North American players, I guess. There’s a lot of Europeans in the league that aren’t represented here.
HimmelFart on
Looks like a lot of the American metro areas are being undercounted because suburbs are treated as individual cities. The Twin Cities, for instance, has a large group of overlapping counts whereas it looks like Toronto’s metro is considered as a unit. Any clarity you can provide?
cdnsig on
What’s up with the numbering on the top ten?
oedipus_wr3x on
Wow, that bump over St. Louis is an outlier. I assumed part of it was the Tkachuks, but they were born in Scottsdale and raised in StL.
Cold_Solid_5748 on
Who’s the player from Yellowknife?
satosaison on
I feel like you can see the influence of the Solar Bears and the RDV Sportsplex in the large Orlando dot where there isn’t even an NHL team
earnerd00 on
This is cool. I also remember reading something about the months in which professional hockey players were born. The hypothesis being that when you’re older in your age group, you hit your growth spurt before the other kids growing up, and because you’re a bigger kid, you get more ice time, which could contribute to being a better player?
LurkersUniteAgain on
all those canadian players and they still havent won a stanley cup in 32 years
MrEHam on
Not being super familiar with Canadian geography I was confused in what US state that high number of players were born in.
Still blows my mind how there’s a place in California that’s more north than a place in Canada.
SoDakZak on
No one will notice or care, but I had the privilege to be the home builder for the one tiny dot in South Dakota. First NHL player from SD!
crowd79 on
No Stanley Cup in 32 years. No Olympic gold, either.
Canada may have invented the greatest game on earth, but we’ve perfected it. America rules hockey! 🇺🇸
ElFanta83 on
Great to see 2 Houston area players, more considering the amount of ice/snow we have around here. Surely they lived north after born in the south
sasksasquatch on
I’m trying to figure out who the second North Eastern British Columbia hockey player is, I know one is Tristen Nielsen from Fort St. John, but I am seeing no one else from that area who is currently active.
hnglmkrnglbrry on
All of the NHL and Jeremy Swayman.
PAXICHEN on
Where’s the map showing the birthplace of 2026 Olympic Gold Medal Team.
![[OC] Birthplaces of Active NHL Players](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/qfcs6m79j1mg1-1536x1536.jpeg "[OC] Birthplaces of Active NHL Players")
16 Comments
Source: NHL API accessed in R
library(httr)
library(jsonlite)
library(dplyr)
url <- “https://search.d3.nhle.com/api/v1/search/player?culture=en-us&limit=50000&q=*&active=true”
players <- GET(url) |>
content(“text”, encoding = “UTF-8”) |>
fromJSON(flatten = TRUE) |>
as_tibble()
players <- players |>
transmute(
player_id = playerId,
name = name,
birth_city = birthCity,
birth_state = birthStateProvince,
birth_country = birthCountry
)
Tools: R (packages: dplyr, ggplot2, sf, usmap, tools, ggfx, grid, cowplot, scales, cowplot, showtext, sysfonts, colorspace)
North American players, I guess. There’s a lot of Europeans in the league that aren’t represented here.
Looks like a lot of the American metro areas are being undercounted because suburbs are treated as individual cities. The Twin Cities, for instance, has a large group of overlapping counts whereas it looks like Toronto’s metro is considered as a unit. Any clarity you can provide?
What’s up with the numbering on the top ten?
Wow, that bump over St. Louis is an outlier. I assumed part of it was the Tkachuks, but they were born in Scottsdale and raised in StL.
Who’s the player from Yellowknife?
I feel like you can see the influence of the Solar Bears and the RDV Sportsplex in the large Orlando dot where there isn’t even an NHL team
This is cool. I also remember reading something about the months in which professional hockey players were born. The hypothesis being that when you’re older in your age group, you hit your growth spurt before the other kids growing up, and because you’re a bigger kid, you get more ice time, which could contribute to being a better player?
all those canadian players and they still havent won a stanley cup in 32 years
Not being super familiar with Canadian geography I was confused in what US state that high number of players were born in.
Still blows my mind how there’s a place in California that’s more north than a place in Canada.
No one will notice or care, but I had the privilege to be the home builder for the one tiny dot in South Dakota. First NHL player from SD!
No Stanley Cup in 32 years. No Olympic gold, either.
Canada may have invented the greatest game on earth, but we’ve perfected it. America rules hockey! 🇺🇸
Great to see 2 Houston area players, more considering the amount of ice/snow we have around here. Surely they lived north after born in the south
I’m trying to figure out who the second North Eastern British Columbia hockey player is, I know one is Tristen Nielsen from Fort St. John, but I am seeing no one else from that area who is currently active.
All of the NHL and Jeremy Swayman.
Where’s the map showing the birthplace of 2026 Olympic Gold Medal Team.