Today, I am going to talk about this kid, Jack Sweeney, and how he keeps track of hockey games. I am not sure if you guys know him, but this guy is famous for tracking Elon Musk’s private jet. Yeah, that’s the one. Anyway, I got curious about how he does this for hockey games, so I dug in.
Started with Curiosity
First off, I started by looking up what this Jack Sweeney guy is all about. Turns out, he’s pretty good at using public data to track flights. I thought, “Okay, that’s interesting, but how does that apply to hockey games?”
Figured Out the Data Source
So, I figured the main thing would be finding where the data is. For planes, it’s flight data, right? For hockey, it’s got to be something similar. I started looking at sports websites, you know, the usual ones like ESPN and NHL’s official site. They have tons of data, scores, schedules, player stats, all that stuff. But, it is not what I am looking for.
Found the Right Tools
Then, I remembered there are these things called APIs. They’re basically like doors that let you grab data from websites. I found out that there are APIs for sports data, too. Some are free, some you gotta pay for. I messed around with a few free ones to see what I could get. It was a bit messy at first, with all these codes and formats, but I got the hang of it.
Put It All Together
Next, I needed a way to take that data and make it do something. I used Python because it is simple. I wrote some scripts that would grab the data from the API, sort it out, and then put it into a format that is easy to read. For example, I could get the schedule for a specific team, or find out when a certain player is playing next.
I got my script running, and bam, it was pulling in all kinds of data about hockey games. I set it up to focus on a few teams I like, just to see how it worked. It was pretty cool to see it all come together.
Kept Tweaking
Of course, it wasn’t perfect at first. Sometimes the data would be a bit off, or the script would crash for some reason. I spent a good chunk of time just tweaking things, fixing bugs, and making it run smoother. It is all about persistence.
Sharing the Results
After I got it working pretty well, I thought it would be cool to share it. I set up a simple blog where I post the schedules and some stats. It is nothing fancy, but it is fun to share and see people using it.
Still Learning
This whole thing has been a fun ride. I am no expert, but I learned a lot about APIs, a bit of coding, and how sports data works. There is always something new to learn, and that is what makes it interesting.
- Started by figuring out what data Jack Sweeney might use.
- Looked for sources of sports data.
- Found APIs that provide access to sports data.
- Used Python to write scripts to fetch and organize the data.
- Tested and tweaked the scripts to make them reliable.
- Set up a blog to share the results.
- Continuously learning and improving the process.
So yeah, that is my little adventure into tracking hockey data, inspired by Jack Sweeney’s work. It is all about being curious, figuring things out step by step, and not being afraid to dive into something new. Hope you guys find this interesting!
