Measuring the Technical Efficiency of Hockey Players: Empirical Evidence from Czech Hockey Competition

Ice hockey is a very popular sport in the Czech Republic. Nowadays, hockey player efficiency analysis is a useful tool that helps sports managers with player selection, team composition and team performance evaluation. The literature offers only a limited number of scientific studies that deal with the evaluation of the efficiency of hockey players or clubs. The aim of this research is to use data envelopment analysis to help Czech hockey clubs, managers and coaches to evaluate the efficiency of their players. This research evaluates the technical efficiency of Czech hockey players using three data envelopment analysis models, ranks the best players based on their super-efficiency scores, and then tries to uncover the main sources of player inefficiency. The models are empirically applied to players playing in the Tipsport extraliga in the 2021/22 season. The evaluation used in this paper attempts to incorporate greater objectivity into decision making and thus may be an important step in developing a systematic methodology for evaluating hockey players.