from Elliotte Friedman of CBC,

A few years ago, I was talking to a young player who was really excited after a meeting with his coach. He'd been told he'd scored high on a stat the team kept: how often they retained possession whenever he was responsible for dumping in and chasing the puck.

So, I asked the coach about it. He paused, then smiled and said, "I have no idea what you're talking about." He just didn't want to say anything about this "private" statistic. The next day, the player said, "Please don't report that... I didn't realize I wasn't supposed to say anything."

So it was a secret -- until now.

I've always believed NHL teams keep much more detailed player evaluation tools than they let on. Last weekend, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted its seventh annual Sports Analytics Conference in Boston. Nicknamed "Dorkapalooza" by ESPN's Bill Simmons, it has evolved into one the most important non-game events on the sporting calendar.

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