Monday, June 9, 2008

NHL Fan Base Map

I always like getting interesting emails from readers and I got yet another one today. This guy created an NHL "fan base map" to, I suppose, indicate where the followers of each club are geographically located.



It's different and I thought it was kind of cool.

The map doesn't indicate percentage comparisons in numbers of fans or anything like that, but rather it suggests that the majority of NHL fans in the colored areas might be fans of those teams. I just thought it was something funny and worth sharing.

Don't forget to vote on the final poll of the NHL Tournament of Goalie Masks this week! Luongo vs. Turco!

32 comments:

pdl said...

I bet that some Maritimers might have something to say about that.

Anonymous said...

As a misplaced Portland Oregonian in Hershey, PA, he's missing a few critical things. More Portlanders watch the Canucks than they do the San Jose Sharks.

Also, the Capitals belt should really extend partially into PA between the Pens/Flyers line, as Hershey's the Caps' farm team, and a lot of people here follow them. Not to mention there's a little conclave of Pens faithful north of the Flyers logo in Wilkes-Barre.

Cool idea nonetheless.

Unknown said...

Let me guess, the canucks are the most popular team.

Unknown said...

that is really cool chris,

but, Connecticut is mostly Ranger fans and/or ex-Whaler fans, Islander fans are mostly relegated to their pointy Island

Cale Putnam said...

I see he left out the "Screw Bettman" areas of mid-CT, Manitoba, and Quebec City.

Vidofnir said...

The Orlando area of Florida needs to have a Sabres Logo. :P

Unknown said...

he must have no idea where raleigh is. but then again, most people in this city have no idea they have a hockey team.

NavyRifleman1894 said...

agreed vid! just extend it up to Daytona.

Anonymous said...

The Flyers/Devils line is messed up in New Jersey...I am from South Jersey (about 10 minutes from Philly) and none of us are Devils fans...in fact we can't stand them...that team is for the North Jerseyans!

Tukker said...

i think Ottawa owns a little bit more of Ontario

Unknown said...

original poster of map here.

im a teenager from san jose who has too much time on their hands and i made this map for fun and didnt really put a lot of thought into it. so in case you were wondering about the huge san jose fan base on the map, or the lack of knowledge about the east coast, that is why.

there is one mistake i regret though and that is the "bettman sucks" areas in winnipeg, quebec and hartford lol.

and about the raleigh thing, i had a brain fart put the canes in greensboro. my bad.

Unknown said...

"Connecticut is mostly Ranger fans and/or ex-Whaler fans, Islander fans are mostly relegated to their pointy Island"

I've lived in CT my entire life and I have met a grand total of 1 Islander fan, and he doesn't even pay attention to hockey, it was just his dad's favorite team.

Southern Connecticut (the Stamford-Bridgeport-New Haven area) are Ranger territory, while the rest of the state are ex-Whaler fans.

That's a fairly large part of why the Whalers ended up moving, the BPT-NH area is the most populous area in the state, and when people from the NYC area started moving there, the Whalers lost that fan-base. That and they didn't reach out to Southern CT until the very end...

Susan said...

The Flames area should extend a little more into Montana.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, South Jersey up to Trenton is Flyers country. Coming from a South Jerseyan, the state is harshly divided between Philadelphia wannabes in the South and New York wannabes in the North.

Also, Delaware is probably more composed of Flyers fans than Caps fans, as Delware is mostly part of the Delaware Valley.

BK said...

Wow, very generous to the Thrashers giving them the whole state of GA. If I had made this I'd had made an inset and shown a small area of every other team in the league around the Atlanta metro. There are so many transplants here most times you go to nearly any sporting event here you here almost as many cheers for the visiting team as you do for the home team...

Anonymous said...

The Stars should have all of Oklahoma and Las Vegas should be for Phoenix.

skatinista! said...

st. louis has a lot more of illinois, than is shown on the map

asnowballschance said...

Rob,

Did you, by chance, get your "idea" from billsportsmap.com?

http://billsportsmaps.com/?cat=7

Anonymous said...

once again south jersey is where most flyers live and same for the flyer fans, also not a unique idea

Unknown said...

no i actually got the idea from this illustration.

http://www.unitedcountriesofbaseball.com/images/UCOB-1280x960.jpg


thanks for all the criticism on the map guys. its really interseting to see where the fan bases actually are, and that's part of the reason why i sent the map to chris. to hear all of the reactions

maybe ill make a revised one later if you want.

Anonymous said...

Find where Enfield CT is and put my Hartford Hockey Logo there, and I will be happy.

Whiter Mage said...

I'm a Caps fan, but live in Winchester PA. It's Pittsburgh East.

andrew said...

shouldnt the maple leafs be all over canada? like a blue blanker covering all those other teams (i forgot which ones. theyre not from TORONTO)

Leafers LP said...

The Leafs are loved up in northern Ontario as well, even into Manitoba. I don't see why Montreal gets all of the maritimes when Boston fans live there too. Should be about half and half. Oh, and definitely not half of Quebec likes Montreal, because the Nordiques moved to Colorado, there are now Avalanche fans there.

savardwalsh said...

Being a Quebecer who grew up in newfoundland, I'll be the first to tell you the maritimes are pretty evenly split between the habs and the leafs, maybe with a bit of an advantage for the canadiens. tough to map out for sure though.

and you're off on montreal by about 200 miles

asnowballschance said...

Definitely redo this map. There are so many cities that are not in the correct location and overall this is poorly created.

Unknown said...

As someone who lives in Central PA, I can assure that there's not a good deal of Caps fans here. Not a lot of Pens, either. Unfortunately, it's mostly Flyers fans. They also contaminate more of Jersey than Devils fans.

I don't know what some of these guys are talking about

Utica Rangers said...

That Upstate New York one is also false.

The Rangers fanbase is alot larger than that, because frankly, the Buffalo Sabres are a SMALL MARKET team, and DO NOT garner much popularity out of their immediate market, which is Buffalo and Rochester. I live in Utica, which is east of Syracuse and west of Albany, and this area is dominated by Rangers and Devils fans even before you get any Sabres.

You want a real accurate map where people vote themselves?

here:

http://www.commoncensus.org/maps/nhl_1280.gif

You can clearly see that Utica is all Rangers, so his upstate prediction couldn't be any more false. So again, the Buffalo Sabres, are ONLY WESTERN NEW YORK, period. The state is New York, and we identify with the Rangers.

Unknown said...

all that white space should be filled with wings fans....they are the #1 nationally supported team.

Unknown said...

all that white space should be filled with wings fans...the #1 nationally supported team.

Unknown said...

Coming from Nova Scotia the majority of people there support Pittsburgh because of Crosby

Luis said...

Got to update this. The Atlanta Thrashers are now the Winnipeg Jets.