When it comes to ranking sports teams,  rankings formulas fall somewhere on a broad spectrum of complication.  It can be as simple as assigning point values to wins and losses and ranking teams on total points, or it can be a convoluted mess of spreadsheets and wizardry.  The INHockey.net rankings formula from last season fell closer to the simpler side of the spectrum - points for wins and losses, a weighted ranking for goal differential, and depending on the team, a subjective modifier for schedule difficulty.  That was great for our first foray into state team rankings, but now it's time to get serious. 

So what's changed?  

For starters, we're taking the subjective modifier for schedule strength and throwing it out the window.  This year, we've added an objective RPI (ratings percentage index) into the calculation.  The RPI takes winning percentage, opponents winning percentage, and opponent's opponent's winning percentage into it's calculation.  

Wins and losses are still factored in, but the RPI will help off set disparities created by differences in game volume.  Meaning if Team A plays 100 games and Team B only plays 60, Team A would likely have more wins and even if they aren't the best team, Team A would then have more points on a simple points for wins/losses calculation.  But adding in the RPI helps to equalize the teams and assigns a "quality score" to those wins.