CapGeek was an essential tool for hockey followers. Created by Matthew Wuest, it was a website dedicated to tracking the status NHL teams’ salary caps, player contracts, and free agents. Prior to starting CapGeek, Wuest was a freelance hockey writer. Through numerous channels and sources, Wuest was able to collect extensive data in order to create a database of NHL salaries. Along with the database, Wuest also created a “cap calculator.” Due to CapGeeks success, NHLSCAP.com discontinued their NHL salary cap work and supported Wuest. NHL Numbers also changed gears, becoming an analytics site and a part of The Nation Network. Until January 3, 2015, CapGeek was the go to source for everything NHL cap-related.
“Effective immediately, Jan. 3, 2015, CapGeek.com has permanently ceased operations. This sudden decision is made with a heavy heart and is due to the personal health of CapGeek.com founder and director Matthew Wuest. While this decision may raise many questions, it is requested that you respect Matthew’s privacy and wish for no media or purchase inquiries. Thank you for your co-operation and understanding at this difficult time.”
Two months after CapGeek’s announcement, founder Matthew Wuest passed away from colon cancer. Wuest was thirty-five years old.
Although Wuest kept a very low profile while administering CapGeek–even those who went to Wuest for insights may not have known his identity because the email address was simply admin@capgeek.com–the loss was mourned throughout the hockey community.
The senior managing editor for hockey at TSN, Steve Dryden explained Wuest’s influence on the hockey world by inventing CapGeek: “what made Matthew special was that he created something… He didn’t make something better, he didn’t fine-tune something. He created something. And it became the ultimate tool — and not just for people in our business, but fans.”
Shortly after the loss of CapGeek and Matthew Wuest, many wondered whether the NHL which had recently dove into analytics and advanced statistics, would create a salary tracking database.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s response to this idea was that there was not a high enough demand for this type of information. Bettman spoke to the media between periods of a Boston Bruins’ game at TD Garden about this idea: “we hear from the fans on a regular basis and we hear on lots and lots of issues. We’re not getting a lot of feedback on [a Capgeek-style site]. It’s not something that seems to be driving fan interest as much as perhaps the interest of the people [in the media].” Bettman added, “the tools that we have for internal business use are different, but everything we do internally for business purposes doesn’t necessarily need to be made public and be the object of discussion.”
Since the NHL clearly is disinterested in distributing information regarding salary caps, other websites decided to take it upon themselves to recreate Wuest’s CapGeek.
If you are looking for post-Capgeek alternatives, two options (there may be others): http://t.co/Z373ZPs4up or http://t.co/wpXZ3U8lIJ.
— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) May 29, 2015
Here are a couple more: http://t.co/ATuoHfiHKT and http://t.co/42wkqg8L5S
— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) May 29, 2015
General Fanager is one website looking to fill the gap left in the market by CapGeek; much of the data available on this database is from CapGeek archives. The Founder of General Fanager, Tomasz Poraszka, told Puck Daddy about the content on his website: “for launch, I considered player contract information and consolidated team pages as the essentials. This is the information that most fans use most of the time, and without CapGeek, it was very much missed. We feel there are a number of additional tools (calculators, a team manager that allows you to update a team and see the effects on the cap, etc) are all essential to us as well. We feel the product won’t be complete without these features, but wanted to get the site out there as we knew there was an appetite for what we already had completed.”
Eventually, General Fanager plans to offer a feature similar to CapGeek’s “Armchair GM” that gives fans the ability to customize a roster based on a team’s cap positioning. Poraszka is also looking to include a Buyout Calculator.
NHL analytics mecca WAR On Ice also created their own salary cap database. Initially, WAR On Ice did not intend to fill the market vacancy left by CapGeek, but many of the same sources that Matthew Wuest used looked to the analytics site to continue his work. Along with the basic database (which dates back to the 2009-10 season), the website recreated the buyout and cap recapture tool.
WAR On Ice acknowledged that significant work still has to be done to truly fill the void left by CapGeek in their “Recapped, geek” blog post: “we and our (friendly) competitors surely have a ways to go before the functionality of CapGeek is once again matched; Matthew Wuest put over five years of work into it, after all.” But WAR On Ice did recognize the potential all these alternatives have to grow: “a gap in the market leads to fresher and better alternatives to come from those who would not have acted given the dominance of the one, so we’re expecting greater work from ourselves and others in following Matthew’s lead.”
CapGeek was truly cherished by the hockey community and has been sorely missed. All of these alternatives look to give fans information that was not available since the passing of Matthew Wuest. Although NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman denied the demand, fans and media alike have displayed their appetite for the abundance of salary cap information that CapGeek provided. As General Fanager’s Tomasz Poraszka told Sportsnet: “the most important thing isn’t being the No. 1 provider of the information; it’s important that the information is available to users easily in a way they enjoy it.”