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Getting Started with fastRhockey

Ben Howell, Saiem Gilani

Source: vignettes/introduction.Rmd
introduction.Rmd

fastRhockey is an R package for accessing hockey data from the PWHL (Professional Women’s Hockey League) and NHL (National Hockey League) via public web APIs. It provides structured data frames of play-by-play, schedule, standings, roster, draft, player stats, and team data. The package also includes integrated expected goals (xG) models for NHL data.

Part of the SportsDataverse family of R/Python packages for sports analytics.

Installation

You can install the CRAN version of fastRhockey with:

install.packages("fastRhockey")

You can install the development version from GitHub with:

if (!requireNamespace('pak', quietly = TRUE)){
  install.packages('pak')
}
pak::pak("sportsdataverse/fastRhockey")

PWHL Data

The PWHL (Professional Women’s Hockey League) launched in January 2024 with six teams: Boston, Minnesota, Montreal, New York, Ottawa, and Toronto. fastRhockey provides full access to PWHL schedules, standings, play-by-play, player box scores, team rosters, and stat leaders.

Teams

Schedule

Let’s pull the 2024 PWHL season schedule:

schedule <- pwhl_schedule(season = 2024)

schedule %>%
  dplyr::filter(game_status == "Final") %>%
  dplyr::select(game_id, game_date, home_team, away_team,
                home_score, away_score, winner, venue) %>%
  head(10)

The schedule returns game IDs, dates, teams, scores, and venue information for every game in the season.

Standings 

pwhl_standings(season = 2024) %>%
  dplyr::select(team_rank, team, games_played, points,
                wins, losses, goals_for, goals_against)

Player Box Scores

Pick a game from the schedule and pull individual player stats. pwhl_player_box() returns a list with two data frames: skaters and goalies.

box <- pwhl_player_box(game_id = 27)

# Skater stats
box[[1]] %>%
  dplyr::select(first_name, last_name, position, team_id,
                goals, assists, points, shots, toi) %>%
  dplyr::arrange(dplyr::desc(points)) %>%
  head(10)

# Goalie stats
box[[2]] %>%
  dplyr::select(first_name, last_name, team_id,
                saves, goals_against, shots_against, toi)

Play-by-Play

The real power of fastRhockey is in the play-by-play data. pwhl_pbp() returns detailed event-level data including shot locations, faceoff results, penalties, goals with assist information, and plus/minus player tracking.

pbp <- pwhl_pbp(game_id = 27)

pbp %>%
  dplyr::select(event, team_id, period_of_game, time_of_period,
                player_name_first, player_name_last,
                x_coord, y_coord) %>%
  head(15)

The play-by-play data includes 90+ columns with event details, player information, coordinates (raw and transformed), and game context.

Stat Leaders

Pull league-wide goalie or skater stats:

# Goalie stats
pwhl_stats(position = "goalie", season = 2024) %>%
  dplyr::select(player_name, team, games_played,
                goals_against_avg, save_percentage, shutouts) %>%
  head(10)
# Skater stats (all teams)
pwhl_stats(position = "skater", season = 2024) %>%
  dplyr::select(player_name, team, games_played,
                goals, assists, points) %>%
  head(10)

NHL Data

fastRhockey also provides extensive access to NHL data via the api-web.nhle.com and api.nhle.com/stats APIs.

Schedule 

nhl_schedule(season = "20242025") %>%
  head(10)

Standings 

nhl_standings(season = "20242025") %>%
  head(10)

Game Feed and Play-by-Play

The nhl_game_feed() function returns detailed game data including play-by-play, rosters, and game information. nhl_game_pbp() provides play-by-play with shift data integrated.

feed <- nhl_game_feed(game_id = 2024020001)

dplyr::glimpse(feed)

Player Stats 

# Skater season stats
nhl_stats_skaters(season = "20242025") %>%
  head(10)

Draft Data 

# Get 2024 draft picks (round 1)
nhl_draft_year(year = 2024, round = 1)

Full Season Loaders

For bulk historical data, use the loader functions that pull from the fastRhockey-data repository:

# Full season of play-by-play
pbp <- load_nhl_pbp(seasons = 2024)

# Full season schedule
sched <- load_nhl_schedule(seasons = 2024)

# Full season rosters
rosters <- load_nhl_rosters(seasons = 2024)

Deprecated PHF Functions

The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), formerly the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL), ceased operations prior to the formation of the PWHL. All phf_* functions are deprecated as of v1.0.0 and will raise errors when called. Use the pwhl_* functions instead for women’s professional hockey data.

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Citations

To cite the fastRhockey R package in publications, use:

BibTex Citation

@misc{howell_gilani_fastRhockey,
  author = {Ben Howell and Saiem Gilani},
  title = {fastRhockey: Functions to Access Professional Women's Hockey League and National Hockey League Play by Play Data.},
  url = {https://fastRhockey.sportsdataverse.org/},
  doi = {10.32614/CRAN.package.fastRhockey},
  year = {2025}
}