McKeen's vs. Hockey News

[D-Rock]

Who would you say publishes the better yearbook/prospect guide?

Thanks,
Dana

Click to read more...

 

[HAPPY HOUR]

Score one for The Hockey News. I like their format better.

 

[jcpenny]

Score one for The Hockey News. I like their format better.

I like Mckeens this year. Profile on every player and prospect does it for me.

 

[Hyped]

McKeen's takes this one by a mile. The Hockey News has player projections that are way out to lunch and their coverage on prospects is almost zilch. Even though I was disappointed by McKeens this year, their publication was still heads and shoulders above THN. I'll cut them some slack since there was no hockey last year...

 

[flambers]

Forecaster is the best. Plus its free. Next year I bet Forecaster will sell their Magaizine again. This will give them 6 months to get advertizers.

 

[Oilhitch]

Yeah I like the Forecaster too. When will it be available on-line?

 

[Hyped]

I've only gotten one edition of Forecaster but found it to be way out to lunch on pretty much everything. In my opinion, easily the worst of the bunch...

 

[benbouch]

McKeens are pro prospect ..... THey give you a nice profile of each players and there's a lot of informations about prospect vs THN. THey often overrated prospect, but at least, they considere them.

 

[Fordey]

It's available now....

 

[AgentNaslund*]

THN. Lethonen is not better then Ovechkin and Crosby.

 

[Sherlock]

Out of curiousity, where can a MN guy like me pick up McKeens? I've checked a few places (Barnes and Noble, Shinders, etc.) and none of them have it. I'll be down at the Mall of America on Saturday, but I am afraid I won't know where to look if I can't find it there.

Do any Minnesota folks know of a place? Or should I just order it online?

 

[Hyped]

THN. Lethonen is not better then Ovechkin and Crosby.

You must be referring to the Forecaster because McKeens has Crosby #1 and Ovechkin #2. Every magazine will have their longshots, but McKeens is the most reasonable by far...

 

[PecaFan]

Interesting, I was just looking at this last night. I'm just preparing some stuff for this year, and I decided to take a look at last season's accuracy for the various books. Something I've always meant to go back and look at, just never got to it.

I had entered most predictions in the books, but not all the scrubs predicted for 1-5-6pts etc. Here are some numbers for the various mags (forwards only, points only, no breakdown by goals/assists).

McKeens: 274 predictions, 209 over (76.3%), 60 under (21.9%), 5 correct (1.8%)
THN Ultimate: 238 predictions, 169 over (71.0%), 61 under (25.6%), 8 correct (3.4%)
Forecaster: 248 predictions, 180 over (72.6%), 64 under (25.8%), 4 correct (1.6%)

How over-optimistic are they:
McKeens: 146 over by 10 or more points, including 76 out by 20+.
THN: 114 over by 10 or more points, including 53 out by 20+.
Forecaster: 124 over by 10 or more points, including 57 out by 20+.

Exceeded expectations (aka how many nice surprises did you get):
McKeens: 41 outscored prediction by 5+ points, including 24 by 10+, 6 by 20+.
THN: 49 outscored prediction by 5+ points, including 24 by 10+, 6 by 20+.
Forecaster: 50 outscored prediction by 5+ points, including 35 by 10+, 12 by 20+.

I find this amazing, 70+% of the predictions are too high, while only around 25% are too low. I would think you'd want to be more closer to 50/50 than that, since you're more likely to be upset if you draft guys, and none of them come close to meeting the predictions. I'd rather draft a guy expecting 50 points, and he gets 60, than drafting guys early for 70 points and they get 60.

Of the three books last time, I'd say THN was #1, Forecaster #2, and McKeens #3.

 

[Sam]

You must be referring to the Forecaster because McKeens has Crosby #1 and Ovechkin #2. Every magazine will have their longshots, but McKeens is the most reasonable by far...

I think he's referring to Lehtonen being McKeens Calder Trophy favorite, which is far more reasonable than THN's Crosby masturbation.

 

[Hyped]

Interesting, I was just looking at this last night. I'm just preparing some stuff for this year, and I decided to take a look at last season's accuracy for the various books. Something I've always meant to go back and look at, just never got to it.

I had entered most predictions in the books, but not all the scrubs predicted for 1-5-6pts etc. Here are some numbers for the various mags (forwards only, points only, no breakdown by goals/assists).

McKeens: 274 predictions, 209 over (76.3%), 60 under (21.9%), 5 correct (1.8%)
THN Ultimate: 238 predictions, 169 over (71.0%), 61 under (25.6%), 8 correct (3.4%)
Forecaster: 248 predictions, 180 over (72.6%), 64 under (25.8%), 4 correct (1.6%)

How over-optimistic are they:
McKeens: 146 over by 10 or more points, including 76 out by 20+.
THN: 114 over by 10 or more points, including 53 out by 20+.
Forecaster: 124 over by 10 or more points, including 57 out by 20+.

Exceeded expectations (aka how many nice surprises did you get):
McKeens: 41 outscored prediction by 5+ points, including 24 by 10+, 6 by 20+.
THN: 49 outscored prediction by 5+ points, including 24 by 10+, 6 by 20+.
Forecaster: 50 outscored prediction by 5+ points, including 35 by 10+, 12 by 20+.

I find this amazing, 70+% of the predictions are too high, while only around 25% are too low. I would think you'd want to be more closer to 50/50 than that, since you're more likely to be upset if you draft guys, and none of them come close to meeting the predictions. I'd rather draft a guy expecting 50 points, and he gets 60, than drafting guys early for 70 points and they get 60.

Of the three books last time, I'd say THN was #1, Forecaster #2, and McKeens #3.

Ahhh, statistics. Make 'em look like you want to. That's the great ability of statistics. Obviously, when McKeens is taking 4th line fringe players and giving them projections, there is a good possibility that they will be over-estimating. Sometimes those guys don't even see a game for that team. If we take those "over-estimates" out, I think we'll see a whole new model. At the end of your research it is stated that McKeens had less big misses and by a large margin. And they made less "big over-estimates" while giving more projections. If you had stated your percentage in that category like you did in the first one, we'd see a completely different view.

I'm done now. McKeens is more knowledgable than any other mag I've seen. I'll stnad by that until someone does it better...

 

[D-Rock]

Yeah I like the Forecaster too. When will it be available on-line?

You can dl it free at www.forecaster.ca

 

[slyc]

I tried to download forcaster but keep getting errors.

 

[Vinland]

I downloaded the forecaster and it is by far the best.

 

[rtafts]

I bought THN ... it's pretty bad. I looked at McKeens in the store today, it looked pretty decent.

 

[PecaFan]

Ahhh, statistics. Make 'em look like you want to. That's the great ability of statistics.

I didn't make anything "look like I wanted to". Just added up the data already there. And I did it without trying to prove anything, despite your insinuations. Unlike you, I don't care which one is more accurate, I just want to know which one to trust more. You're the one pre-judging things, if the stats don't support your opinion, then clearly the stats are wrong.

Obviously, when McKeens is taking 4th line fringe players and giving them projections, there is a good possibility that they will be over-estimating. Sometimes those guys don't even see a game for that team. If we take those "over-estimates" out, I think we'll see a whole new model.

Actually, a great number of their *positive* predictions come from the fringe guys. An Rob Dimaio predicted for 17 gets 24, a Chris Clark predicted 15 gets 25... I can see 14 (over 25%) of their good predictions came from fringe guys who were predicted for 25 points or less. And of course, the other mags also had a bunch of fourth liners ranked as well, affecting their scores.

But fine, we'll trim the list. I've removed everyone except those picked by all three mags. And I've removed anyone that didn't play at all. That gives us 256 forwards, about 8.5 per team, so few fourth liners. You can't really trim the list beyond that, as there are lots guys predicted to score low who did well, and vice versa.

[font="Courier"]
              McKeens        THN        Forecaster
Over        197 (77.0%)   178 (69.5%)   186 (72.7%)
Under        56 (21.9%)    70 (27.3%)    66 (25.8%)
Correct       3 ( 1.2%)     8 ( 3.1%)     4 (1.6%)
      
Over 20+     86 (33.6%)    64 (25.0%)    69 (27.0%)
Over 10+    142 (55.5%)   125 (48.8%)   134 (52.3%)

Under 5+     40 (15.6%)    54 (21.1%)    52 (20.3%)
Under 10+    21 ( 8.2%)    28 (10.9%)    38 (14.8%)
Under 20+     5 ( 2.0%)     7  (2.7%)    11 (4.3%)

[/font]

While all the magazines are over-optimistic, it's absolutely clear that McKeens was the worst of the bunch in 03/04. One out of every three players drafted by their list underperformed by 20+ points on the year. The Hockey News is no great shakes at 1 out of 4, but if I'm drafting 24 guys, I'd rather have six guys instead of eight be massively wrong.

 

[Lars]

thanx for the info on the magazines poster above ^^^


and to the other poster with the link to the forecaster

 

[X-SHARKIE]

For the most detailed prospect reports....Mckeens is the way to go no question.

 

[X-SHARKIE]

Honestly, compare the two and tell me you disagree.

The prospect coverage in Mckeen's is much more detailed and in depth (and accurate for that matter) then the Hockey News.

I haven't read the forecaster my self because i'm having computer problems with loading it.

 

[77th Earl]

forecaster is a waste

I downloaded the forecaster and it is by far the best.

are you kidding? the forecaster is way overrated unless you like lots of pictures. their player writeups are boring and uninformative. i've read much better analysis on these boards. don't waste your time.

 

[Leaf Army]

I like the Forecaster. I've always liked it the best. Although their on-line version unfortunately doesn't have the detail in player analysis that their print publication used to. But still I find it to be the best read.

McKeen's is ridiculously overrated. Their analysis is not nearly as good as people make it out to be. But I still buy it though because their player profiles are pretty detailed. Especially the prospect ones.

Hockey News is useless. I used to buy it, but not anymore. I don't see one thing that it's good for. I can look up last year's stats on the internet and I have no interest in who they feel the top 50 players in the league are.