1. Football - 13.8%
2. Mountain biking - 7.7%
3. Basketball - 6.0%
4. Soccer - 3.5%
5. Skateboarding - 2.7%
6. Baseball - 2.6%
7. Softball - 2.3%
"According to USA Hockey—which has jurisdiction over the vast majority of youth leagues nationwide—there are 347,061 players under the age of 20 registered with the organization across the country."
vs.
"4.5 Million Canadians involved in hockey" according to cmaj medical journal
When sitting around having beers with my Canadian buds, we commonly watch hockey and sometimes debate why Canada is so dominant in the NHL and in the Olympics.
For me it's simple. There are way more youth hockey players in Canada then there are in the US. As a result, those youth hockey players fall in love with the game from an early age and stick with it as fans, referees or participants throughout their lives.
Just look at the numbers I've provided. The most striking to me is the percentages. The most dangerous youth sport in America is football followed by mountain biking...on down to seventh which is softball. However, hockey is nowhere on the list. So in the US...softball is more dangerous then hockey meaning more softball players are injured yearly than hockey players.
We all know how dangerous hockey is so why isn't hockey on this list? It's simply because only around 300K youth play hockey while there are over 4.5 million involved in hockey in Canada.
It's actually remarkable that the US is anywhere near Canada in terms of the Olympic games.
Hockey has about the same amount of registered players in the states as lacrosse does. Soccer, on the other hand, is the fastest growing sport in America while baseball is still the most popular.
It's no wonder that (just as Canada is dominant in hockey) Canada will never compete against the US in soccer, football or baseball. These sports are driven by our youth and there is simply nowhere to even play hockey in most US jurisdictions.
While all of my Canadian friends played hockey as youths...I on the other hand have yet to hold a stick, take a slapshot or skate around in an ice hockey rink....I'm 23.
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It also means we are way more badass then anyone else. And in the WBC we barely lost to you. It was a bad call and we should have won. 7-6 and one of the best baseball gmaes I have ever seen. And basically Canada could put out 3 teams that would come in the top 5 everytime and routinely come #1 and #2 over a season of international hockey. It just means we are better :)
ReplyDeleteStatistics? You just made the SJMC hard.
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