One of the statistics I was going to pull as a major case for professional hockey was the amount of players that Wisconsin has sent to the NHL. This was originally based on just the assumption that we produced dozens of them. However, when I looked it up and saw it was only 25, I was a tad disappointed considering that 39 players in the NBA were born here. I left it at that, but I failed to put it into context of the rest of the country, so here it is:
| State | # of Players |
|---|---|
| Alabama | 2 |
| Alaska | 11 |
| Arizona | 1 |
| Arkansas | 0 |
| California | 24 |
| Colorado | 7 |
| Connecticut | 25 |
| Delaware | 1 |
| DC | 2 |
| Florida | 3 |
| Georgia | 3 |
| Hawaii | 0 |
| Idaho | 2 |
| Illinois | 44 |
| Indiana | 7 |
| Iowa | 1 |
| Kansas | 0 |
| Kentucky | 0 |
| Louisiana | 0 |
| Maine | 5 |
| Maryland | 4 |
| Mass. | 166 |
| Michigan | 122 |
| Minnesota | 206 |
| Mississippi | 0 |
| Missouri | 7 |
| Montana | 0 |
| Nebraska | 2 |
| Nevada | 0 |
| New Hamp. | 7 |
| New Jersey | 10 |
| New Mexico | 0 |
| New York | 85 |
| North Carolina | 1 |
| North Dakota | 13 |
| Ohio | 20 |
| Oklahoma | 3 |
| Oregon | 5 |
| Pennsylvania | 24 |
| Rhode Island | 18 |
| So. Carolina | 0 |
| South Dakota | 0 |
| Tennessee | 0 |
| Texas | 3 |
| Utah | 2 |
| Vermont | 2 |
| Virginia | 4 |
| Washington | 9 |
| West Virginia | 0 |
| Wisconsin | 25 |
| Wyoming | 0 |
| Total | 876 |
All these figures are from Hockey Reference (site). Obviously it doesn’t cover transplants. If someone was born in Lithuania and moved to New York when they were 2 it wouldn't count for NY, which could work for either side. It is also only NHL, and not one of the many semi-pro teams that one could play for. Some of these are just hard to believe for the 0 states: Kansas, Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, West Virginia, Tenessee, Nevada, really none of those states ever produced an NHL hockey player (ever?). The other aspect this points out is just how big of an international sport hockey really is, that in the history of the league less than 900 players were born in the US.
Wisconsin ranks sixth, tied with Connecticut with 25. Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York are the only states ahead of us. Also 11 of the 25 were born after 1980, so it will be something on the rise since it wasn't until the late 1970's that highly organized hockey really came into fruition in our state. It was during these years that UW became a national college powerhouse, the Madison Capitol Jr team was formed, and high schools started adding teams as a varsity sport. I don't really see this as a big bragging point since just about every state around here can crap on us, but considering that we are one of the top states for NHL'ers lends to the notion of how much passion is brewing for the sport as kids grow up with it.
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