A Sport of Nations

One day, I found myself sitting in my house and randomly wondering – what would a map of the United States and Canada look like if you were to plot all the locations of hockey teams on it? The above photo was the result – as I examined six leagues.

The leagues I examined, for the record, were the NHL, AHL, OHL, WHL, QMJHL and ECHL.

The first thing you’ll notice when looking at the map – available in its full size here – is the wide distribution of some colors, where others are clearly clustered together. Each color is attached to a different league: yellow is QMJHL, while green is the WHL. Pink is the ECHL, red is the AHL, and purple is the OHL. Blue would be the NHL.

A specialized league such as the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League is, naturally, clustered in the Quebec region of Canada. Similarly, teams in the Western Hockey League are located in Manitoba and the western portion of Canada.

The Ontario Hockey League is where the borders start to blend; while the majority of teams are located in the province itself, there are several in the United States, including the Erie Otters. In addition, this league doesn’t cover a good portion of Ontario, including anything north of Sault Ste. Marie. There’s a similar pattern with the QMJHL – it doesn’t touch northern Quebec.

The American Hockey League is spread out moreso than those other leagues – though even looking at the list of teams, one can see the stretch isn’t too far. The National Hockey League and ECHL are two of the most spread out leagues on the map, even including a location all the way up in Alaska.

Yet despite all this – examining six different leagues! – you can see there are portions of the map that none of those leagues cover. Of course, that’s not to say hockey doesn’t exist there – just that none of these leagues live in those areas.