The document discusses how various aspects of the Boston Bruins hockey team relate to mathematical concepts. It examines the roster positions of Bruins players as fractions of the total team. It also looks at statistics like goalies' save percentages and uses measurements to calculate lengths. Graphs and charts are used to represent numerical hockey data like goals scored and penalty minutes. Geometry concepts like angles, radii, and areas are considered in the context of the ice rink dimensions and plays.

1. By: Melissa Coughlin

2. The sport of hockey has a lot of
connections to mathematics. For this project
I decided to focus on my favorite team, the
Boston Bruins. Four of the NCTM Standards:
number and operations, measurement, data
analysis and probability, and geometry can
be studied by examining aspects of the
Bruins and the game they play.

3.  The Bruins have 24 players on their roster
 14 of these players are forwards, 8 are
defensemen, and 2 are goalies.
 Represented as fractions this means:
▪ 14/24 or 7/12 of the team plays forward
▪ 8/24 or 4/12 or 1/3 of the team plays defense
▪ and 2/24 or 1/12 of the team plays goal
 7/12 + 4/12 + 1/12 = 12/12 or
one whole team!

4.  The TD Banknorth Garden, the home of the Boston
Bruins, can seat 17,565 fans for a hockey game. That
means every student at St. Mike’s could fit in the arena,
nine times over!
 The decimal equivalent of 17,656 thousands is 1.7565
ten thousandths.

5.  A goalie’s save percentage is a statistic that expresses
a goalie’s success based on the number of shots he
faces.
 Tim Thomas’s current SV% for the 2011-2012 season is
.931 and Tuukka Rask’s is .906
 This means that written as a percentage Tim Thomas
has saved 93.1% of the shots he has faced and Tuukka
Rask has saved 90.6% of the shots he has faced.

6.  In hockey, the length of a player’s stick depends on
the height of the player.
 Zdeno Chara, the captain of the Boston Bruins is the
tallest player in the NHL at 6’9’’ tall and uses a stick
that is 65 inches long.
 There are 12 inches in a foot and 2.54 centimeters in
an inch
 Therefore, the length of
Chara’s stick is 65 inches,
165.1 centimeters, or 5
feet and five inches long
(taller than me!) 5’5’’

7. The Mathematics of an Ice Surface

8.  To find the approximate area of the ice
surface that the Boston Bruins play on use
the formula for finding the area of a rectangle
 Area of a rectangle = length x width
 The length of the ice surface is 200 feet and
the width is 85 feet
 200 feet x 85 feet = 17,000 square feet
 The Bruins have approximately 17,000 square
feet of ice to skate on

9.  Angles are very important in hockey, the
boards are used as if they are another player
on the ice.
 Use of angles video
 Lucic passes the puck to Chara off the boards
at an angle

10.  An ice surface has five faceoff circles, one at
center ice and two in each zone.
 All of the faceoff circles have a radius of 15
feet, meaning that they are congruent.
15 feet

11.  The Boston Bruins of
2010-2011 won the
Stanley Cup
 The base of the Cup
is a cylinder
 A cylinder is defined as
having straight parallel
Lines and a circular or
oval section

12. “Attack the triangle”
Defenseman Joe Corvo’s stick forms a triangle with the ice and his
body. Clarke MacArthur of the Toronto Maple Leafs is attacking
this triangle in an attempt to knock Corvo off the puck.

13. 8
G 7
Opponent
o 6
San Jose
a 5
l 4 Montreal
s Montreal2
3
Ottowa
F 2
o 1 Toronto
r 0
A bar graph can be used to display the number
of goals the Bruins scored in each of their last
five games this season. Bar graphs are great for
showing chronological data.

14. Forward Goals Scored this Season
Seguin 7 Using this data set
Lucic 6 for the number of
Bergeron 7 goals each forward
Kelly 3 on the Bruins has
Peverley 3 scored this season
Marchand 2 the median number
Horton 2 of goals can be
Krejci 2 found. The median is
Thornton 0 the value lying at the
Campbell 1
midpoint of a set of
Paille 2
numbers. In this
Pouliot 0
case, the median is 2
Caron 0
goals.

15. Penality Minutes This pie chart represents
the penalty minutes for
Seguin each player on the Bruins so
Lucic far this season.
Bergeron
Chara
Kelly
The advantages of pie
Peverley charts are that they visually
Marchand show the parts (each
Ference player’s penalty minutes) of
Horton
a whole (total penalty
Krejci
Corvo
minutes).
Boychuk
Thornton The disadvantages are that
Seidenberg they can be visually
Campbell
overwhelming and
McQuaid
Pouliot
confusing to look at when
Caron they are used to represent a
large amount of
information.