Ice hockey country
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ice hockey country, or within North America simply Hockey country, is a term used to describe a geographic region of Canada and the United States where ice hockey has the strongest fanbase, players, etc..
Hockey country is commonly accepted[citation needed] to include all of the Canadian provinces; British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador as well as the U.S. states of Alaska, Illinois, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Colorado, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Players from U.S. states not listed are extremely rare in the NHL (with the arguable exception of California.)
In this region, hockey is a very important sport. Americans from other regions often dispute the assertion that hockey is a "major" sport - with many refusing to give hockey equal standing with other sports. (It is worth noting however, that the former Confederate States have the same number of NHL clubs as does Canada: both places have six teams each. Moreover, there are an additional three Sunbelt-based clubs in California and a fourth team in Arizona.) However, since the NHL is the only other team sports league in the North America to generate multi-billion dollar revenues, the league is closer financially with the three more popular leagues than any other North American team sports league. Furthermore, in spite of a season-long lockout in 2004 the NHL returned in 2005 with even stronger revenues than before the lockout.
Most of the recent expansion teams were located in Southern cities, and three teams relocated from hockey country to the Sunbelt during the 1990s: the Minnesota North Stars moved to Dallas, the Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix, and the Hartford Whalers moved to North Carolina's Research Triangle region. (The Quebec Nordiques also moved, but they moved to another corner of hockey country by becoming the Colorado Avalanche.)
The NHL is just the top part of the pyramid of North American hockey competitions. The top minor league, the American Hockey League, is primarily concentrated in the northeastern states and provinces, with a handful of teams in the Great Plains and in the southern U.S. The lower-level minor leagues are more widely scattered, being found all over the continent. Somewhat erroneously, while lower-level minor league teams have always thrived in old Rust Belt towns in the Northeast and Midwest (cities such as Flint, Rochester, Wheeling, Toledo, and Johnstown, PA, which was immortalized in the film Slap Shot), many ECHL and Central Hockey League teams in the South and Southwest are enormously successful, such as teams in Austin and Laredo, Texas.
The elite Junior hockey clubs tend to be concentrated in Quebec, Ontario, Western Canada, New England, the midwestern United States, and the Pacific Northwest. College hockey is most popular in the northeast, midwest and upper midwest regions of the United States, as well as Colorado and Alaska. College players come in roughly equal numbers from the US and Canada, with a smattering of Europeans. Canadian college hockey is considered to be at a slightly lower level than that played south of the border.
"Hockey country" is also a marketing term used by the National Hockey League's Ottawa Senators and the Canadian Hockey League's Ottawa 67's to describe the geographic region of Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec. Likewise, hockey's great popularity in Minnesota has led some to dub it "The State of Hockey" (the United States Hockey Hall of Fame, not to be confused with the more famous Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, is located in Eveleth, Minnesota), a name which became the slogan of the Minnesota Wild when they joined the NHL in 2000.
