates. You see it quite a bit in junior hockey with where a birth date falls compared to the draft date and also how that works with the eligibilty date for CHL (like when a player is considered a over-ager etc.) Actually, I had a conversation with a scout about this during the last Q game I was at. The player we were discussing is a rookie this season, but isn’t eligible to be drafted until 2011. We were debating whether this helped or hindered the player and if the increased exposure of an extra year in the CHL would counteract the fact that he would naturally be better than most of his age group and it would be a bit harder to accurately judge his talent.

-Kevin Forbes
Hockey's Future

by kforbes on Dec 10, 2008 9:09 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

As the proud father of a daughter who was born on Gladwell’s optimal hockey player date (Jan. 2), I’ve already spent her first signing bonus.

Gladwell better be right!

Down Goes Brown - Unapologetically nostalgic for the past. Brutally realistic about the present. Grudgingly optimistic about the future.

by Down Goes Brown on Dec 10, 2008 9:40 AM CST reply actions 1 recs

Soccer, too

Interesting stuff. Researchers picked up on a similar trend in soccer, too — it got some coverage back around the World Cup 2006.

From that story:

Since youth sports are organized by age bracket, teams inevitably have a cutoff birth date. In the European youth soccer leagues, it’s Dec. 31.

So when a coach is assessing two players in the same age bracket, one who happened to have been born in January and the other in December, the player born in January is likely to be bigger, stronger, more mature. Guess which player the coach is more likely to pick?

Lighthouse Hockey: a New York Islanders blog with hip issues.

by Dominik on Dec 10, 2008 9:40 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

Does he mention that Ken Dryden brought this all up in Home Game back in 1989?

by Julian TSA on Dec 10, 2008 9:59 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

Points/Game

I did a quick regression with both:
- number of players vs. birth month (r2 = 82%, r=0.91)
- points per game vs. birth month. (r2 = 53%, r=0.73)
n = 1210

The younger group (Jul – Dec) scored on average 0.43 points per game, where the older group (Jan – Jun) scored 0.36 points per game (significant difference)

by hockeynumbers on Dec 10, 2008 10:05 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

What other variables did you include in the regression?

by David M. Getz on Dec 10, 2008 10:25 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

5 points over 82 games is significant?

by Afino on Dec 10, 2008 10:32 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

5 points over 82 games is very significant.

by Numbers Guy on Dec 10, 2008 10:50 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

not surprising. we know that if we have two identically-skilled players (at present), one born Jan 1, 1989 and the other born Jan 1, 1988, the Jan 1, 1989 player has a higher ceiling. So if two players are born six months apart, then younger player’s ceiling will also be higher.

by Hawerchuk on Dec 10, 2008 12:25 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs