[sureLoss]

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/hocke...l#.U2PUjPldUrU

The Hawks don’t call it Corsi or Fenwick. They have their own terminology and methodology. Bowman hinted that the fundamental goal of the Hawks’ analytics is the same as the more commonly accepted ones, but he wouldn’t go into any more specifics.

“What we do is different,” Bowman said. “I think it’s better, but I guess it’s a matter of opinion. It’s also a competitive advantage. That stuff’s readily available, but what we have is more proprietary. Which is why I’m really trying not to talk about it. I think what we do gives us an advantage over other teams. They might say I’m wrong, but we’re pretty confident that what we have works.”

Bowman — then a 29-year-old with a famous last name and a business background — actually got his foot in the door with the Hawks in 2001 by bringing some statistical analysis to a franchise that hardly had any. He started simply, with coaches rating players on a 1-5 scale each game, charting the ratings over the course of 10-game spans. But Bowman quickly learned that the ratings were flawed — subject to a coach’s affection for a player, or to his lowered expectations of some players and raised expectations of others. So Bowman started blending the old-school analysis with the new-school analytics.

Since the 2009-10 Stanley Cup season, the Hawks have been using the same general model, fine-tuning it a bit every season. It’s how the Hawks assess free agents, and evaluate trades, and dole out salary. Bowman can’t bring up his secret stats in an actual contract negotiation — “The other guy could be like, ‘what are you talking about?’,” he said — but it helps him decide a player’s value, which is essentially his entire job description.