The summer tradition of Da Beauty League attracts a fair number of players from across Minnesota and the NHL. But do Minnesota-born hockey players dominate in the tournament? A very analytical approach to get to the bottom of this question.
Back in 2015, a group of people got together to play some summer hockey and raise some money for charitable causes. John Scott, of infamy due to his inclusion in the NHL All-Star game when hockey fans used a fan vote to get a fourth line grinder into the talent showcase, is the commissioner/face of the tournament. It’s hosted at Braemar Arena in Edina, MN and has grown in popularity over the course of its existence (especially for those fans looking for a hockey fix in the dog days of summer).
Because of its regional location, Da Beauty League has often attracted a lot of Minnesota-born talent to participate, whether it be a current NHLer, a prospect in the NHL system, or a college player. As the State of Hockey, we set out to prove that Minnesota-born players dominated the scoreboard of this fun summer game. We pulled all of the skater statistics together from the 2023 tournament to determine if Minnesota outperforms other hockey players from the not-State of Hockey.
For science, of course.
PLAYER TYPE
First, we wanted to know what the breakdown of player types were participating in the tournament. These were divided into four categories: alumni (players that had played in the NHL previously and either currently are not playing or are not signed for the coming season yet); current NHLer (self explanatory); prospect (rookies and/or players drafted to teams that haven’t been in the NHL yet); and, other (college players, etc.)
Of the current NHLers that participated, 69 percent were Minnesota-born. That’s pretty dominant.
State of Hockey: 1
Everyone Else: 0
GOALS SCORED
There were a total of 403 goals scored in the tournament. This chart shows the expected goals scored broken out by Minnesota-born players and everyone else, based on the overall proportion of each population in the players participating.
Minnesota-born players outscored their expected goal by 31. That’s pretty dominant.
State of Hockey: 2
Everyone Else: 0
POINTS SCORED
There were a total of 949 points scored in the tournament. Once again, we’ve applied the proportion of each Minnesota-born players and everyone else to this total points to get the expected point scoring weighted by each population.
The gap here gets even bigger – Minnesota-born players out-scored their expected points total by 71. Even more dominant than the other stats presented.
State of Hockey: 3
Everyone Else: 0
CONCLUSION
The numbers show that the State of Hockey totally dominates Da Beauty League. Thanks for coming to our Ted Talk today.