With Team USA showcasing dominance in the IIHF World Junior Championship so far, a compelling narrative has emerged, highlighting the United States as a burgeoning hockey superpower. This shift challenges the traditional mindset, and we’re beginning to expect momentous victories from USA Hockey teams.
I have been consistently documenting the growth of USA Hockey, using it as a justification for NHL expansion into new markets. To visually represent the progression, it seems timely to share another data analysis on the prevalence of American hockey players in the NHL, showcasing the remarkable journey we’ve undergone.
Nationalities of NHL players
The number of US-born players in the NHL has reached an all-time high this season, at 29.3 percent of the league. In contrast, the percentage of Canadian players has dropped to 41.2 percent, the lowest of all time. It’s worth noting that these figures might undergo slight changes due to factors such as injuries, call-ups, and other scenarios between now and the end of the season, but this is a good look at how the countries are trending.
As the chart indicates, this trend has been going on for quite some time.
Here is a different way to look at the data, which makes clearer how many NHL players come from each nation in the 2023-24 season to date:
To delve deeper into the analysis, I also examined the nationalities of current NHL players based on their birth year to determine if there is any indication of an upcoming trend. For instance, I compared the age distribution of US players in the NHL to that of their Canadian counterparts with the same birth year.
In my opinion, there was nothing noteworthy when examining this year’s NHL players by birth year. Generally, the percentage of Canadians by birth year fluctuates randomly between 38 percent and 50 percent across the entire range of birth years. Similarly, the percentages of US players vary between 20 percent and 40 percent throughout the birth years.
The growth of US players in the NHL
As mentioned earlier, the number US-born players in the NHL has been trending up for a long time.
Digging a bit deeper on that, here is an overview of the birth states of US-born NHL players. The below visualization may not be perfect for illustrating the growth of some states, but it’s worth noting that the category labeled as “Other” now includes 95 players in the NHL this season. This category encompasses states with fewer than 10 players represented in the current season. That tells you some non-traditional markets have seen growth.
Another perspective to consider on the data is to observe the number of states being represented by at least one NHL player throughout the season.
Most analyses attribute the growing interest in hockey among Americans to three main themes: 1) the Miracle on Ice in the 1980 Olympics, 2) Wayne Gretzky being traded to the LA Kings, and 3) NHL expansion. While the first two are challenging to validate definitively, the impact of NHL expansion aligns with the growth in USA Hockey memberships by state over the years.
To illustrate this transformation, I compared a map of NHL players from the 1990-91 season to the current 2023-24 season. The discernible impact of “southern expansion” becomes rather evident in the comparison.
Nationality by team
As a fun bonus piece of content, here is a look at the nationality breakdown by NHL team this season. The Kraken are 48 percent Canadian and 23 percent American. The team with the highest percentage of American players is the New York Rangers at 50 percent.
If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions for further exploration, leave a comment below and I will get back to you.