Hockey question

[bif]

Watching the Stanley Cup final, the announcer mentioned that Dan Cleary was the first player from Newfoundland to win the cup. What's with that? The Cup has ben around for what, a hundred years? And no one from Newfoundland has ever been on a wining team. Is there something this yankee doesn't get? Do they not play hockey there or something?

[daleo]

1. I wondered about that too

It hardly seems credible. Assuming NFLD has 2% of Canada's population, one would expect it would have about the same proportion of NHL players. Assuming half of all NHL players are Canadian, that should mean about one Newfoundlander per four NHL teams (assuming 25 players per team, half Canadian). So, a Newfoundlander ought to be on a cup winner every fourth year or so.

Even if those assumptions are off by a bit, it is hard to believe a 60 year dry spell for Newfoundland.

It is a really beautiful province, but they have long winters, so they play hockey.

[Spazito]

2. I am surprised but, after doing some research, it is true!

"Less than 30 people from the province have played an NHL game and only two had ever before appeared in the Stanley Cup final -- Keith Brown and Alex Faulkner, the first Newfoundlander to make it to the big league.

Brown's 1992 Chicago Blackhawks and Faulkner's 1963 and '64 Red Wings each lost in the finals."


http://www.sportingnews.com/nhl/articles/20080605/1040694-p.html

[bif]

3. Wow!

Thanks for the info.

[Lucy Goosey]

4. Newfoundland is relatively poor and rural -

they have the lowest per capita income in the country, and I'm guessing that they just can't support the kind of junior hockey system that is available in much of the rest of Canada. Cleary left Newfoundland at 14 to play in Ontario. Check out this list of the 10 largest cities in Nfld:

St. John's 100,646
Mount Pearl 24,671
Conception Bay South 21,966
Corner Brook 20,083
Grand Falls-Windsor 13,558
Paradise 12,584
Gander 9,951
Happy Valley-Goose Bay 7,572
Labrador City 7,240
Stephenville 6,588

compared to Ontario:

Toronto (provincial capital) 2,503,281
Ottawa (national capital) 812,129
Mississauga 668,549
Hamilton 504,559
Brampton 433,806
London 352,395
Markham 261,573
Vaughan 238,866
Windsor 216,473
Kitchener 204,668

(Apologies if this is too much information - I'm kind of a demographics nerd.)

[Bragi]

5. Newfoundland didn't join Canada until 1949

Prior to that, Newfoundland was a British Colony. As such, it probably did not have hockey as its main sport until after it joined Confederation. That's my guess...

- B

[LisaM]

6. He's only the second player to even have a chance

the other guy was also a Red Wing, back in the 1960s (name escapes me). That was one of the most fun things about watching the Wings win - I loved those shots back to Harbour Grace.