from Matt Larkin of The Hockey News,

How many of us retired hockey players romanticize the idea that we could’ve made it in the pros with a bit more luck? If only that hardnosed bantam coach hadn’t overlooked us, ignored us because we were too small or because the coach wanted to play their own kid. If only we could’ve been seen for all the little things we did well on the ice.

What if, in the near future, nothing players did at the minor or senior hockey levels went unnoticed? What if coaches could track, in real time, how fast players were skating, how long they held the puck, how effective their zone entries were…in the middle of a game, right after their shifts? That idea doesn’t represent some far-off future in a world with flying cars. It’s the present. The advent of player tracking is already in the process of making instant analysis a reality at the NHL level, but it’s also about to start happening at much lower levels thanks to breakthroughs made by a company called Drive Hockey Analytics. Forget the classic trope of parents driving their kids home after games, doling out advice on how they needed to hustle more or finish their checks. Thanks to readily available information on a Drive Hockey app minutes after a game, Mom and Dad might be pointing how their kid’s peak skating speed dipped from last week or how their average shift length increased.

So how did Drive Hockey Analytics, a Vancouver-based company incorporated in 2018, make a foray into player-tracking technology?

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