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06/01/2004: "Home Ice vs. Home Court"

Which is better for the sports fan? To have one's favorite NBA team playing at home, or to have one's favorite NHL team play at home?

NBA rules are neutral; they do not favor the home team. It is better to play at home, though. Fans can help cheer a team on. And, it was said that the Celtics played better at home because they knew their parquet floor. They knew where the dead spots were; thus they knew when an opposing players dribble wouldn't bounce so high, so they knew when to go for the steal. The Celtics had an unofficial -- and unethical -- home court advantage.

NHL rules are not neutral. They unabashedly favor the home team.

• NHL rules favor the home team on face offs. The opposing team must put their stick on the ice first.
  
• NHL rules favor the home team on matchups. When there is a break in the action, after the visiting team has put their skaters on the ice, the home team is allowed to change their players.
  

It hasn't worked out that way. Via www.NHL.com, I analyzed 44 NHL playoff series from the last three years. This includes:

• all fifteen matchups from 2002 and 2003, and
  
• fourteen matchups from 2004 (the finals are still in progress).
  

Via www.NBA.com, I also analyzed 43 seven game NBA playoff series from the last four years. This includes:

• fourteen games from this year (I assume Detroit beats Indiana in game six; it includes the previously completed thirteen series; it does not include Detroit's pending upset of the Lakers in the finals, Go Pistons!).
  
• all fifteen playoff series from 2003.
  
• all seven seven-game playoff series from each of 2002 and 2001 (I omit first round series, which were best of five).
  

I could just look at the overall record and stop there.

	Win	Loss	Pct
Hockey	144	117	55.17
Basketball	153	88	63.49

Hockey teams win at home 55.2% of the time. Basketball teams win at home 63.5% of the time. QED.

But I realized that these overall records do include sweeps. I wanted to measure the effect of home field advantage on more evenly matched teams, so I broke things down by length of series.

The complete results (perhaps including unintentional transcription errors) of my study upon which this table is based are in the extended text. The summary:

	Hockey						Basketball
Series Length	Home		Away		Percent		Percent		Home		Away
	W	L	W	L	Home	Away	Home	Away	W	L	W	L
4	6	0	6	0	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00	16	0	16	0
5	30	6	18	6	83.33	75.00	87.10	70.83	27	4	17	7
6	27	15	29	13	64.29	69.05	78.57	54.76	33	9	23	19
7	36	19	24	26	65.45	48.00	76.92	32.26	30	9	10	21
Total	99	40	77	45	71.22	63.11	82.81	58.41	106	22	66	47

• For example, in all the four game hockey series, the winning teams went 6-0 at home and 6-0 on the road. With a total record of 12-0, we can deduce that there were 3 such series. There were; Tampa Bay over Montreal in the second round this year, Anaheim over Detroit in the first round last year, and Anaheim over Minnesota in the third round last year. In those three series, the home team went 6-6.
  
• With similar logic, we can see that there were 8 NBA sweeps in the period studied. 3 this year, 2 last year, 1 in 2002, and 2 in 2001. This does not, of course, count any of the four sweeps of best-of-five-games series.
  
• In 5 game series, the NBA was better for the home team than the NHL. In a five game series, of course, the winner wins four and loses one. In the NHL, 50% of those loses were at road; no home ice advantage. In the NBA, 64% of those losses were on the road; yes home court advantage.
  
• What surprised me was the records for NHL series decided in 6 games. Overall, the home team went 40-44. Remember, NHL rules favor the home team.
  
• The one consistency is that home teams did better in the NBA than in the NHL. 4-2 NBA teams did better at home than 4-2 NHL teams. 2-4 NBA teams did better at home (winning 45% of the time) than 2-4 NHL teams (who won 31% of the time).
  

I'm not sure what to make of all this. NBA teams have fewer players than NHL teams; fewer players are on the roster, and fewer players play regularly. Perhaps NBA players (and refs?) are more easily swayed by crowd reactions.
Addendum----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Extended stats have been moved here.
In competative series (6 or 7 games), the home team went 105-87 in hockey for a 54.7% winning percentage; the home team went 96-58 for a 62.3% winning percentage.