BROTHER TO BROTHER
When Kenny Matheson calls, Mike listens
Early in his career, Mike Matheson didn’t pay much attention to analytics.
That changed in 2018, when some dude from Sportlogiq, an analytics company that has relationships with NHL teams, started texting him random stats.
That dude was his big bro, Kenny, a media content analyst for Sportlogiq.
“He’ll be like, ‘I saw that you were at the top of the league for this.,’” Mike said. “I don’t know if he does it on purpose. But I’ll be coming off a bad game or I’m not happy and feeling like my confidence isn’t where it should be, and he’ll send me something like that. It helps for sure.”
While he still trusts his instincts more than analytics while on the ice, especially in the middle of what is arguably the best season of his NHL career, he keeps an open mind.
It helps that Kenny is one of the smartest players he has ever skated with.
Mike, Kenny and older sister Kelly spent countless hours chasing around a puck or ball when they were kids. Their father, Rod, played some junior hockey and had them hooked at a young age. In the winter, they had a backyard rink at their home in the suburbs of Montreal. They hit the street in the summertime.
“The rule was always that we had to come in once the streetlights came on. We never followed that rule, though,” Kenny said with a laugh. “My mom would always come out there and yell at us to get back inside and get our homework done.”
It was pretty clear right away that Mike was exceptional for his age. But Kenny was a fine player in his own right. Mike remembers a savvy center who was responsible defensively, dynamite in the faceoff circle and one heck of a passer.
“He understood the game really well. And that’s why I think he’s having such great success with what he’s doing now,” Mike said. “Because he’s able to take analytics, a lot of which can get lost on some people, and he does a good job of understanding what that means in the game of hockey and how it can be applied.”
The Matheson brothers, who are two-plus years apart in age, were teammates for one season in the United States Hockey League. Kenny assisted on Mike’s first goal. Mike, chuckling, said Kenny tackled him after the puck crossed the line.
Mike continued his rise to Boston College, then the Florida Panthers. Meanwhile, Kenny skated at Hamilton College then spent two years in Germany.
During his final season in Europe, which he likened to a college kid getting to spend a semester abroad, Kenny suffered his third separated shoulder in as many seasons. He concluded then it was about time to find “a real job.”
Kenny still loved hockey. So he worked the phones, reaching out to as many people as he knew in the game. One was Craig Button, the former NHL general manager who now works for TSN. Button pointed him toward Sportlogiq’s Mike Kelly. And after Kenny and Kelly met up, they settled on a role for him there.
Since 2018, Kenny has worked with broadcast partners such as “Hockey Night in Canada” and print outlets such as the Post-Gazette to provide statistics that fit their story ideas or inspire new ones.
That role is right up his alley. Not only does he have experience as a player, but he also has a math degree from Hamilton. Plus, their dad is an accountant. Mike feels that for Kenny it is the perfect combination of passion and expertise.
“Everyone loves the hometown boy coming back and stories like that,” Kenny said in agreement. “But to be able to give a detailed approach to the actual games, who you are playing and how to attack that team, that really fascinates me.”
To be clear, Kenny does not do any of the charting for Sportlogiq. If he did, he joked, he would pump up his brother’s numbers to “make him look way better.”
As far as analytics, both Mike and Kenny say they are just one piece of the puzzle in player development and evaluation. But Kenny has Mike’s eyes open.
“I think there’s a lot of value in figuring out trends,” Mike said. “It gives you the ability as a player and as a team to just pinpoint where things are going well and where they might not be going well and why those things might be happening.”