Small cities and villages wit many NHL players

[alko]

New Blue Jackets head coach Dean Evason is from city named Flin Flon (according to Wikipedia, The town's name is taken from the lead character Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin in a 1905 paperback novel, The Sunless City by J. E. Preston Muddock).

Small city, with 5 000 inhabitants.

This little city is the birthplace of NHL great and Hall of Fame member Bobby Clarke. As captain of the team, he led the Philadelphia Flyers to two NHL Stanley Cup championships in the 1970s, and was a star on the 1972 Team Canada Summit Series roster.
Other NHLers hailing from Flin Flon include Ken Baird, Ken Baumgartner, Matt Davidson, Kim Davis, Dean Evason, Al Hamilton, Ted Hampson (who was captain of the Flin Flon Bombers Memorial Cup team in 1957 and the second player to ever receive the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy), Gerry Hart, Ron Hutchinson, George Konik, Ray Maluta, Tom Gilmore, Dunc McCallum, Eric Nesterenko, Mel Pearson, Reid Simpson, David Struch, and Ernie Wakely.

Very good list for such little city.

What are others small cities, villages wit many NHL players?

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[jigglysquishy]

Flin Flon is just the craziest. It's way up north in the bush. Completely isolated. 400 km away from the nearest community over 5000 people. 550 km away from the nearest real airport. It's the last road north. I mean that literally. You cannot drive north of Flin Flon because roads don't exist .

Northern Saskatchewan in general is just empty. 35,000 people in an area the size of Italy or the US state of Arizona.

That it even got one NHLer is remarkable. That it got multiple is absolutely insane.

 

[overpass]

The gold mining town of Kirkland Lake in Northern Ontario. It's population peaked around 20,000 around 1940 when gold mining was at its peak, and has steadily declined since then to it's current population of 8000.

Kirkland Lake produced many NHL players in the 50s and 60s, including Ted Lindsay, Ralph Backstrom, Dick Duff, Gus Mortson, Larry and Wayne Hillman, Bob, Bill, and Barclay Plager, Floyd Curry, Mike Walton, Mickey and Dick Redmond, Tom Webster, and Willie Marshall. It was called the town that made the NHL.

Mining magnate Harry Oakes built an indoor arena in Kirkland Lake in 1928, said to be the best rink north of Toronto at the time. When Kirkland Lake's golden generation was growing up, there were enough minor hockey players in town for four teams per age group, which allowed a lot of opportunity for games and competition. Today, Kirkland Lake can only support one team, which has to travel hundreds of kilometres to play opponents.

Kirkland Lake

Kirkland Lake is a town of about 8000 people in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is under the Northern Ontario Hockey Association. Kirkland Lake Blue Devils (1930s-1950s) (Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League, 2011-2012) renamed Gold Miners Kirkland Lake Gold Miners (Northern Ontario Junior...

icehockey.fandom.com

 

[MadLuke]

Desjardins-Turgeon (Pierre)-Matteau were all born around the same time in Rouyn, a city that had Houle-Laperriere-Sylvain turgeon before.

About 18k people in 1969, it had quite the kids could walk to the arena and play hockey for $20 environment.

According to wiki, notable (some are missing):
Dave Keon, Jacques Laperrière, Réjean Houle, Pierre Turgeon, Sylvain Turgeon, Éric Desjardins, Dale Tallon, Stéphane Matteau, Jacques Cloutier, Christian Bordeleau, Jean-Pierre Bordeleau, Paulin Bordeleau, André Racicot, Hubert Martin, Gordie McRay, Jacques Cossette, Jean Lemieux, Roland Cloutier, Marc-André Cliche, Wayne Connely, Maurice St-Jacques, Rogatien Vachon, Serge Savard, K.Douglas, Ted Ouimet, Steve Sutherland.

 

[reckoning]

Pembroke Ont, about 90 miles north of Ottawa, has a population of less than 15,000, but is the birthplace of three Hall of Famers: Frank Nighbor, Harry Cameron, and Hugh Lehman.

 

[The Panther]

An obvious one would be Örnsköldsvik, Sweden (population: 33,000).

Peter Forsberg, Markus Näslund, Victor Hedman, Niklas Sundström, Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin, Anders Hedberg, Andreas Salomonsson, Magnus Wernblom, Mattias Timander, Tobias Enström, Victor Olofsson, Stefan Öhman, Nils Johansson, and Per Svartvadet.

In addition, Thomas Gradin and Anders Kallur lived there while playing for Modo.

 

[VanIslander]

I was gonna google the name of that crazy-*** town in Sweden with so many greats. There is no equal, per capita.

Amazingly,

L.A. and Paris each have more people than the entire population of Sweden. Yet a small Swedish town has a lot of hockey greats? Hashtag winter culture grooms kids.

(Maybe us Canadians have too many distractions. Heck, other than organized hockey teams i only three times recall playing pond hockey, unorganized team fun - played tons of two on two street hockey; but rarely on skates other than in minor hockey leagues.)

 

[MadLuke]

And could be an oversimplication, but is there a single specially good 21 or less years old season from those swedish small city list of greats ?

Forsberg probably could have, but in general they seem to all took a little bit of time, playing other sports instead of hockey special camp during the summer, stay in a general league instead of a AAA letter systems.

Less nhl ready at 18, but have more room to growth

 

[Albatros]

An obvious one would be Örnsköldsvik, Sweden (population: 33,000).

Peter Forsberg, Markus Näslund, Victor Hedman, Niklas Sundström, Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin, Anders Hedberg, Andreas Salomonsson, Magnus Wernblom, Mattias Timander, Tobias Enström, Victor Olofsson, Stefan Öhman, Nils Johansson, and Per Svartvadet.

In addition, Thomas Gradin and Anders Kallur lived there while playing for Modo.

That's the entire Örnsköldsvik municipality (larger than Delaware or PEI) based on very broad associations though, many are not really from the town of Örnsköldsvik.

 

[MadLuke]

Like Rouyn, if you are one of the only city around a large area, you get a lot of everyone from small rang and village coming there to play phenomenon that can happen true.

 

[Dissonance Jr]

Kindersley, SK is another remote town with only ~4,500 people but it’s produced 10 NHL players including Bob Bourne, Derek Dorsett, Curtis Glencross, Dave Lewis and Greg Paslawski.

**

And of course Viking, AB only has 986 people and has produced a whopping 8 NHLers, though that’s cheating a bit since 7 of them are Sutters (the other is Carson Soucy, although I don’t think he grew up there).

 

[jigglysquishy]

Kindersley, SK is another remote town with only ~4,500 people but it’s produced 10 NHL players including Bob Bourne, Derek Dorsett, Curtis Glencross, Dave Lewis and Greg Paslawski.

I played in Kindersley a couple of times. There's two rinks. In a town of 4500. The whole arena is really high quality too.

 

[pandro]

Certainly bigger than all places listed before, but the city of Voskresensk has produced: Sergei Berezin, Vladimir Zelepukin, Valeri Kamensky, Dmitri Kvartalnov, Slava Kozlov, Igor Larionov, Andrei Loktionov, Andrei Lomakin, Andrei Markov and Vladislav Namestnikov, and a miriade of other lower profile players.

 

[VanIslander]

And could be an oversimplication, but is there a single specially good 21 or less years old season from those swedish small city list of greats ?

Forsberg probably could have, but in general they seem to all took a little bit of time, playing other sports instead of hockey special camp during the summer, stay in a general league instead of a AAA letter systems.

Less nhl ready at 18, but have more room to growth

Forsberg, from that town, was a legend in the World Juniors, scoring a tourney record 31 points, as a teenager. Two years later he won the NHL Calder trophy.

 

[MadLuke]

Forsberg, from that town, was a legend in the World Juniors, scoring a tourney record 31 points, as a teenager. Two years later he won the NHL Calder trophy.

Yes he turned 22 that summer of the calder trophy season, not particularly young, but as a said probably could have had one if he would joined the nhl as a young player, he played really well with adults (like Naslund) in sweden.

And a legend in the world because he was not in the nhl like american prospect would have, Scott Niedermayer and Lindros were not playing in the world junior in 93 like him.

Naslund-Sedinsx2-Hedman all had a lot of juice left, maybe there something to be said about not trying to be rushed as superior dev path that explain there giant success, but could over simplification or wrong, maybe it is some prejudice that they try to make more complete athlete with less focus at being hockey-nhl ready at 18.

 

[Hot Water Bottle]

Not exactly a small town, but I think Sarnia Ontario (70k or so people now, and much fewer in the past) deserves an honorable mention. It's produced a boatload of hockey players including Shawn Burr, Dino Ciccarelli, Pat Verbeek, Michael Leighton, Tony McKegney, Wayne Merrick, Dominic Moore, Mike & Pat Stapleton, etc (I won't list them all here but check out Wikipedia's "people from Sarnia" page for more names). Also included are a bunch of officials, executives, etc such as Harry Neale and Kerry Fraser.

 

[MeHateHe]

I'll just put in a pitch for Trail, BC. Current population is less than 15,000, but NHL alumni include Ray Ferraro, Adam Deadmarsh, Steve Tambellini, Shawn Horcoff, Dallas Drake, Barret Jackman, Richard Kromm, Steve McCarthy and Cesare Maniago. There's a few others as well who had a cup of coffee in the NHL, but that's a pretty good list of good NHLers.

 

[overpass]

I'll just put in a pitch for Trail, BC. Current population is less than 15,000, but NHL alumni include Ray Ferraro, Adam Deadmarsh, Steve Tambellini, Shawn Horcoff, Dallas Drake, Barret Jackman, Richard Kromm, Steve McCarthy and Cesare Maniago. There's a few others as well who had a cup of coffee in the NHL, but that's a pretty good list of good NHLers.

And many great amateur players who played for the Trail Smoke Eaters in the heyday of senior amateur hockey. Addie Tambellini and others

 

[hypereconomist]

Cranbrook, BC has produced a lot of NHLers for 20,000 person city in the Kootenays/Rockies. 14 NHLers including Yzerman, Klemm, Brad Lukowich, Byram, and Jason Marshall.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

I enjoyed learning that there used to be a town called Asbestos in Quebec, which fostered NHL brothers Gilles and Jean Hamel, as well as Sean McKenna.

Since 2020 it’s been renamed Val-de-Sources, and is home to around 7000 inhabitants, some of whom of with strong enough lungs to have decade long careers in the NHL.

 

[Hippasus]

St. Albert, Alberta has a lot, and good ones too. Although, it's maybe not a small city per se anymore. Alumni from there include Mark Messier, Jarome Iginla, Troy Murray, Zack Ostrapchuk, Nick Holden, Colton Parayko, Jamie McLennan, Rob Brown, and Geoff Sanderson. I thought the latter was from the Northwest Territories, but a couple TV people mentioned him and others as from St. Albert during a broadcast.

 

[JackSlater]

St. Albert, Alberta has a lot, and good ones too. Although, it's maybe not a small city per se anymore. Alumni from there include Mark Messier, Jarome Iginla, Troy Murray, Zack Ostrapchuk, Nick Holden, Colton Parayko, Jamie McLennan, Rob Brown, and Geoff Sanderson. I thought the latter was from the Northwest Territories, but a couple TV people mentioned him and others as from St. Albert during a broadcast.

I'm pretty sure Sanderson is "from" the Northwest Territories, though the town he grew up in is now abandoned. I recall reading about it in the linked story. He did move back to Calgary at some point after retiring.

Growing up on ice: Geoff Sanderson’s journey from N.W.T. to the NHL

 

[Hockeyville USA]

Warburg Alberta, population 676 & located about an hour southwest of Edmonton, has produced Dave Hakstol and Lindy Ruff

 

[Hanji]

North Battleford, Sask. just under 14,000 population. 15 NHLers.

 

[MeHateHe]

Two things I'll quibble about in this thread.

First, Steve Yzerman was born in Cranbrook, but is not a product of Cranbrook. He grew up and played all of his youth hockey in Ontario.

Second: some of the Saskatchewan places listed are a bit misleading, unless you know the geography. Citing North Battleford, for example. North Battleford is a city of about 15,000, but being born in North Battleford could mean you come from Battleford or one of the 10 outlying communities surrounding it. So while a dozen or so decent NHLers came from North Battleford, you're actually talking about a community that's a lot larger.