ABSTRACT

Research question

The COVID-19 pandemic entailed a period where no spectators were allowed to attend arena events. This provided a unique opportunity to study how the non-presence of supportive home crowds affects home advantage in sports. In this paper, we examine if there is such a home advantage for ice hockey.

Research methods

Using data from four consecutive seasons of Norwegian ice hockey, we apply team-fixed and referee-fixed effects regression analysis to identify how the non-presence of home crowds affects two aspects of home advantage in ice hockey: goal scoring and number of suspensions.

Results

When matches are played in front of no home crowd, away teams score more goals to reduce the initial goal scoring difference in favor of home teams. When playing in front of no home crowd, home teams also get more suspensions causing more power plays for away teams to reduce the initial difference in number of suspensions favoring home teams. Finally, more suspensions for home teams are positively correlated with goal scoring for away teams. This suggests that the absence of home crowds also influences goal scoring indirectly for away teams, i.e. through more suspensions for home teams.

Implications

When two teams of equal performance-ability meet up, hockey team owners, coaches, people betting on hockey matches, and fans/spectators could all benefit from knowing that a roaring home crowd might be the critical issue that tips the scale in the home team’s favor.

中文翻译：

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没有人群，没有喧嚣，没有主场优势：来自冰球的证据

摘要

研究问题

COVID-19 大流行导致一段时期内不允许观众参加竞技场活动。这提供了一个独特的机会来研究缺乏支持的主场球迷如何影响体育运动中的主场优势。在本文中，我们研究了冰球运动是否存在这样的主场优势。

研究方法

利用挪威冰球连续四个赛季的数据，我们应用球队固定效应和裁判固定效应回归分析来确定主场观众缺席如何影响冰球主场优势的两个方面：进球得分和暂停次数。

结果

当比赛在没有主场观众的情况下进行时，客队进球更多，以减少最初的进球差距，有利于主队。当在没有主场观众的情况下比赛时，主队也会受到更多的禁赛，导致客队有更多的权力发挥，以减少有利于主队的停赛次数的最初差异。最后，主队停赛次数增多与客队进球数呈正相关。这表明主场球迷的缺席也会间接影响客队的进球得分，即通过主队更多的停赛来影响。

影响

当两支表现能力相当的球队相遇时，曲棍球队老板、教练、曲棍球比赛投注者以及球迷/观众都可以从知道咆哮的主场观众可能是决定主队比赛规模的关键问题中受益。青睐。