Dataset: Canadian Hockey Player Birth Months

About this Dataset

Canadian Hockey Player Birth Months

The dataset this week comes from Statistics Canada, the NHL team list endpoint, and the NHL API. The dataset was inspired by the blog Are Birth Dates Still Destiny for Canadian NHL Players? by JLaw (via https://universeodon.com/@jlaw/111522860812359901)!

In the first chapter Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers he discusses how in Canadian Junior Hockey there is a higher likelihood for players to be born in the first quarter of the year.

Because these kids are older within their year they make all the important teams at a young age which gets them better resources for skill development and so on.

While it seems clear that more players are born in the first few months of the year, what isn’t explored is whether or not this would be expected. Maybe more people in Canada in general are born earlier in the year.

I will explore whether Gladwell’s result is expected as well as whether this is still true in today’s NHL for Canadian-born players.

Tables

Canada Births 1991–2022

@kaggle.joebeachcapital_canadian_hockey_player_birth_months.canada_births_1991_2022

4.94 KB
384 rows
3 columns


CREATE TABLE canada_births_1991_2022 (
  "year" BIGINT,
  "month" BIGINT,
  "births" BIGINT
);

Nhl Player Births

@kaggle.joebeachcapital_canadian_hockey_player_birth_months.nhl_player_births

259.41 KB
8474 rows
9 columns


CREATE TABLE nhl_player_births (
  "player_id" BIGINT,
  "first_name" VARCHAR,
  "last_name" VARCHAR,
  "birth_date" TIMESTAMP,
  "birth_city" VARCHAR,
  "birth_country" VARCHAR,
  "birth_state_province" VARCHAR,
  "birth_year" BIGINT,
  "birth_month" BIGINT
);

Nhl Rosters

@kaggle.joebeachcapital_canadian_hockey_player_birth_months.nhl_rosters

1.3 MB
54883 rows
18 columns


CREATE TABLE nhl_rosters (
  "team_code" VARCHAR,
  "season" BIGINT,
  "position_type" VARCHAR,
  "player_id" BIGINT,
  "headshot" VARCHAR,
  "first_name" VARCHAR,
  "last_name" VARCHAR,
  "sweater_number" DOUBLE,
  "position_code" VARCHAR,
  "shoots_catches" VARCHAR,
  "height_in_inches" DOUBLE,
  "weight_in_pounds" DOUBLE,
  "height_in_centimeters" DOUBLE,
  "weight_in_kilograms" DOUBLE,
  "birth_date" TIMESTAMP,
  "birth_city" VARCHAR,
  "birth_country" VARCHAR,
  "birth_state_province" VARCHAR
);

Nhl Teams

@kaggle.joebeachcapital_canadian_hockey_player_birth_months.nhl_teams

3.41 KB
59 rows
2 columns


CREATE TABLE nhl_teams (
  "team_code" VARCHAR,
  "full_name" VARCHAR
);