Estimating Gordie Howe's Even Strength impact for seasons before 1959-60

[seventieslord]

I came up with this idea recently as a way to build off of this rough career even strength data I posted in another thread:

Where do you place Ovechkin on your personal list of the greatest players of all time?

Right... does that apply to Bobby Hull as well? Their careers are pretty damn similar. This is a table I put together last year out of curiosity comparing Crosby, Believeau, Hull, and Ovechkin hypothetically in a Canadian-only league if anyone is interested. Canada only league Ovechkin...

forums.hfboards.com

Here are the the skaters listed by @jigglysquishy as potential top-20 players of all-time, whose careers took place mostly or all past 1959, ranked by their team's R-off (GF-GA ratio at even strength with the player out of the lineup and/or on the bench):

Hull 1.19
Lidstrom 1.17
Ovechkin 1.07
Gretzky 1.04
Orr 1.03
Crosby 0.99
Bourque 0.96
Jagr 0.93
Howe (928 games post-1959) 0.85
Lemieux 0.84

I don't think that supporting cast is something that OV can really complain about.

R: on:

Orr: 2.01
Lidstrom: 1.41
Bourque: 1.37
Hull: 1.37
Crosby: 1.36
Jagr: 1.35
Howe: 1.26
Gretzky: 1.26
Lemieux: 1.23
Ovechkin: 1.21


Beliveau was 1.33 on, 1.33 off, in the last 748 games of his career. (yeah, I guess he counts if Howe does)

For total team ES performance numbers you'd have to weigh the on and off figures (approximately 40% of ES minutes were played by the forwards on average, and 45-50% by defensemen)

On/off:

Orr: 195%
Howe: 148%
Lemieux: 146%
Jagr: 145%
Bourque: 143%
Crosby: 137%
Lidstrom: 121%
Gretzky: 121%
Hull: 115%
Ovechkin: 113%

Of course, these numbers include the entire careers of all these players (minus two insigificant seasons for Hull), but cut off the entire prime of Gordie Howe. It is amazing that he keeps up with these players at all, let alone leads the pack.

it was commented by @Hockey Outsider :

Second, Howe's numbers look incredible. What's important to emphasize (as you did on the previous page) is this only includes his career from ages 31 onwards. It's missing four of his Hart trophies, and five of his Art Ross trophies. I wonder how much better his numbers would have been during his peak. (On the other hand, this excludes the slow start from his first 2-3 seasons, and that probably would have dragged his average down).

And I would have to 100% agree. It would be hard to imagine that if Howe's years as an 18-30 year old were included, that his career ES numbers would look any worse; they'd almost certainly look significantly better.

Just to summarize, here are the numbers of all the players in the above lists:

	R on	R off	Ratio
Orr	2.01​	1.03​	195%​
Howe (1959+)	1.26​	0.85​	148%​
Lemieux	1.23​	0.84​	146%​
Jagr	1.35​	0.93​	145%​
Bourque	1.37​	0.96​	143%​
Crosby	1.36​	0.99​	137%​
Lidstrom	1.41​	1.17​	121%​
Gretzky	1.26​	1.04​	121%​
Hull	1.37​	1.19​	115%​
Ovechkin	1.21​	107​	113%​

and also, because these are full career numbers, which can be affected by longevity, here are the 8-year peak numbers I posted in that thread:

	R on	R off	Ratio
Orr	2.19​	1.10	1.99​
Bourque	1.47​	0.91	1.62​
Crosby	1.64​	1.03	1.59​
Jagr	1.45​	0.92	1.58​
Gretzky	1.67​	1.15	1.5​
Lemieux	1.41​	0.95	1.48​
Howe (1959+)	1.25​	0.86	1.45​
Ovechkin	1.4​	0.97	1.44​
Lidstrom	1.51​	1.22	1.24​
Hull	1.31​	1.22	1.07​

For Howe's best 8 year span, i just took the first 8 years available with the data that is there: 59-60 through 66-67, when he was 31-38.

But those are almost certainly not his best 8 years. So I went about recreating ES statistics for him. Here's how I did it:

1. Use hockey-reference to calculate Detroit's total ESGF and ESGA each season (ESGF is just the sum of all ESG in the player stats panel, ESGA is their total GA minus PPA and SHA)
2. Determine Detroit's ESGA in the games Howe missed in the first 20 years of his career (easy to do using gamelogs and the fact that he missed just 42 games through 1970)
3. Determine what percentage of Detroit's ESGA Howe tended to be on the ice for in games that he played from 1959-1970: 34, 38, 33, 34, 40, 19, 32, 32, 34, 33, 30. Aside from the 40 and 19, this hovered remarkably close to 33% his whole career.
4. Working backwards, assume Howe was on the ice for 33% of ESGA for the previous 10 seasons of his prime, then build in a natural dropoff (Howe's build-up in duties from age 18-20) of 31%, 29% and 22%
5. With those assumptions, one can now estimate the number of ESGA Howe was on the ice for
6. To estimate Howe's ESGF, start by looking at how many ESGF he had each season: 22, 38, 31, 51, 70, 61, 67, 48, 42, 42, 57, 49, 49.
7. Take a look at seasons with known ESGF numbers. What percentage of ESGF did Howe score a point on? It turns out that this number is also highly reliable: from 59-60 onwards: 67, 84, 73, 72, 70, 70, 72, 71, 73, 79, 77, 73. This was an average of 73% through 1971. however, it is fair to assume he was a bigger catalyst to the offense at his physical peak, so in assigning these numbers, I built in an age 22 peak that Howe rapidly builds up to, then slowly falls off from: 65, 70, 73.5, 75, 76.5, 76, 75.5, 75, 74.5, 74, 73.5, 73, 72.5. It's not a stretch to say that if we know how many ES points Gordie Howe scored (and we do), then we also have a pretty good idea how many goals he was on the ice for. These numbers are reliable and repeatable annually.
8. With Howe's estimated GF and GA in hand, it's now possible to create an R-on for him. It's also now possible to subtract those numbers from the team totals to get the "off" numbers, and an R-off. Here's the raw data:

year

age

GP

sched

ESP

~GF%

~ESGF

TmESGF

TmESGA

TmESGA*

~GA%

~ESGA

R-on

GFWO

GAWO

R-off

On/off

1947​

18​

58​

60​

22​

0.65​

33.85​

150​

162​

157​

0.22​

34.54​

0.98​

116.15​

127.46​

0.91​

1.08​

1948​

19​

60​

60​

38​

0.7​

54.29​

152​

123​

123​

0.29​

35.67​

1.52​

97.71​

87.33​

1.12​

1.36​

1949​

20​

40​

60​

31​

0.735​

42.18​

152​

109​

75​

0.31​

23.25​

1.81​

109.82​

85.75​

1.28​

1.42​

1950​

21​

70​

70​

51​

0.75​

68.00​

174​

128​

128​

0.33​

42.24​

1.61​

106.00​

85.76​

1.24​

1.30​

1951​

22​

70​

70​

70​

0.765​

91.50​

197​

116​

116​

0.33​

38.28​

2.39​

105.50​

77.72​

1.36​

1.76​

1952​

23​

70​

70​

61​

0.76​

80.26​

164​

99​

99​

0.33​

32.67​

2.46​

83.74​

66.33​

1.26​

1.95​

1953​

24​

70​

70​

67​

0.755​

88.74​

167​

101​

101​

0.33​

33.33​

2.66​

78.26​

67.67​

1.16​

2.30​

1954​

25​

70​

70​

48​

0.75​

64.00​

132​

93​

93​

0.33​

30.69​

2.09​

68.00​

62.31​

1.09​

1.91​

1955​

26​

64​

70​

42​

0.745​

56.38​

150​

92​

87​

0.33​

28.71​

1.96​

93.62​

63.29​

1.48​

1.33​

1956​

27​

70​

70​

42​

0.74​

56.76​

126​

116​

116​

0.33​

38.28​

1.48​

69.24​

77.72​

0.89​

1.66​

1957​

28​

70​

70​

57​

0.735​

77.55​

146​

125​

125​

0.33​

41.25​

1.88​

68.45​

83.75​

0.82​

2.30​

1958​

29​

64​

70​

49​

0.73​

67.12​

134​

150​

135​

0.33​

44.55​

1.51​

66.88​

105.45​

0.63​

2.38​

1959​

30​

70​

70​

49​

0.725​

67.59​

120​

177​

177​

0.33​

58.41​

1.16​

52.41​

118.59​

0.44​

2.62​

Right off the bat, I would say that these numbers pass the smell test. Howe was posting on-off ratios of 1.85-2.10 in three of the four seasons following this sample at age 31-34, and he was assumedly better at 28-30. Ratios of 2.0+ are not unheard of in single seasons for all-time greats.

Check out Detroit's sharp decline from 1955 onwards. They were a tire fire with Howe off the ice for the late 50s. The 0.44 mark in 58-59 was an aberration, but in the 7 seasons surrounding that, they hovered from 0.61-0.89 while Howe stayed at 1.16-188 (aside from 1961). This is another reason the numbers pass the smell test: they pick up right where the real numbers left off.

Interestingly, Howe's 1959 R-on is his worst since his rookie season, but he still gets his best on-off ratio of his career, because Detroit was just so bad without him.

So, where does this put Howe on the charts I previously posted:

For his full career:

	R on	R off	Ratio
Orr	2.01​	1.03​	195%​
Howe (1959+)full career	1.53​	0.95​	162%​
Lemieux	1.23​	0.84​	146%​
Jagr	1.35​	0.93​	145%​
Bourque	1.37​	0.96​	143%​
Crosby	1.36​	0.99​	137%​
Lidstrom	1.41​	1.17​	121%​
Gretzky	1.26​	1.04​	121%​
Hull	1.37​	1.19​	115%​
Ovechkin	1.21​	107​	113%​

And for 8-year peak:

	R on	R off	Ratio
Orr	2.19​	1.10	1.99​
Howe (1959+)best 8 years	1.9​	0.97	1.96​
Bourque	1.47​	0.91	1.62​
Crosby	1.64​	1.03	1.59​
Jagr	1.45​	0.92	1.58​
Gretzky	1.67​	1.15	1.5​
Lemieux	1.41​	0.95	1.48​
Ovechkin	1.4​	0.97	1.44​
Lidstrom	1.51​	1.22	1.24​
Hull	1.31​	1.22	1.07​

I hope you find this useful.

Click to read more...

 

[Sadekuuro]

Excellent, thank you.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

This is a really good analysis. I'm trying to be appropriately skeptical (as I always am, whenever anybody posts statistics), because this is mostly telling me what I want to hear - but the approach seems to be very solid.

Beyond checking the math, the two reasons this seems to make sense are: first, as seventies said, the final few years of estimated data transition smoothly into the first few years of official data. For example, the estimate R-OFF from 1956 to 1959 is 0.70, and we know from the official NHL data (as compiled by overpass) that his R-OFF from 1960 to 1963 is 0.71. (These are simple averages, not weighted by games played, but that won't impact the analysis in any meaningful way). And Howe's estimated R-ON for those final four years is 1.51, and the official data shows him to be at 1.23 for the first four years after (a decent amount lower, but not unexpected given that we're comparing ages 27-30 to ages 31-34, which was fairly old for that era). Second, the results are in line with what was written about Howe's two-way play at the time. (I don't place a lot of emphasis on rose-coloured descriptions about a player from decades after they retired - contemporary sources are much more credible).

Certainly, there are estimations that go into this analysis (such as Howe's "participation" rate in the team's offense). I wouldn't use season-level data to make any definite claims (ie "Howe's R-ON/OFF ratio was 2.30 in 1953, which proves he was just as impactful as Lemieux in 1989 and 1993"). But even if you edit some of the assumptions, the overall outcome doesn't materially change.

The only thing that doesn't immediately pass the smell test is Howe's results from his first few seasons (before he became a star). I'm not necessarily saying that they're wrong - just that they look a lot better than expected.

I think it's somewhat easier for a player to really distance themselves from their teammates if they're playing on a weaker term (for example, nobody thinks that Bourque and Jagr were better than Gretzky and Lemieux). And maybe that's part of what's happening here. But my response to that is two-fold. First, even when Howe played on historically strong teams, his results are still excellent (191% R-ON/OFF ratio from 1950 to 1954). Second, even if we complety disregard this analysis, and just use the official data, late-prime Howe still looks comparable (145% ratio - see 2nd table in OP) to the best eight years of Lemieux, Ovechkin and Lidstrom, and he's still in the same ballpark (within about 10%) as the peaks of historically dominant ES performs like Crosby, Jagr and Bourque. seventies' analysis suggests that peak Howe is even better than that, but even if you dismiss it entirely, this data only strengthens the case for Howe's one-ice impact being much bigger than his raw stats suggest.

 

[authentic]

So basically Howe and Orr were the biggest MVPs in NHL history? Not hard to believe given their offensive dominance combined with their two-way games, physical play and all around ability. As great as Gretzky’s teams were this is still a stat you expect him to be better in. Curious how McDavid looks so far in his career?

 

[VanIslander]

"It's been said that, while growing up, I ate meals with my skates on. It's true."
Gordie Howe

Ovechkin's mother was a 2-time Olympic gold medalist and his father played soccer with him 7 days a week.

Even strength is about time, putting it in, building strength.
Endurance is earned not gifted.

A few years ago, in 2020, Robert Lewandowski, the FIFA player of the year was a Polish guy on Bayern Munich who was renowned and statistically shown to score goals later and later in games. He played better the more they ran around. This was due to his greater fitness. He outtrained even his trainer. Game time was no sweat compared to his other days of the week. (His wife is a karate medalist and he does kickboxing every day for balance and strength.)

And that guy who has played the most NHL games, Marleau, rode the stationary bike more than anyone in the San Jose facility. He was ready for long, hard work because he prepared long and hard.

 

[Vilica]

I had a huge stats post from manual tracking from scoring logs for 52-53 and 53-54, that I could still post, but I decided against it for now. The main item I pulled away from it is that Gordie's IPP for those years was closer to 80%, being 78.8% in 52-53 and 80% in 53-54, which reduces his On/Off to 2.034 and 1.667 compared to the theoretical numbers.

It is a bunch of work, but combing through scoring logs is a fairly reliable indicator of who is on-ice for a goal for. Detroit scored 299 even strength goals over both those years, and I'd say about 275 are obvious yes/no.

 

[Overrated]

"It's been said that, while growing up, I ate meals with my skates on. It's true."
Gordie Howe

Ovechkin's mother was a 2-time Olympic gold medalist and his father played soccer with him 7 days a week.

Even strength is about time, putting it in, building strength.
Endurance is earned not gifted.

A few years ago, in 2020, Robert Lewandowski, the FIFA player of the year was a Polish guy on Bayern Munich who was renowned and statistically shown to score goals later and later in games. He played better the more they ran around. This was due to his greater fitness. He outtrained even his trainer. Game time was no sweat compared to his other days of the week. (His wife is a karate medalist and he does kickboxing every day for balance and strength.)

And that guy who has played the most NHL games, Marleau, rode the stationary bike more than anyone in the San Jose facility. He was ready for long, hard work because he prepared long and hard.

I know people don't like hearing it but unfortunately talent will always beat hard work

 

[VanIslander]

Overrated.
I grew up in a neighborhood where i had the same classmates in elementary school, junior high and high school. We know a lot about each other's university and other postsecondary pursuits.

Did the most talented elementary school kids become the richest and/or most educated?

The top boy in honors math in elementary school (and 2nd in middle school) ended up a life guard in the summers and a ski resort clerk in the winter, pre weed legalization.

My best bud in grade school was great at everything in elementary school but was lazy as hell and by high school he could only beat me at height (his 6'3 to my 6'1 - i was taller at age 10).

I myself hustled hard to convert my C+ math in 1st year junior high into A- to get into my best bud's honor's math class so we could hang together. I went on to uni, was Dean's honors list my last two years and got a full scholarship to a M.A. grad school wherein i got A+ 's) simply because i was that guy in the library on a Friday night. (I took off Saturday nights for HNIC and Sunday for sanity.) My best bud who was clearly more talented at math? He sold furniture, then was a bartender, now assistant manages an auto parts store.

Even in terms of sports, the best players on our soccer, football and hockey teams were the hardest workers.

Success does not follow the lazy.
Gordie Howe earned those guns thru hard work.



"Those who say he can and those who say he can't are both usually right."

 

[Michael Farkas]

I know people don't like hearing it but unfortunately talent will always beat hard work

I'm not a fan of truism and nonsense idioms...but this is also wrong on the other side of the nonsense spectrum.

 

[Overrated]

I'm not a fan of truism and nonsense idioms...but this is also wrong on the other side of the nonsense spectrum.

If we're talking about elite sports it's more than true. You don't become the next star with hard work and average talent. That is impossible. People put emphasis on silly stories about Howe never taking off his skates or Jagr doing a thousand squats and what not but these guys were just born different. Prodigies. Physically superior.

 

[VanIslander]

Talent may be necessary sometimes, but it isn't the difference maker that hard work is.
Hard work develops talent.

 

[MadLuke]

I doubt the difference between Francis Bouillon and Lindros was a lot about hard work too.

Did the most talented elementary school kids become the richest and/or most educated?

By a very strong correlation, yes, some country system like Germany are build over the observation that kids do not tend to move much over time in education performance over their life.

 

[overpass]

Great post.

I would suggest we can go further in estimating Howe's ESGA, especially from his peak seasons, by looking at scoring logs and which forwards scored with whom. Howe was known for his great stamina on the ice and ability to play high minutes, so it's possible he was on the ice from more than 1/3 of the play at ES. If so, he may have been on the ice for more than 1/3 of even strength goals against.

I'll take the 1950-51 season for an example. Sid Abel was Gordie Howe's regular centre at even strength. Looking at Sid Abel's scoring logs, Abel scored 50 even strength points. He combined with Howe for 38 of these points, and with Ted Lindsay for 27 points. The interesting thing is that Abel combined with no other Detroit forwards on his 50 even strength points. No double-shifting for Abel as far as we can tell. So we can start with an estimate for Abel and then build Howe's estimate from Abel's.

Let's assume that Abel played a regular shift, 33% of the ES time. Based on the scoring logs, it's a reasonable estimate that he played on the #1 line 100% of the time, and did no double shifting with any other forwards. So Abel would have 38.28 ESGA in 1950-51 as estimated by @seventieslord.

Moving to Gordie Howe, he scored 70 even strength points. He combined with Abel on 38 of those points, and with Ted Lindsay for 31 of those points. And there were 13 of those points on which he combined with other forwards (see below for the table). Based on these points, I conclude that Howe was doing some double-shifting with lower forward lines.

I don't know the exact formula to translate these 13 points to extra ice time. Let's say that Howe was playing 20% more even-strength ice time than Sid Abel, based on these 13 points. And let's say that the team allows even strength goals against in proportion to the ice time. In that case, Howe could have been on the ice for about 40% of ESGA. Here's how that would affect the on/off ratios.

1950-51 Howe (33% of ESGA): 91.5 ESGF, 38.28 ESGA, 2.39 R-ON, 1.36 R-ON
1950-51 Howe (39.6% of ESGA): 91.5 ESGA, 45.94 ESGA, 1.99 R-ON, 1.51 R-ON

Just an estimate of course but one that uses a bit more information than the simple 33% number.

Scoring logs - 1950-51 goals with Gordie Howe and lower line DET forwards

Rk	Date	Tm		Opp	P	Time		Description
6	1950-10-28	DET		CBH	1	9:14	EV	Goal by Gordie Howe, assisted by Red Kelly and Joe Carveth
11	1950-11-08	DET	@	BOS	2	16:28	EV	Goal by Ted Lindsay, assisted by Gordie Howe and Jim McFadden
12	1950-11-11	DET	@	TOR	1	18:02	EV	Goal by Gordie Howe, assisted by Metro Prystai and Red Kelly
22	1950-12-16	DET	@	BOS	2	9:57	EV	Goal by Gordie Howe, assisted by Ted Lindsay and Metro Prystai
29	1950-12-25	DET		NYR	2	10:36	EV	Goal by Ted Lindsay, assisted by Gordie Howe and Leo Gravelle
31	1950-12-28	DET		MTL	1	19:02	EV	Goal by Leo Reise, assisted by Metro Prystai and Gordie Howe
33	1950-12-28	DET		MTL	2	14:04	EV	Goal by Metro Prystai, assisted by Gordie Howe and Marty Pavelich
35	1950-12-28	DET		MTL	3	8:24	EV	Goal by Ted Lindsay, assisted by Gordie Howe and Metro Prystai
41	1951-01-09	DET		TOR	2	8:02	EV	Goal by George Gee, assisted by Vic Stasiuk and Gordie Howe
48	1951-01-17	DET	@	CBH	3	16:10	EV	Goal by Gordie Howe, assisted by Marty Pavelich and Jim McFadden
61	1951-02-07	DET		CBH	3	9:57	EV	Goal by Gordie Howe, assisted by Ted Lindsay and George Gee
63	1951-02-08	DET	@	CBH	2	10:25	EV	Goal by George Gee, assisted by Gordie Howe
64	1951-02-11	DET	@	BOS	1	0:41	EV	Goal by Gordie Howe, assisted by Glen Skov

 

[VanIslander]

By a very strong correlation, yes, some country system like Germany are build over the observation that kids do not tend to move much over time in education performance over their life.

Bull****. In my 22nd year of teaching i still see a huge difference based on effort.

 

[blogofmike]

If we're talking about elite sports it's more than true. You don't become the next star with hard work and average talent. That is impossible. People put emphasis on silly stories about Howe never taking off his skates or Jagr doing a thousand squats and what not but these guys were just born different. Prodigies. Physically superior.

I had an old high school teacher who also coached hockey.

He used to say that the most naturally talented kid he ever coached was Marc Savard, and it wasn't close.

The hardest working kid he coached was Steve Yzerman.

 

[MadLuke]

Bull****. In my 22nd year of teaching i still see a huge difference based on effort.

Effort at school at a young age will also correlate, you just changed statement completely.

The correlation with age 13 sat score and college result is really high:

Education Doesn't Work 2.0

a comprehensive argument that education cannot close academic gaps

freddiedeboer.substack.com

You will find a bunch of exception obviously (in both sense strong at school at a young age, weak in high school-college and the other way around) but in the vast majority of case the correlation will be strong, I am sure you have a vast array of example of kids that were not good at school when they were kids that never got good and strong kids that stayed strongs until the end of college, that the very usual case.

 

[Overrated]

Bull****. In my 22nd year of teaching i still see a huge difference based on effort.

You're comparing apples to oranges. Work success is dependent on very many things such as networking which largely comes down to your social ability, your looks, your extraversion. Randomness and luck also plays a massive role. By the way in order to have decent money and a good career you don't have to be among the elite few. Your hard work can definitely propel you to be better off than the majority.

I am however talking about talent in hockey and being a professional star player which is a position reserved for a very tiny group of people. You can't reach that with average talent and religious hard work. People like Howe, Gretzky, Jagr, McDavid are freaks of nature, they didn't reach their level by outworking everyone.

 

[jigglysquishy]

They did actually outwork everyone though.

If you played any level of minor hockey, it's pretty apparent talent doesn't take you very far. The hardest workers rise to the top very early.

The most naturally talented hockey player I ever met was lazy and didn't even make it to the WHL. The hardest working hockey player I knew had a fraction the talent but played games in the NHL.

 

[VanIslander]

Apples and oranges. We at least both talking about fruit.

To make a million dollars a year as a mucker on the 4th line or 3rd pairing takes a ton of effort and an ounce of talent.

Networking in sales pays off for everyone who has a motor that won't stop. Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, ... succeed.

During summer vacation in uni i had a summer job selling "home purification systems", basically an overpriced water-based vacuum cleaner. I was told my day wasn't over until a hundred people heard the pitch. I made $1,700 by Tuesday at noon and took the rest of the week off. One guy got filthy rich. Seven others quit because they couldn't handle the effort needed to overcome the obstacle of "no".

Howe, Gretzky, Bourque, Richard, Roy.... insane work ethic... examples of talent and effort.. Brashear and Cooke spending nearly an hour after practice skating cuz each had to be the very last one off the ice at Canucks training camp? There were two guys who knew effort not skill defined their success.

 

[MadLuke]

Some of the name listed (Gretzky-Bourque) had insane Vo2max, which is highly genetic.

People bring anecdote for a good reason, it would be hard to believe that like IQ-mental performance that a good amount of athletic performance is not quite genetic, usual rules of thumb 50% (look how similar the Sedin were).

A 5ft7 small built Brashear never get to be in the nhl in his role despite any level of effort and pratice, he seem a pretty obvious case of relying quite a lot on his really rare high percentile physical gift.

 

[Overrated]

Some of the name listed (Gretzky-Bourque) had insane Vo2max, which is highly genetic.

People bring anecdote for a good reason, it would be hard to believe that like IQ-mental performance that a good amount of athletic performance is not quite genetic, usual rules of thumb 50% (look how similar the Sedin were)

Wasn't Gretzky scoring like 400 goals per season as a kid? I watched a video on Ronaldinho the other day and apparently when he was a kid they played a little local match where they won 24-0 with Ronaldinho scoring all 24 goals. Jagr was playing in a junior league at 12/13 and scored 41 points in 34 games in a league of 18 year old adults.

Mozarts are born, not made. It is what it is.

 

[Overrated]

 

[Michael Farkas]

Lucky for us, Gretzky was genetically granted a bunch of talent at the ages of 7 thru 9 and worked at an average amount during that span and forever more.

 

[solidmotion]

Effort at school at a young age will also correlate, you just changed statement completely.

The correlation with age 13 sat score and college result is really high:

Education Doesn't Work 2.0

a comprehensive argument that education cannot close academic gaps

freddiedeboer.substack.com

You will find a bunch of exception obviously (in both sense strong at school at a young age, weak in high school-college and the other way around) but in the vast majority of case the correlation will be strong, I am sure you have a vast array of example of kids that were not good at school when they were kids that never got good and strong kids that stayed strongs until the end of college, that the very usual case.

wow, freddie deboer on hfboards... worlds are colliding

 

[Overrated]

Lucky for us, Gretzky was genetically granted a bunch of talent at the ages of 7 thru 9 and worked at an average amount during that span and forever more.

You kinda forgot the part where he skipped four years as a beginner.