Rankings updated ahead of Regional Championships

The Gameplay Department has revised the rankings formula in order to provide a more accurate overview of how our league teams stack up against each other. The restructuring of rankings was led by the department’s Statistics Coordinator, Bryan Melchior.

For the 2019-2020 season and beyond, the Quidditch Canada Gameplay Department has implemented the Massey rating system for its League Level teams, originally developed for NCAA American College Football. It has been used by a variety of sports organizations to rank teams, and works to measure past performance rather than predicting future outcomes, as the previously implemented Elo Ranking System did. This formula determines the rating that each team should have based on their performance against other teams, and the performance of those teams against other teams they have played, and so on. This system can also be utilized to produce an offensive and defensive rating for each team, which is not used in Quidditch Canada’s ranking system but can be an interesting way to compare and contrast teams strengths.

The Massey rating system is based on the principle that for each game played, the difference in the ratings between the two teams should be equal to the point differential of the game. A summary of how the rankings work can be found in our Rankings Brief, and a more thorough explanation of the Ranking Algorithm can be found here.

As in the previous system, East versus West matches will not be considered different for the purpose of rankings. It should be noted that before the National Championship, stating that Team A from the West and Team B from the East are better or worse than one another is baseless. The two teams will not have played against each other nor played against any opponents in common meaning that the set of linear equations used by the Massey system to solve for the rankings of each region are completely separate. 

However, based on the performance of teams in each region, in terms of point differential, the system should be able to accurately rank the teams relative to each other for the purposes of placement for pool play in the national championship compared to the previous system used by Quidditch Canada

After each season concludes, each team’s ratings will reset until the first games for the next season are played.

Curious to see where teams stand now? Check out the rankings page for live updates throughout the season.

If you have any questions, concerns, or feedback on this new ranking system please send an email to gameplay@quidditchcanada.com