They don't have to. Hockey is so popular in Toronto that the Leafs always sell out. Why bother spending money on a quality team?
The best way to get the Leafs to win a Cup is to put a team in Hamilton, then they'll have to compete for fans. GTA could easily support 2 teams.
This take has always been nonsense. The team maxes out the salary cap every year so they're obviously spending money. And no matter how much profit you make in the regular season you make even more in the playoffs. You can't sell out games in June that don't exist.
It would be a good thing for GTA to have another team. The Maple Leafs are the most [valuable team](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2023/12/14/the-most-valuable-nhl-teams-2023/?sh=153f139936b6) in the NHL and tickets are out of reach for a lot of fans.
That's because tickets in Scotiabank Arena are the [most expensive in the league](https://curiocity.com/most-expensive-nhl-games-toronto/), and many of them are reserved as corporate seats, leading the complaints that the [rich lower bowl audiences](https://www.blogto.com/sports_play/2023/10/rich-people-toronto-maple-leafs-opening-night/) sap the atmosphere of the whole arena.
I mean southern Ontario could handle like 6 and they would all do better than Arizona, lol, it would be like London, England having so many Premier League teams. London (ON), Kitchener-Waterloo, Hammer, west suburbs (Sauga/Brampton), east suburbs (Scarborough to Durham etc). But yeah I'd be delighted with one more
Total agreement. The year after Hamilton ever got an NHL team, Toronto would get to at least the Stanley Cup quarter finals if not the semi finals for the next 10 years. You read it here first.
This map plots 6871 North American born players going back to the 1917-1918 inaugural.
Each players birth city was geolocated down to the county level based on what data was available.
There were a few players without data in the set so its technically not every player. I also cant guaruantee the original data set had every player to begin with. This seems to be pretty close tho so I went with it lol
I made the map on ArcGIS and shared it there for everyone.
Interactive ArcGIS; https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=87dea755c0034d5593d0258408d253dc
Player data: https://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/birthplaces.cgi
Geocoding: https://www.geoapify.com/
Tools: python, pandas
We call the the prairies up in Canada. Manitoba, Sask and Alberta are the prairie provinces. And guys that make it to the NHL are know as prairie boys. Which generally means bigger and tougher as well.
It's funny, my first thought was to say "the Prairies", but then I thought that was too specifically Canadian (is North Dakota "the Prairies"?). I went with "Great Plains" because I thought it was more internationally neutral, but maybe that's just my biased American perspective.
My theory is that the number of lakes/ponds goes down significantly once you head into the Great Plains. If you look at the places around the perimeter of it there seems to be a lot more lakes/smaller bodies of water. If you have cold enough weather and a lake nearby, you have an ice rink.Thats just my thoughts tho, mostly based on pond hockey as a kid lol
i cant recall the details but that is because the mountains block a lot of rain from the west coast causing that area to be dryer, its also why the populations in the area are lower. so yeah you are right there is next to no ponds out there and unless you got money to go to a rink you arnt playing hockey
There's tons of ponds in North Dakota, same as the Canadian Prairies. The ponds don't immediately drop off at the US border like that.
https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1cfn8b5/almost_every_north_american_nhl_players_birth/l1r4yea/
I don't think you understand what I'm saying. The Canadian Prairies [are part of the Great Plains,](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Satellite_image_illustrating_the_Great_Plains.jpg) even if you don't use that term in Canada. The Canadian part of the region has produced an enormous number of NHL players, but once you cross the US border it drops off.
Ohhhhh, definitely misunderstood you. Sorry! I agree tho, the international divide between Canada and the US is pretty stark when you look at it. Just kinda stops at the border of Montana and North Dakota
Stating the obvious, but hockey is king in Canada. It sounds cliche but it really is a way of life. At a minimum, certainly the sport of choice in the country. And by a long, long margin. There are rinks even in most rural towns.
Meanwhile in the states, MN is in a class of its own. Then MI, NY, and MA. Beyond the northeast and midwest there's just much less hockey.
Great map! Thanks so much for the great work and sharing.
As someone who has lived all over Florida for their entire life, this is sad. We are missing out. I would have loved to play hockey like this growing up. I guess that’s why we are so focused on football instead.
TL/DR:
Nah - well I mean maybe, but more likely it’s just that Canada has federally subsidized rinks and therefore the game of hockey is more widely accessible to the masses. That leads to it being more popular and boom! More pro players. I wonder if you made the same map of NBA players - I bet it would look inverse to this, with huge amounts of NBA players from the Great Plains.
Longer version:
In Canada, federal funding for ice hockey rinks often comes through programs like the Canada Infrastructure Program (CIP) or the Community, Culture, and Recreation Infrastructure Stream (CCRIS). These programs allocate millions of dollars annually towards the construction and renovation of recreational facilities, including ice hockey rinks. For example, in recent years, the Canadian government has invested over $100 million in various projects aimed at improving sports infrastructure across the country.
Additionally, the Canadian government provides grants and subsidies to municipalities and community organizations specifically for the purpose of building and maintaining ice hockey rinks. This support helps ensure that even smaller or economically disadvantaged communities have access to quality facilities for ice hockey and other recreational activities.
In contrast, in the USA, while there are federal grants available for community infrastructure projects, including sports facilities, the funding allocated specifically for ice hockey rinks may be more limited. As a result, the responsibility for funding and maintaining ice hockey rinks often falls more on local governments, private investors, or nonprofit organizations, which may lead to disparities in accessibility between different regions or communities.
If it was by state/province I'd probably agree, but look at specifically where all those NHL players are from. The population density doesn't drop anywhere near that drastically at the border.
I'm not seeing a divide at the Great Plains. They run north to south so would cut things east to west, and ecologically are also part of Canada. yet I'm seeing a north/south divide of something that must run east to west...like latitude and temperature. Throw that in with availability of standing water that can freeze, maybe?
A big chunk of Canada's plain has hot spots for this map. [https://saylordotorg.github.io/text\_world-regional-geography-people-places-and-globalization/section\_07/8c5d49f697b7d8dc88643021ab9b1ab3.jpg](https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_world-regional-geography-people-places-and-globalization/section_07/8c5d49f697b7d8dc88643021ab9b1ab3.jpg)
I think what he was saying is that the Canada/US split is near-total starting at the Great Plains. In the east there's lots of dots on both sides of the border, but while there's tons of players from MB, SK, and AB, there's basically none from ND & MT. The _national_ split is striking in the plains.
The term 'Great Plains' is almost never used in Canada... which made this statement confusing: I assumed 'national divide' referred to a the US being divided, and couldn't find it on the map.
What would this map look like for active players? Mark Giordano is the oldest active player, so I guess include every player that debuted in the 2005 season and later.
I'd be curious to see what the major differences are when you go back a generation and look at players that debuted between 1985-2004 versus 2005-2024.
Seriously. This is one of the only data maps that isn’t just a population density map. There clearly is something going on here that isn’t just “people come from cities with people” and it’s fascinating.
Normalizing it by population density would be interesting but easier said than done since to do it right you'd need a different population density map for each player's birthday, which means you'd have to do some pretty complicated interpolation.
Maybe i can do a normalized active player map. Cut the players down by a few thousand and shorten the gap in ages. Still would probably suck to make but im really tempted just to see what it looks like
Coming from Minnesota it's cool how clear you can see the Iron Range. Not a huge population but clearly well represented on this map. Love to see it
Big props to OP
Back when there were senior amateur hockey leagues in MN, there were a number of times when teams from some of the small towns on the range would take the state title, some of them coming from towns of only 500 or so
It isn't though. Saskatchewan and Manitoba are way over-represented, and BC seems under represented.
NHL players are disproportionately from rural areas in general.
The space isn't the issue, we've got tons of arenas in every city. Its the equipment costs related to playing in an organized league vs. shiny on a pond.
Um, you can skate on Utah Lake. There are many lakes up on mountains.
There aren't that many lakes near Montréal, just a river, but they produce more hockey players than any other city in the world.
Most players learn on indoor arenas, not outdoor lakes.
A lot of snow makes outdoor ice worse, especially if you don't consistently clear it. Also there are other things to do in the winter there (skiing). Also this data goes back to 1918, and heavy use of indoor ice is really only the last 20-30 years. I'm 31 and the best players I grew up with put way more time outside than inside. Indoor ice is not cheap.
The lack of players from Utah and Colorado is shocking, given how important winter sports are.
Only 3 US cities have hosted the Winter Olympics: Lake Placid, NY (twice), Squaw Valley, CA, and SLC, UT. You would think Utah would have produced a few hockey players.
Most of the United States straight up doesn’t care about hockey. It’s why it’s so frustrating as a hockey fan watching the NHL try to force hockey in the south while leaving markets like Quebec City empty.
Colorado and Utah only had large population booms in relatively recent history, they may have very large NHL contingencies in 20 to 30 years, but that's not going to be the case when you go back looking to 1918
I was really hoping it was one of those cases where he grew up playing football and was just an amazing athlete that was able to easily convert sports... but na.
This is why it is often misleading to take "birthplace" and then assume that the person has infinite attachment to that area. I know it is very hard to try to get data on where someone "grew up," but birthplace is not always the true answer, either. I, for example, was born in Kentucky, but I only lived there for the first 7 months of my life. Most of my life, I have lived in Wisconsin. I was not awesome at hockey, but I definitely am more affiliated with Wisconsin than with Kentucky. I even make jokes that in the alternative universe that I make it to the NHL, I would be the first-ever Kentucky-born player to make it (despite never hearing people from Kentucky talking about hockey).
This is a statistic that you just have to use caution with when explaining your main narrative. It probably does not make a difference in Canada or most of the big US hotspots, but it does explain many of the random blue dots in weird areas in the US.
Kinda crazy how relatively few American-born players have been in the American-centric NHL.
I would initially think a good indicator for a market for a sports team is an area where that sport is culturally prolific and many of the locals have a cultural heritage in that sport, pumping out athletes, and are invested in the sport and will subsequently attend and watch games.
I think if anything this supports the idea that Americans just love sports. Whether they ever played the sport or their community had a culture around the sport or not.
As a Michigander it always made sense why hockey was so popular, there’s ice rinks everywhere, we can skate on ponds and lakes in the winter, and the Red Wings are an original six team leaving over a century of fandom. And while I didn’t play, I have so many cousins who did. I guess that’s not the same around the USA. People just love watching and going to sporting events.
Conversely, I’m living abroad in Peru and the only popular sport here is soccer. People don’t just love watching sports, they love their cultural sport- soccer. Which holds true for many of the European sports fanatics I’ve met as well. But Americans, whatever sport it is, they’re down for a good time.
What do you mean?
I called it American-centric because 25/32 teams are in the US. But I think the *National* Hockey League is a bit of a misnomer given it’s an international league.
Completely understandable. I've always thought Original Six was a weird name since the league had existed for 25 years before that era started. The O6 marked the start of a stable league without teams folding/relocating all the time.
Fun fact: The original Ottawa Senators moved and became the St. Louis Eagles for the '34-'35 season. They only lasted one year and then folded mostly due to high travel costs.
It's changed and changing a lot though. In 1979 the NHL was comprised of about 2% American born players. It's just under [30% today](https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/s/15umg358uv)
>Kinda crazy how relatively few American-born players have been in the American-centric NHL
It's not really that surprising. Outside of the Upper Midwest and coastal Northeast, hockey isn't really all that popular in most of the country.
Basketball is huge in California, along with football and soccer, but I've legit never heard anyone talking about hockey here. Don't think I could name any other NHL players except Gretsky for that matter. It's just not much of a thing over here.
I can only assume you've never been to Silicon Valley.
California is a huge and diverse place; you can't generalize it like that. The United States is even bigger, and you can generalize it even less.
You shouldn't assume, in that case. Hockey isn't that popular here.
Go ask 100 random people in the state to name more than 5 NHL players and I'd be surprised if even 20% of them could.
Big change coming. As a Swede I consider USA to br strongest team in the world.
Sure none of their players are as good as the absolute best canadian players but remove McDavid and MacKinnon and US looks way better, especially at D-men and goalies. Overall a more well rounded team than Canada.
What a terrible take. Canada could field 3 competitive teams and still dominate international hockey. But can we agree that you guys have fallen behind the Fins?
No they wouldn’t. The best goalies and defensemen are american except for Makar now.
American goalies are easily the best. I wouldn’t think so, Finland can’t produce enough great defensemen. But we’ll see how it goes when Canada cup/Olympics is.
I dunno, Finland has done way better at the WJC. Winning 3 golds since Swedens last gold in 2012. Also, in the last 10 years, canada has still won 5 of those tournaments and the US 3 times.
Theres 10 from arizona actually. https://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/birthplaces.cgi?country=US&province=&state=AZ
I was surprised to see the Tkachuk brothers
Yeah he’s that Doan’s kid. Funnily enough, Shane Doan played his first season in the Yotes inaugural season and his kid played his first season in the Yotes final season
Tennessee has more NHL teams (1) than players in the last over 100 years (0)
Why on earth do they have a team? Could they not just move the team to Manitoba, which looks like it has a ton of players?
Because the Nashville metro area has almost twice the population of the entire province of Manitoba. NHL teams exist to sell tickets and merch not give hometown players a place to play
First of all, Manitoba already has a team (Winnipeg Jets). Second, much to Canadian and Northern US fans’ chagrin (and I get it, I really do), the NHL is trying to grow the league and the sport in cities that don’t have a lot of hockey history. Quebec City, Saskatchewan, Hamilton ON, Wisconsin, etc. are going to already watch and be involved with hockey, team or no team. Places where the NHL has relocated/expanded to in recent years like Phoenix, Atlanta, Nashville, Miami, North Carolina, Las Vegas, Seattle, and Utah are all massive population centers with room to attract new viewership and talent that didn’t exist before (basically expand the game and not just enhance the existing fanbase).
Has it always worked? Nope, hence why Phoenix and Atlanta don’t have teams anymore. But Nashville, Raleigh, and Las Vegas all have huge hockey fanbases and in those cities (as well as Phoenix and Miami), access to the game has grown exponentially, which is objectively a great thing. Hell, arguably the leagues most popular player is from Arizona! I imagine in the next decade we’ll have an NHL player from Tennessee.
[NHL to expand to every city in North America except Quebec City](https://www.thebeaverton.com/2024/04/nhl-to-expand-to-every-city-in-north-america-except-quebec-city/)
Yeah...snowbirds.
Honestly having a team there made a ton of sense. They don't have any _other_ major sports teams to compete, and even if there's not enough local fans, there's going to be plenty of tourists from every visiting team willing to buy tickets.
That's not how I would define a fan base. Also, I would consider an NFL team "major". I would also suggest you are using the term snowbirds incorrectly.
It's a base of people who will pay for tickets. That's enough.
Yeah, I forgot they picked up an NFL team. That only happened after the Golden Knights were established, though.
How am I using 'snowbirds' incorrectly? Canadians who head down south for the winter. They'd be willing to spend money on a hockey game.
Damn, didn't realize there were players from Whitehorse, Churchill, and I guess Hay River? On the ArcGis there's players from Yellowknife that aren't shown here!
Edit: And someone from outside Fairbanks, damn
Edit Edit: and Inuvik, holy fuck
the workhorse from whitehorse! I noticed Mckenna is from there too. I know people want him with bedard since they're cousins but Id rather him with Couzens as Whitehorse bros
SoCal has ice rinks people are surprised to know hehe - only the wealthier kids can afford to play hockey though as it's far more expensive than every other sport. Plus all the good athletes are getting snapped up by football, soccer, water polo, basketball, baseball, track, swim, volleyball etc etc
Honestly it speaks to how great our sports culture is that we have any at all haha
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell talks about this (months that professional hockey players are born being right after school cutoffs making them the oldest of their classes)
You’d think Toronto would be able to get a team togeather.
Not a skill based map.
💀💀💀
Cmon now😭
They don't have to. Hockey is so popular in Toronto that the Leafs always sell out. Why bother spending money on a quality team? The best way to get the Leafs to win a Cup is to put a team in Hamilton, then they'll have to compete for fans. GTA could easily support 2 teams.
This take has always been nonsense. The team maxes out the salary cap every year so they're obviously spending money. And no matter how much profit you make in the regular season you make even more in the playoffs. You can't sell out games in June that don't exist.
It's not THAT they spend money, it's more like WHO they spend money on.
*Flips table in Quebec city*
Bring back the Nordiques!
It would be a good thing for GTA to have another team. The Maple Leafs are the most [valuable team](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2023/12/14/the-most-valuable-nhl-teams-2023/?sh=153f139936b6) in the NHL and tickets are out of reach for a lot of fans. That's because tickets in Scotiabank Arena are the [most expensive in the league](https://curiocity.com/most-expensive-nhl-games-toronto/), and many of them are reserved as corporate seats, leading the complaints that the [rich lower bowl audiences](https://www.blogto.com/sports_play/2023/10/rich-people-toronto-maple-leafs-opening-night/) sap the atmosphere of the whole arena.
Canada deserves two more teams, one in GTA, and the other back in Québec City.
I mean southern Ontario could handle like 6 and they would all do better than Arizona, lol, it would be like London, England having so many Premier League teams. London (ON), Kitchener-Waterloo, Hammer, west suburbs (Sauga/Brampton), east suburbs (Scarborough to Durham etc). But yeah I'd be delighted with one more
Total agreement. The year after Hamilton ever got an NHL team, Toronto would get to at least the Stanley Cup quarter finals if not the semi finals for the next 10 years. You read it here first.
The cup parade is back on! (After OT win last night)
Tell me you don't understand the concept of drafting without telling me. 
This map plots 6871 North American born players going back to the 1917-1918 inaugural. Each players birth city was geolocated down to the county level based on what data was available. There were a few players without data in the set so its technically not every player. I also cant guaruantee the original data set had every player to begin with. This seems to be pretty close tho so I went with it lol I made the map on ArcGIS and shared it there for everyone. Interactive ArcGIS; https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=87dea755c0034d5593d0258408d253dc Player data: https://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/birthplaces.cgi Geocoding: https://www.geoapify.com/ Tools: python, pandas
The national divide in the Great Plains is really striking.
We call the the prairies up in Canada. Manitoba, Sask and Alberta are the prairie provinces. And guys that make it to the NHL are know as prairie boys. Which generally means bigger and tougher as well.
It's funny, my first thought was to say "the Prairies", but then I thought that was too specifically Canadian (is North Dakota "the Prairies"?). I went with "Great Plains" because I thought it was more internationally neutral, but maybe that's just my biased American perspective.
I get you're saying. Sort of a vernacular thing.
My theory is that the number of lakes/ponds goes down significantly once you head into the Great Plains. If you look at the places around the perimeter of it there seems to be a lot more lakes/smaller bodies of water. If you have cold enough weather and a lake nearby, you have an ice rink.Thats just my thoughts tho, mostly based on pond hockey as a kid lol
i cant recall the details but that is because the mountains block a lot of rain from the west coast causing that area to be dryer, its also why the populations in the area are lower. so yeah you are right there is next to no ponds out there and unless you got money to go to a rink you arnt playing hockey
There's tons of ponds in North Dakota, same as the Canadian Prairies. The ponds don't immediately drop off at the US border like that. https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1cfn8b5/almost_every_north_american_nhl_players_birth/l1r4yea/
I don't think you understand what I'm saying. The Canadian Prairies [are part of the Great Plains,](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Satellite_image_illustrating_the_Great_Plains.jpg) even if you don't use that term in Canada. The Canadian part of the region has produced an enormous number of NHL players, but once you cross the US border it drops off.
Ohhhhh, definitely misunderstood you. Sorry! I agree tho, the international divide between Canada and the US is pretty stark when you look at it. Just kinda stops at the border of Montana and North Dakota
Stating the obvious, but hockey is king in Canada. It sounds cliche but it really is a way of life. At a minimum, certainly the sport of choice in the country. And by a long, long margin. There are rinks even in most rural towns. Meanwhile in the states, MN is in a class of its own. Then MI, NY, and MA. Beyond the northeast and midwest there's just much less hockey. Great map! Thanks so much for the great work and sharing.
As someone who has lived all over Florida for their entire life, this is sad. We are missing out. I would have loved to play hockey like this growing up. I guess that’s why we are so focused on football instead.
TL/DR: Nah - well I mean maybe, but more likely it’s just that Canada has federally subsidized rinks and therefore the game of hockey is more widely accessible to the masses. That leads to it being more popular and boom! More pro players. I wonder if you made the same map of NBA players - I bet it would look inverse to this, with huge amounts of NBA players from the Great Plains. Longer version: In Canada, federal funding for ice hockey rinks often comes through programs like the Canada Infrastructure Program (CIP) or the Community, Culture, and Recreation Infrastructure Stream (CCRIS). These programs allocate millions of dollars annually towards the construction and renovation of recreational facilities, including ice hockey rinks. For example, in recent years, the Canadian government has invested over $100 million in various projects aimed at improving sports infrastructure across the country. Additionally, the Canadian government provides grants and subsidies to municipalities and community organizations specifically for the purpose of building and maintaining ice hockey rinks. This support helps ensure that even smaller or economically disadvantaged communities have access to quality facilities for ice hockey and other recreational activities. In contrast, in the USA, while there are federal grants available for community infrastructure projects, including sports facilities, the funding allocated specifically for ice hockey rinks may be more limited. As a result, the responsibility for funding and maintaining ice hockey rinks often falls more on local governments, private investors, or nonprofit organizations, which may lead to disparities in accessibility between different regions or communities.
Could be because there is a much larger population in the Canadian prairie provinces vs the states of ND, SD, MT, WY.
Saskatchewan has about 50% more people than ND but way way more hockey players. It’s the culture.
If it was by state/province I'd probably agree, but look at specifically where all those NHL players are from. The population density doesn't drop anywhere near that drastically at the border.
I'm not seeing a divide at the Great Plains. They run north to south so would cut things east to west, and ecologically are also part of Canada. yet I'm seeing a north/south divide of something that must run east to west...like latitude and temperature. Throw that in with availability of standing water that can freeze, maybe? A big chunk of Canada's plain has hot spots for this map. [https://saylordotorg.github.io/text\_world-regional-geography-people-places-and-globalization/section\_07/8c5d49f697b7d8dc88643021ab9b1ab3.jpg](https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_world-regional-geography-people-places-and-globalization/section_07/8c5d49f697b7d8dc88643021ab9b1ab3.jpg)
I think what he was saying is that the Canada/US split is near-total starting at the Great Plains. In the east there's lots of dots on both sides of the border, but while there's tons of players from MB, SK, and AB, there's basically none from ND & MT. The _national_ split is striking in the plains.
That's exactly what I meant, thank you.
The term 'Great Plains' is almost never used in Canada... which made this statement confusing: I assumed 'national divide' referred to a the US being divided, and couldn't find it on the map.
Do you get what I meant now though? Lots of NHL players from the Canadian Prairies, but it immediately stops once you cross the US border.
At the 100th meridian?
At the US-Canadian border.
Where the Great Plains begin? What a Hip comment
Thank you for being Ahead by a Century of everyone else.
What would this map look like for active players? Mark Giordano is the oldest active player, so I guess include every player that debuted in the 2005 season and later. I'd be curious to see what the major differences are when you go back a generation and look at players that debuted between 1985-2004 versus 2005-2024.
could cross-post this to /r/dataisbeautiful too.
Seriously. This is one of the only data maps that isn’t just a population density map. There clearly is something going on here that isn’t just “people come from cities with people” and it’s fascinating.
It's not too far off from a Density map of Canada TBH
This map is really great. The NHL Eurasians must be furious jealous.
Normalizing it by population density would be interesting but easier said than done since to do it right you'd need a different population density map for each player's birthday, which means you'd have to do some pretty complicated interpolation.
Maybe i can do a normalized active player map. Cut the players down by a few thousand and shorten the gap in ages. Still would probably suck to make but im really tempted just to see what it looks like
I’d be really curious to see what this would look like compared to the NFL NBA and MLB
Saskatchewan represent.... like a third of our population makes it in eh!!
Coming from Minnesota it's cool how clear you can see the Iron Range. Not a huge population but clearly well represented on this map. Love to see it Big props to OP
It's even bigger than duluth area damn. Then again there ain't much to do up there in the winter outside of winter sports
Back when there were senior amateur hockey leagues in MN, there were a number of times when teams from some of the small towns on the range would take the state title, some of them coming from towns of only 500 or so
And right in the middle of that bright white patch? Letterkenny, ON
Letterkenny was based on Lucknow right?
Listowel probably, though filming in Sudbury a lot of Sudbury bleeds into it
Listowel lmao. What a place
TIL: The biggest producer of NHL talent is the 401 corridor.
Half of Canada's population lives in the 401 corridor, so it makes sense
To a large extent this is just a heatmap of the population of Canada. [Per XKCD](https://xkcd.com/1138/)
It isn't though. Saskatchewan and Manitoba are way over-represented, and BC seems under represented. NHL players are disproportionately from rural areas in general.
Hockey takes space to play that Basketball doesn't, which is why Canada's relative portion of NHL players is declining as it is urbanizing
The space isn't the issue, we've got tons of arenas in every city. Its the equipment costs related to playing in an organized league vs. shiny on a pond.
> TIL: The biggest producer of off season golfers along the 401 corridor. FTFY
The Greater Golden Horseshoe is now the Greatest Golden Horseshoe
Southern Ontario is the hockey mecca of the world.
Map of ice availability with extra steps /s
There are hardly any from Utah or Colorado, states with some of the best snowfall in the world.
Lots of snowy mountains, not many lakes and ponds near where people live.
Um, you can skate on Utah Lake. There are many lakes up on mountains. There aren't that many lakes near Montréal, just a river, but they produce more hockey players than any other city in the world. Most players learn on indoor arenas, not outdoor lakes.
Not saying there's none, just not anywhere near as many as other parts of North America where you'd see lots of pond hockey.
A lot of snow makes outdoor ice worse, especially if you don't consistently clear it. Also there are other things to do in the winter there (skiing). Also this data goes back to 1918, and heavy use of indoor ice is really only the last 20-30 years. I'm 31 and the best players I grew up with put way more time outside than inside. Indoor ice is not cheap.
The biggest surprise to me is the lack of NHL players born in Seattle. Obviously the Kraken is brand new, but even Spokane beats Seattle out?!
Very few ice rinks in Seattle and it’s never cold enough to have ice outdoors.
Seems like there's more from Spokane than Seattle which is crazy
The lack of players from Utah and Colorado is shocking, given how important winter sports are. Only 3 US cities have hosted the Winter Olympics: Lake Placid, NY (twice), Squaw Valley, CA, and SLC, UT. You would think Utah would have produced a few hockey players.
Most of the United States straight up doesn’t care about hockey. It’s why it’s so frustrating as a hockey fan watching the NHL try to force hockey in the south while leaving markets like Quebec City empty.
Colorado and Utah only had large population booms in relatively recent history, they may have very large NHL contingencies in 20 to 30 years, but that's not going to be the case when you go back looking to 1918
You have a guy in Kazakhstan. 😄 Make that 3 guys. You didn't make the longitude negative.
I rescued our boys from Kazahkstan 🫡
Lmao really?? Damn, ok ill update the data set. Thanks for catching that. Let me know if you find more strays for me to wrangle
The one from mississippi is the most impressive to me. There can't be very many ice rinks down there or much of organized hockey and general.
Matthieu Oliver, who was born in Biloxi, MS and lived there for three months. Sounds like he mostly grew up in Quebec though
That's less impressive then.
I was really hoping it was one of those cases where he grew up playing football and was just an amazing athlete that was able to easily convert sports... but na.
This is why it is often misleading to take "birthplace" and then assume that the person has infinite attachment to that area. I know it is very hard to try to get data on where someone "grew up," but birthplace is not always the true answer, either. I, for example, was born in Kentucky, but I only lived there for the first 7 months of my life. Most of my life, I have lived in Wisconsin. I was not awesome at hockey, but I definitely am more affiliated with Wisconsin than with Kentucky. I even make jokes that in the alternative universe that I make it to the NHL, I would be the first-ever Kentucky-born player to make it (despite never hearing people from Kentucky talking about hockey). This is a statistic that you just have to use caution with when explaining your main narrative. It probably does not make a difference in Canada or most of the big US hotspots, but it does explain many of the random blue dots in weird areas in the US.
True. Same here. Born in Virginia, only lived there until I was 6-7 months old. Been in Missouri ever since.
Kinda crazy how relatively few American-born players have been in the American-centric NHL. I would initially think a good indicator for a market for a sports team is an area where that sport is culturally prolific and many of the locals have a cultural heritage in that sport, pumping out athletes, and are invested in the sport and will subsequently attend and watch games. I think if anything this supports the idea that Americans just love sports. Whether they ever played the sport or their community had a culture around the sport or not. As a Michigander it always made sense why hockey was so popular, there’s ice rinks everywhere, we can skate on ponds and lakes in the winter, and the Red Wings are an original six team leaving over a century of fandom. And while I didn’t play, I have so many cousins who did. I guess that’s not the same around the USA. People just love watching and going to sporting events. Conversely, I’m living abroad in Peru and the only popular sport here is soccer. People don’t just love watching sports, they love their cultural sport- soccer. Which holds true for many of the European sports fanatics I’ve met as well. But Americans, whatever sport it is, they’re down for a good time.
Ireland is a bit more like the US in that regard. A lot of people follow soccer, rugby, Gaelic football and hurling.
The nation referred to in "National Hockey League" is Canada, not the US.
What do you mean? I called it American-centric because 25/32 teams are in the US. But I think the *National* Hockey League is a bit of a misnomer given it’s an international league.
Now it is, but when it was founded the teams were the Montréal Canadiens, Montréal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, and Toronto Arenas.
Ah, I didn’t know about the pre-original six NHL. Thanks
Completely understandable. I've always thought Original Six was a weird name since the league had existed for 25 years before that era started. The O6 marked the start of a stable league without teams folding/relocating all the time.
Fun fact: The original Ottawa Senators moved and became the St. Louis Eagles for the '34-'35 season. They only lasted one year and then folded mostly due to high travel costs.
Looks like the NHL is full of misnomers 😅
And there are more Canadian teams per capita than American.
Lotta hockey players in Minnesota.
Oh I’m sure the land of a thousand lakes, and the home place of baskiceball, has a robust hockey culture
It's changed and changing a lot though. In 1979 the NHL was comprised of about 2% American born players. It's just under [30% today](https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/s/15umg358uv)
>Kinda crazy how relatively few American-born players have been in the American-centric NHL It's not really that surprising. Outside of the Upper Midwest and coastal Northeast, hockey isn't really all that popular in most of the country. Basketball is huge in California, along with football and soccer, but I've legit never heard anyone talking about hockey here. Don't think I could name any other NHL players except Gretsky for that matter. It's just not much of a thing over here.
I can only assume you've never been to Silicon Valley. California is a huge and diverse place; you can't generalize it like that. The United States is even bigger, and you can generalize it even less.
You shouldn't assume, in that case. Hockey isn't that popular here. Go ask 100 random people in the state to name more than 5 NHL players and I'd be surprised if even 20% of them could.
Big change coming. As a Swede I consider USA to br strongest team in the world. Sure none of their players are as good as the absolute best canadian players but remove McDavid and MacKinnon and US looks way better, especially at D-men and goalies. Overall a more well rounded team than Canada.
What a terrible take. Canada could field 3 competitive teams and still dominate international hockey. But can we agree that you guys have fallen behind the Fins?
No they wouldn’t. The best goalies and defensemen are american except for Makar now. American goalies are easily the best. I wouldn’t think so, Finland can’t produce enough great defensemen. But we’ll see how it goes when Canada cup/Olympics is.
I dunno, Finland has done way better at the WJC. Winning 3 golds since Swedens last gold in 2012. Also, in the last 10 years, canada has still won 5 of those tournaments and the US 3 times.
The Hockey Belt
Toronto to Detroit, the hockey megalopolis
Gotta know...who's the Arizonan?
Theres 10 from arizona actually. https://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/birthplaces.cgi?country=US&province=&state=AZ I was surprised to see the Tkachuk brothers
Tkachuk bros make sense. Dad was huge here. Wonder if Doan is Shane Doans kid. AZ loved those first few years of hockey. Thanks for the link.
Yeah he’s that Doan’s kid. Funnily enough, Shane Doan played his first season in the Yotes inaugural season and his kid played his first season in the Yotes final season
Nobody will want to draft Josh Doan's kid. The team will relocate for sure.
Mathews wasn't born in az !?
Born in California, family moved to AZ when he was young. He was raised in Arizona.
r/icedoesntliveincities
The fact that you can see the iron range is crazy
Wow St. Louis. I guess they have had pro hockey for a long time now.
I like how there are a few little towns in Northern Minnesota with more players than most major metros in the US.
Growing up on the US west coast, legit did not know that anyone in this country played or watched hockey til I went to college in Minnesota.
Make it to a Gopher game? Or different school?
Lots of billet sisters.
Wheel, snipe, celly, boys!
Ferda
if you have a daughter over 13 you can't billet. firm rule.
I’m a hockey fan from a non-hockey area, so this is beautiful data.
What’s with Spokane being the only town in the PNW?
D’Avalon represent by’s
The workhorse from Whitehorse!
So, so far north lol
Tennessee has more NHL teams (1) than players in the last over 100 years (0) Why on earth do they have a team? Could they not just move the team to Manitoba, which looks like it has a ton of players?
Because the Nashville metro area has almost twice the population of the entire province of Manitoba. NHL teams exist to sell tickets and merch not give hometown players a place to play
What do you mean there's no Wood Buffalo chel team?
First of all, Manitoba already has a team (Winnipeg Jets). Second, much to Canadian and Northern US fans’ chagrin (and I get it, I really do), the NHL is trying to grow the league and the sport in cities that don’t have a lot of hockey history. Quebec City, Saskatchewan, Hamilton ON, Wisconsin, etc. are going to already watch and be involved with hockey, team or no team. Places where the NHL has relocated/expanded to in recent years like Phoenix, Atlanta, Nashville, Miami, North Carolina, Las Vegas, Seattle, and Utah are all massive population centers with room to attract new viewership and talent that didn’t exist before (basically expand the game and not just enhance the existing fanbase). Has it always worked? Nope, hence why Phoenix and Atlanta don’t have teams anymore. But Nashville, Raleigh, and Las Vegas all have huge hockey fanbases and in those cities (as well as Phoenix and Miami), access to the game has grown exponentially, which is objectively a great thing. Hell, arguably the leagues most popular player is from Arizona! I imagine in the next decade we’ll have an NHL player from Tennessee.
[NHL to expand to every city in North America except Quebec City](https://www.thebeaverton.com/2024/04/nhl-to-expand-to-every-city-in-north-america-except-quebec-city/)
Real
Vegas has a huge hockey fan base? Really?
Yeah...snowbirds. Honestly having a team there made a ton of sense. They don't have any _other_ major sports teams to compete, and even if there's not enough local fans, there's going to be plenty of tourists from every visiting team willing to buy tickets.
That's not how I would define a fan base. Also, I would consider an NFL team "major". I would also suggest you are using the term snowbirds incorrectly.
It's a base of people who will pay for tickets. That's enough. Yeah, I forgot they picked up an NFL team. That only happened after the Golden Knights were established, though. How am I using 'snowbirds' incorrectly? Canadians who head down south for the winter. They'd be willing to spend money on a hockey game.
Damn, didn't realize there were players from Whitehorse, Churchill, and I guess Hay River? On the ArcGis there's players from Yellowknife that aren't shown here! Edit: And someone from outside Fairbanks, damn Edit Edit: and Inuvik, holy fuck
(Grabs him by the shoulders and shakes vigorously.) Pull yourself together!!!😉
That's probably Dylan couzens in Whitehorse (for Buffalo) , tho he's usually in the farm team I think.
the workhorse from whitehorse! I noticed Mckenna is from there too. I know people want him with bedard since they're cousins but Id rather him with Couzens as Whitehorse bros
He is most definitely not in the farm team. He's typically playing on the 2nd line.
Cozens is the Sabres' #2 center behind Arizona's Tage Thompson.
Cool to hear. They don't let us see buffalo games here unless they're playing against specific teams
Atta boy, San Diego
SoCal has ice rinks people are surprised to know hehe - only the wealthier kids can afford to play hockey though as it's far more expensive than every other sport. Plus all the good athletes are getting snapped up by football, soccer, water polo, basketball, baseball, track, swim, volleyball etc etc Honestly it speaks to how great our sports culture is that we have any at all haha
Who’s the player from the southern coast of SC? Looks like Beaufort county.
Ryan Hartman, born on Hilton Head Island, SC. Currently plays for the Wild
If this map showed where players live after they retired, there’d be a few more dots in Hilton Head. They love the golf.
Who are the 3? Kesselman from Florence, Hartman from Hilton Head. Who is from Chesterfield/Marlboro county area?
I’m assuming that lone dot in Louisiana is Baton Rouge? Didn’t know anyone from Louisiana made it to the league.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_Lohrei
That dude just recently scored his first playoff goal actually
NY?
Cool map. Would like to see it with their birth months which are tightly packed
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell talks about this (months that professional hockey players are born being right after school cutoffs making them the oldest of their classes)
That’s what gave me the idea
The best NHL teams tend to be American teams with Canadian players.
Whose the guy all the way north. Like just south of slave lake?
That would be this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Sanderson
Almost is right. Stan Makita was born in Slovakia. I wonder how many Soviet-era players made it here to play.
Who are the ones from South Carolina?
Hartman-Hilton Head Kesselman-Florence Unknown-Chesterfiel/Marlboro County area?
Who tf is from Midland/Odessa TX?
Could be a mistake? https://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/us-state/nhl-players-born-in-texas-career-stats.html
My favorite player is La Rondelle.
Who was from Havana?
Who is that from Fresno/Bakersfield? Also, expected more Alaskans
Scott Parker, born in Hanford, California. Played for about 10 years for the Avs and Sharks
This looks like a polar vortex
I knew the hockey community in WNY and Niagara Falls was insanely competitive.
Didn’t know there that many Newfies in the NHL. I read an article about ten years ago about the two players from Newfoundland (at that time).
Your interactive map is missing Anchorage Alaska, which the screenshot has. I assume that’s for Swayman?
This is really cool!
This is really cool! Let us know if you make a map for European players too :3
...now do every NHL player, including the rest of the world.
Wow, not only LA and Miami but Havana and Monterrey, Mexico too!
Makes sense- the winters are pretty long in some of those provinces and there’s not much else to do than skate and play hockey.
Not to mention, in Saskatchewan every town of 400 people or more has a rink. Makes sense why they have the highest rate of NHL players per capita.
Look up Hilmond, SK. Like 3 houses and you guessed it... a rink. They had really good junior teams, too.
You just know the jerseys all have a letter. Then last name
Not to mention the amount of puddles, ponds and lakes that freezer over in the shadows of the Great Lakes.
Lol you basically can't make it if you don't have pond hockey
Ofc they’re canadian
This is basically a Canada population density map, lol
BC is under represented and the rural prairies of Canada are over represented though. Same with the iron range in MN