The Hockey Brain
AI & Claude5 min read

Using Claude to analyze your hockey data

How an LLM turns your data stack into a question-and-answer machine — safely.

Input

Your question

  • Plain language
  • "Who are our best PK forwards?"
Context

Schema + tools

  • Table definitions
  • SQL tool
  • MCP server
Reasoning

Claude

  • Plans the query
  • Calls the SQL tool
  • Reads results
Guardrail

Validation

  • Check the query
  • Sanity-check output
  • Human review
Output

Answer

  • Numbers + context
  • A shareable summary
How an LLM sits on top of your data stack to answer questions.

The 30-second version

  • The LLM does not replace your stack — it sits on top of your gold tables.
  • Give it tools (SQL, your schema) instead of pasting raw numbers into a chat.
  • Keep humans on framing and validation; let the model do retrieval and drafting.

Give the model tools, not a data dump

The biggest mistake is pasting rows of stats into a chat window. Instead, expose your gold tables through a tool (a SQL function or an MCP server) and share the schema. Now the model plans a query, runs it, and reads the real result — grounded in your data, not its imagination.

Let it plan, but keep a guardrail

Claude is strong at translating a plain-language question into a query and explaining the result. Wrap that with a guardrail step: log the generated SQL, sanity-check the numbers against a known total, and keep a human in the loop for anything that drives a real decision.

Turn repeated questions into skills

When the same question comes up weekly — opponent prep, a scouting profile, a post-game summary — capture it as a reusable "skill": a documented prompt plus the tools it needs. That is how a single analyst starts to feel like a department.

Build it yourself

  1. 1Expose your gold tables via a read-only SQL tool or MCP server.
  2. 2Paste your table schema into the system prompt so the model knows the shape.
  3. 3Ask a question and inspect the SQL it writes before trusting the answer.
  4. 4Save the working prompt + tool set as a named skill for next time.

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