By David Andreatta

Dec. 29, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ET

 

It was after midnight in the middle of a November week, and Neil Lodin, the founder of MYHockey Rankings, was hunched over a computer in his sparsely furnished home office, feeding the beast.

 

The results of more than 10,000 youth hockey games had come in over the weekend and awaited approval. Lodin needed to delete duplicates, resolve complaints and watch for statistical anomalies. Most of all, he had to rank teams.