Fortune Index

Actual standings points minus the points the model expected before each game. Positive means banking more than the pre-game odds implied — the answer to "why is that team ahead of us?" 2014 Platinum.

How fortune is calculated

Before every game with enough history behind both teams, the model has a win / draw / loss probability. The EHF awards points the way most hockey leagues do — 2 for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss — so multiplying those probabilities by their point values gives the expected points for that one game: what the model thought your team would earn, on average, if this exact matchup were played out many times.

Worked example. Say the model gives your team a 55% chance to win, 15% to draw, 30% to lose:

expected points = (2 × 0.55) + (1 × 0.15) = 1.25
  • Team wins → banks 2 actual points, 0.75 more than expected. That game's fortune: +0.75.
  • Team draws → banks 1, 0.25 less than expected. Fortune: −0.25.
  • Team loses → banks 0, 1.25 less than expected. Fortune: −1.25.

Add up actual points and expected points separately across every game like this in a season, and the gap between the two running totals is the Fortune Index. A team at +6 has banked six more standings points than its pre-game odds implied over the season; a team at −6 has banked six fewer.

Fortune isn't a measure of how good a team is — it's a measure of how the bounces have landed relative to what the model already expected. A team can be genuinely excellent and unlucky at the same time: still the best team in the division, just sitting below where its own underlying strength says it should be. Over a full season, fortune tends to regress toward zero as early bounces even out with later ones. Games before a team has 3 prior results are excluded entirely — for every team equally — so a thin early-season sample doesn't quietly become fortune's biggest driver.

No rolling predictions yet for this division.

League extremes

The most and least fortunate teams across every division.

Team GP Fortune
Minuteman Flames - Welsh 66 +24.8
Shamrocks - Hamilton 64 +14.9
Spartans - Voulgaris 66 +13.6
Boston Jr Eagles 30 +13.6
Spartans - Dovich 66 +13.2
IHC West - Proulx 68 -13.8
NorthStars - Fournier 68 -13.8
Northern Cyclones - Chiulli 64 -14.6
CT Junior Rangers 28 -16.1
Northern Cyclones - Philipp 46 -20.7