If you are a frequent visitor to this website or listener of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast, by now you probably know that Sound Of Hockey has set up a Patreon. It’s our firm belief that the podcast and articles on this website should be free and available to the public. But this project of ours is not costless, and that’s where the Patreon comes in and helps us make it all work. 

In return for the Patreon community’s generous support, we periodically deliver extra content and benefits–including bi-monthly bonus podcasts, prospect videos, watch parties, meetups, ticket giveaways, and the like. I’m here today to publicize a new benefit that Sound Of Hockey Patreon community members will get access to this year: Data cards for all players in the Kraken organization–whether in the NHL, AHL, junior hockey, or elsewhere.

The long-term goal is to integrate these data features into the public website, but as we continue to build out the necessary infrastructure to do that, we wanted to get this information into the hands of hockey fans now and solicit feedback so that we can get you the best and most useful content. The Patreon is the best way to do that for now.

So, if you’re a Sound Of Hockey community member already, first, thank you! Second, look for the announcement post in the Patreon feed with next steps on how to get access to the Kraken Player Cards beta testing. (The cards have been stable and reliably updating overnight for the last couple weeks, but I’m certain there will be bugs and downtime to deal with along the way. I appreciate your patience on that!)

If you’re not part of the community yet, I don’t think there has ever been a better time to give it a try. Beyond getting access to the cards, a brand new bonus pod is scheduled for this week. Everything is happening. So, sign up here or use the link at the bottom of this post. Any new members at the $5.00 level will get access to the cards for the remainder of the season.

Genesis of the Kraken player cards

If you’ve followed my posts here, you know that one of my projects is tracking Kraken prospects as they navigate their way to professional hockey. Anyone who has tried to do the same knows the challenge involved. NHL prospects play in dozens of leagues around the world–many of which require specific streaming services to watch, if they are available to watch at all.

In an effort to bridge the gap for fans, I have made prospect videos–almost all of which you can find on the Deep Sea Hockey YouTube page. This year I’ve also started delivering weekly Down on the Farm reports with the goal of getting fans a little closer to the players below the NHL level. 

Even so, there is far more that can be done. My goal is to build a Kraken organization data hub that keeps fans updated on a day-to-day basis. The data cards are an offshoot of my ongoing efforts to build that resource.

Kraken player cards explainer

The player cards are in Google Sheets. Unfortunately, there is no way for any one person’s scrolling to be viewable to that person only. Accordingly, I’ve made a number of duplicate sheets within the master file, accessible via the tabs at the bottom of the page (see below). Some have all Kraken players, some have only the NHL players, and some have only non-NHL players. They are labelled accordingly. If another viewer is editing the sheet you are looking at, pick a different tab at the bottom. This courtesy will avoid disrupting others’ viewing.

The cards themselves have five sections. Beyond that, each card has two additional resources at the bottom that I will also describe. Starting from the top, the cards begin with basic biographical information for each player. Most important here is that you can navigate from player to player via the dropdown menu accessed by clicking the downward carrot in the top-right corner (as indicated by the red circle below).

The information provided here is, I believe, self-explanatory but the cards have a full glossary if any clarification is needed.

Next up is a basic statistics section that has information for skaters and goalies no matter what level of hockey they are at. One exception is that TOI (“time on ice”) data is available for skaters at the NHL level only. A skater’s card (this one is Adam Larsson) looks like this:

If the player is currently playing at the NHL level, this field will show the player’s “NHL total” stats. For example, Daniel Sprong’s card includes his stats from Vancouver.

If the player is not currently in the NHL, it will show the player’s “total” season statistics below the NHL level, even if those statistics were accrued for multiple teams or across multiple leagues. (International or other exhibition play is not included though.) A minor league goalie’s card (this one is Kim Saarinen) looks like this:

After that comes a section with detailed on-ice and advanced statistics for NHL level players only. These stats are mostly from Natural Stat Trick. The skater card (again, Larsson) looks like this:

The goalie card (Daccord) looks like this:

Since these are less commonly used terms, here are the glossary descriptions:

The fourth section of the player cards provides summary contract information. Here is Berkly Catton’s card, for example:

Here, again, the glossary provides definitions and explanatory examples. Finally, the last section provides additional information on career NHL statistics, recent season data, and draft history, and also provides links to underlying data sources. This is Adam Larsson’s card:

Below each card is a space for links to “All Shifts” videos for the player (if I have made any). These videos contain all of a player’s on-ice time from a specific game. I believe these fulsome viewings are more valuable than highlight reals, which tend to accentuate a player’s scoring or strengths at the expense of everything else. Here is what this part of Berkly Catton’s card looks like:

The images are links to the videos, which can be previewed within Google Sheets or watched on YouTube. The vast majority of these videos are available to Patreon community members and non-members alike at the Deep Sea Hockey YouTube channel. Community members get early access to some videos though, as a benefit.

Finally, the page ends with summary tables to compare the selected player against teammates and/or others in the organization. Here is what the NHL skaters table looks like on Adam Larsson’s card:

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Thanks to everyone who has looked at the cards so far and offered encouragement or given feedback. For those just getting acquainted, I’m looking forward to your feedback too (more information on that via the Patreon). Thanks for reading.