DOES BIRTHDATE MATTER?

10 years ago

Does the month you are born in give you a better chance to play in the NHL? In 2008, Malcolm Gladwell wrote the book, Outliers, which focused on different factors that might influence people’s success. It looked at the Beatles, Bill Gates, law firms and other successful companies and people. He also wrote on why the majority of NHL hockey players were born in the first three months of the year.

He often mentioned the "10,000 hour" rule as the key to anyone’s success. He wrote that most people who reach high levels of success put in at least 10,000 hours of practice before gaining success. That premise makes a lot of sense, but after reading his book, I questioned if the birth month numbers matched today’s NHL.

Gladwell pointed out that kids born in January, February and March have an advantage in minor hockey because they are on average more physically mature than kids born later in the year, especially between the ages of 7-16. Those kids were in most cases bigger, stronger and more mature than kids born later in the year, thus they had an advantage.

The numbers matched his theory; however, if you look at today’s NHL player, the "early birthday" advantage seems to have diminished.

Here is a chart from 2008 showing the difference between kids born in the first quarter (Jan-March) to those born in the final quarter (Oct-Dec) courtesy of behindthenet.ca

You will notice in 1985 there was almost a 30% difference for kids in junior hockey, while in 2005 it was about a 22% difference. In the NHL the gap was 17% in 1985 and closer to 12% around 2005.

Fast forward to today and let’s look at the breakdown of the Oilers:

Name	Date Of Birth	Age
Mike Brown	24-Jun-85	28
Jordan Eberle "A"	15-May-90	23
Sam Gagner	10-Aug-89	24
Boyd Gordon	19-Oct-83	29
Taylor Hall "A"	14-Nov-91	21
Ales Hemsky	13-Aug-83	30
Jesse Joensuu	5-Oct-87	25
Ryan Jones	14-Jun-84	29
Anton Lander	24-Apr-91	22
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	12-Apr-93	20
David Perron	28-May-88	25
Ryan Smyth	21-Feb-76	37
Nail Yakupov	6-Oct-93	19

Name	Date Of Birth	Age
Anton Belov	29-Jul-86	27
Andrew Ference	17-Mar-79	34
Denis Grebeshkov	11-Oct-83	29
Oscar Klefbom	20-Jul-93	20
Philip Larsen	7-Dec-89	23
Jeff Petry	9-Dec-87	25
Corey Potter	5-Jan-84	29
Justin Schultz	6-Jul-90	23
Nick Schultz "A"	25-Aug-82	30
Ladislav Smid	1-Feb-86	27

Name	Date Of Birth	Age
Devan Dubnyk	4-May-86	27
Jason LaBarbera	18-Jan-80	33

Of this 25-man roster, the Oilers have:
Five players born in Q1, and three of them are the oldest players on the team. (20%)
Seven players born in Q2 (Apr-June). (28%)
Six players born in Q3 (July-Sept) (24%)
Seven players born in Q4. (28%)

In the past five years it seems we’ve seen a swing regarding the birth month of NHL players. 28% of the Oilers were born in Q4, while 20% were born in Q1. That is significantly different from the league average in 2008, when 31% were born in Q1 and 19% were born in Q4.

Are the Oilers an anomaly?

I looked at last seasons top-30 goal scorers to see.

	Player	Birth month	GP	G	A	P
1	Martin St Louis	June	48	17	43	60
2	Steven Stamkos	February	48	29	28	57
3	Alex Ovechkin	October	48	32	24	56
4	Sidney Crosby	August	36	15	41	56
5	Patrick Kane	November	47	23	32	55
6	Eric Staal	October	48	18	35	53
7	Chris Kunitz	September	48	22	30	52
8	Phil Kessel	October	48	20	32	52
9	Taylor Hall	November	45	16	34	50
10	Pavel Datsyuk	July	47	15	34	49
11	Ryan Getzlaf	May	44	15	34	49
12	Mike Ribeiro	February	48	13	36	49
13	Jonathan Toews	April	47	23	25	48
14	Claude Giroux	January	48	13	35	48
15	Henrik Zetterberg	October	46	11	37	48
16	Nicklas Backstrom	November	48	8	40	48
17	John Tavares	September	48	28	19	47
18	Jakub Voracek	August	48	22	24	46
19	Andrew Ladd	December	48	18	28	46
20	Henrik Sedin	September	48	11	34	45
21	Derek Stepan	June	48	18	26	44
22	Nazem Kadri	October	48	18	26	44
23	Matt Moulson	November	47	15	29	44
24	Alexander Semin	March	44	13	31	44
25	PA Parenteau	March	48	18	25	43
26	Matt Duchene	January	47	17	26	43
27	Rick Nash	June	44	21	21	42
28	Anze Kopitar	August	47	10	32	42
29	Thomas Vanek	January	38	20	21	41
30	Blake Wheeler	August	48	19	22	41

Here is the breakdown:

Q1: Seven players (23.3%)
Q2: Five players     (16.7%
Q3: Eight players   (26.7%)
Q4: Ten players      (33.3%)

The gap amongst the top scorers was even bigger, however, 30 isn’t that large of sample size, so I looked at the top-120 scoring forwards.

The results:

Q1: 33 players      (27.5%)
Q2: 28 players      (23.3%)
Q3: 30 players (25.0%)
Q4: 29 players      (24.2%)

The stats reverted back to what Gladwell had pointed out; however, there was only a 3% difference between Q1 and Q4 amongst forwards.

What about the top-60 scoring D-men?

Here is the breakdown:

Q1: 17 players            (28.3%)
Q2: 15 players            (25.0%)
Q3: 16 players            (26.7%)
Q4: 12 players    (20.0%)

I also did a quick breakdown on the top-30 goalies. (based on minute leader for each team)

Q1: 11 players      (36.7%)
Q2: 7 players        (23.3%)
Q3: 7 players        (23.3%)
Q4: 5 players        (16.7%)

It was interesting to note the massive difference in Q1and Q4 when it comes to goalies, so I looked at all 82 goalies who played at least one game in the NHL last year: The remaining 52 goalies looked much different than the top-30 (minutes played) goalies, and the numbers changed significantly.

Q1: 22 players       (26.8%)
Q2: 26 players       (31.7%)
Q3: 25 players       (30.5%)
Q4: 9 players          (11.0%)

My conclusion, which is very scientific, regarding goalies is that they live up to their "they are odd ducks" stereotype. If you want a solid starting goalie, their Jan-March birth date seems to play a bigger role than it does for D-men or forwards.

CONCLUSION….

If you add all the numbers, top-120 scoring forwards, top-60 scoring D-men and the starting 30 goalies we get this:

Q1: 60 players      (28.5%)
Q2: 50 players      (23.8%)
Q3: 53 players (25.2%)
Q4: 46 players      (21.9%)

The gap between Q1 and Q4 is now less than 7%. If you scroll back to the first chart, this small sample size does match up, albeit at a quicker pace, of narrowing the gap.

Why are we seeing the gap shrink?

Summer and spring hockey likely has played a factor. Kids can get more icetime than before, thus giving them a better chance to fulfill Gladwell’s "10,000 hours of practice" theory. But is that the only factor?

Before the season starts, I will calculate every forward, D-man and goalie that played in the NHL this past season to see how the remaining players alter, or not, the % of NHL players based on their birth month.

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND ROAD TRIP

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I went to San Fransisco for my holidays and highly recommend it for anyone. If you go, you have to see the city from a unique vantage point. We rented a Go Car, and I instantly felt like Cartman. "RESPECT MY AUTHOROTIE". The Go Car is great, because you can drive all over the city, and it has a GPS voice narrator who tells you the history of streets and monuments that you pass. Plus you get a lot of respect when you drive that bad boy around the city.

Another must see is Muir Woods. The Redwoods are spectacular and no picture truly does them justice. Many of the trees stand more than 15 stories high. They are a must see.

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The Slanted Door

Cafe Mocca.

The Bix.

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DOES BIRTHDATE MATTER?

What about the top-60 scoring D-men?

CONCLUSION….

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND ROAD TRIP

RECENTLY BY JASON GREGOR

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