From 1998-99 to today: A demographic study of the NHL

by James Mirtle on Nov 28, 2008 10:15 AM CST in Statistics Comment 7 comments

I'm not sure why I'm on this bent, but here goes nothing.

As a follow up to the post Wednesday afternoon measuring the nationalities of current NHLers, I figured it would make sense to take a look back 10 years ago at how the league was at that point. Now, unfortunately I didn't account for the fact that there would be far more players in the league over a full season, so in the 1998-99 sample there were 900 players counted and in the 2008-09 there were only about 770, and that difference affects things a little bit.

Not so much as to make the data useless, however. (What I'll have to do is do a full season update come March or April).

Here's this year's chart, as seen previously:

Nationchartd_medium

And here's the chart for 1998-99, as per birthplace listed on official team bios:

Chart_medium

No, it's not the wildest shift you've ever seen, but there's clearly a major difference there. The data needs some work given the sample size is a bit different, and more of the plug replacement types would typically be North American, but let's compare what I've got on a percentage basis:

	Country	Forwards	Defence	Goalies	% NHL
1	Canada	-7.9%	-8.4%	-22.2%	-9.3%
2	United States	4.9%	4.0%	-1.1%	4.1%
3	Czech Republic	1.4%	0.8%	0.8%	1.1%
4	Sweden	0.4%	2.6%	4.6%	1.4%
5	Finland	1.6%	1.4%	11.6%	2.4%
6	Russia	-2.6%	-3.5%	-0.6%	-2.7%
7	Slovakia	-0.2%	2.3%	2.9%	0.9%
8	Germany	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.6%
9	Other	1.8%	0.3%	4.0%	1.5%

Here's how to interpret that data: Goalies had the biggest swing here, obviously, as 73% of netminders were Canadian 10 years ago and now only about 50% are. Finland has gone from zero to nearly 12%, while countries like Sweden and Switzerland have also come on in goal.

Overall, Canadian representation dropped from 61.3% to 52% so far this season. That figure will increase as more kids are called up from the AHL when injuries hit, but there's no way it comes close to what it once was.

There are also only about half as many Canadian goalies as there were 10 years ago.

Russia's down, too, although that's not new news. So far this season, there are only half as many Russian-born players as the 56 who suited up in the NHL in 1998-99.

Finland, meanwhile, has just about doubled its representation in the NHL, while U.S.-born players are up from 15.9% to 19.9% this season and continuing to climb slowly. There are about 100 American forwards in today's NHL, up from about 80 only 10 years ago.

Consider that a brief look at how things have changed. Like I said, I'll try and revisit this as more data comes in later in the season.

Poll

Will Canadian-born players soon make up less than half of the NHL?

Yes

92 votes

No

84 votes

176 votes | Poll has closed

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Comments

By minority, meaning less than 50%, yes… Canadians will soon hit there, but they’ll remain the highest proportion of players for decades to come.

One advantage for North American players is that they occupy a HUGE advantage in the AHL ranks over European talent. So the vast majority of NHL callups and roster changes throughout the year involve the promotion of North American players.

Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.

by saskhab on Nov 28, 2008 12:54 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, I was thinking of 50% as the cutoff for that poll. As in Canadian vs. non-Canadian.

It’ll be interesting how much that 52% figure shifts by season’s end.

by James Mirtle on Nov 28, 2008 1:13 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

My rationale for voting no...

…is specifically that replacement-level players seem to inevitably play in their continent of origin: the North American pluggers play in the AHL, whereas the European pluggers play in the KHL/SEL/DEL/whatever. There’s exceptions to every rule, but in general, I would bet that a Russian or German club would pay better than most AHL/two-way contracts, so unless a guy was dead-set on the NHL, he’d probably rather stay home and collect a bigger cheque. Heck, a lot of career minor-leaguers from North America wind up doing the same thing, though probably in much smaller proportion, given that they’re raised on the NHL and Stanley Cup rather than a European national league and the Olympic/WHC gold.

Therefore, you’re always going to be around at least 50% because most of your bottom-six/bottom-three types are going to be North American for financial and cultural reasons.

by Doogie2K on Nov 28, 2008 1:51 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I’m putting together another analysis with help from Gabe Desjardins on games played by country of birth, something that will weed out the pluggers a bit more.

by James Mirtle on Nov 28, 2008 1:55 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Hate to nitpick

but at 40 or 45% they wouldn’t be a minority, they’d have a plurality.

by Godd Till on Nov 28, 2008 2:13 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I think it is certainly possible as the width of the hockey talent pool expands further to other countries. However, as Till stated, it’d be a plurality at worst. I would imagine something like 48-49% Canadian at it’s lowest point.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it is a thing.

by John Fischer on Nov 28, 2008 9:25 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I voted yes

I really think that the number of Americans in the league is going to contiune to grow to the point where the United States has around 30-35% of all players, and too many of those spots are going to come from Canadians to allow them to be over 50% of the league.

I do think that the europen nations will continue to rise and fall in the percentages with Finland falling like the Russians did, only to be replaced by growing numbers of Germans or Austrians or some other european nation. Perhaps even the Russians will make a comeback in a few years.

Blue and Gold (of Buffalo)

by Ebscer on Nov 29, 2008 12:21 AM CST reply actions 0 recs