Geoff Sanderson is from the NWT but obviously no longer a current player.
The only current professional from NWT (to my knowledge) is Adam Knopp (CHL) .. pretty tough to develop good talent when the entire province is smaller in pop. than Cornwall, ON ... but they do have the advantage of natural ice most of the year
I realise that it would be much more difficult to compile, but a map showing the players actual home towns would be much more interesting than one showing their birth places.
During season, it would be the city or the surroundings where they play.
Something I've wondered for a while, but couldn't verify until now: we talk about the post-USSR period as if 143 million Russians were suddenly added to the NHL talent pool. But in reality, Russia produces most of its players from only a couple of concentrated areas. Compare their map to any of the other major hockey countries and the uneven distribution is striking. While I'm sure this mirrors the population distribution to an extent, it certainly appears as though Russia is the only major hockey country that doesn't consistently produce players from rural towns. That means its actual talent pool is much smaller than the population figure would suggest.
Including male, female and junior, 0.046% of the Russian population are registered Hockey players, for a total of 63,580 people... While in Canada, they have 1.682% of their population registered by their federation (572,411 people). Source IIHF
So basically, Russians don't play Hockey
And that looks almost strange to see a country with a so meaningless percentage of his population playing Hockey constantly compared to the most successful National Team in the world, a.k.a Canada
Hockey schools in Russia, they've got to be great...
Last edited by Yashintangibles: 04-04-2012 at 08:49 PM.
Winnipeg MB
Carter Ashton
Cam Barker
Cody Eakin
Ryan Garbutt
Darren Helm
Duncan Keith
Frazer McLaren
Derek Meech
Colton Orr
Ryan Reaves
Patrick Sharp
Alexander Steen
Michael Stone
Jonathan Toews
Dale Weise
Travis Zajac
Something I've wondered for a while, but couldn't verify until now: we talk about the post-USSR period as if 143 million Russians were suddenly added to the NHL talent pool. But in reality, Russia produces most of its players from only a couple of concentrated areas. Compare their map to any of the other major hockey countries and the uneven distribution is striking. While I'm sure this mirrors the population distribution to an extent, it certainly appears as though Russia is the only major hockey country that doesn't consistently produce players from rural towns. That means its actual talent pool is much smaller than the population figure would suggest.
that is interesting
another thing I noticed is only 3 from Ukraine, and all of them from Kyiv, yet there are a ton of players born in Canada with Ukrainian ancestry
wasn't there a player from south africa?
i think olaf kolzig?
EDIT: retired now, but would have been the only african-born player on that map
Akim Aliu was born in Okene, Nigeria, making him the only current NHLer born in Africa, and 2nd born in the southern hemisphere (Regehr is the other - Brazil)
Hockey schools in Russia, they've got to be great...
it doesn't hurt that russia seems to have a lot of the guys like kovalchuk and ovechkin that are so physically dominant. kovy averages 25 minutes a night as a forward. that's ridiculous. their offseason training schedules have to be insane. may not be the ussr anymore but they still dedicate themselves to what they do.
Interesting to see the hockey gradient of New York state go down as you move from west to (south)east.
7 players from the Buffalo area.
4 players from the Rochester area.
2 players each from Syracuse, Rome, and Utica.
1 player from Ithaca.
1 player from NYC.
