Ice
hockey nations by the numbers
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[February 06, 2018]
By Dan Burns
PYEONGCHANG (Reuters) - The 14
countries participating in this month's Olympic ice hockey
tournament in South Korea come to the event with wildly disparate
credentials as "hockey nations".
Perennial powerhouse Canada, winner of three of the last four
Olympic gold medals, arrive as the sport's pre-eminent nation,
according to data from the International Ice Hockey Federation.
Home to more than a third of the 1.76 million registered players of
all ages globally, Canada is also host to around half of the roughly
17,500 ice hockey rinks on the planet.
On a per capita basis, that amounts to one player for every 56
people and a rink for every 4,300.
At the other end of the spectrum are contenders who will be
attempting to punch well above their weight during the Olympics,
including some who have already shown they can.
Take tiny Slovenia, which sports the smallest population among
Olympic qualifiers with fewer than 2 million people and has barely
1,000 hockey players, including just 136 men and 66 women over the
age of 20. The IIFH counts just seven rinks in the entire country.
Yet Slovenia's men's national team, ranked 15th globally by the
IIHF, has qualified for two straight Olympics, muscling past more
highly ranked squads like Belarus. In Sochi in 2014, they battled
into the knockout round and finished seventh.
Reuters ran the numbers from the IIHF's global database of players
and facilities. Following are some other findings on the countries
sending the 12 men's teams and eight women's teams to Pyeongchang:
http://tmsnrt.rs/2Eur8Bj

TALLEST CHALLENGE
This year's hosts – South Korea – rank as the most hockey-challenged
country competing.
Ranked 21st and 22nd respectively by the IIHF, the men's and women's
squads were awarded automatic bids but have a small talent pool. The
country has just 2,675 players out of a total population of nearly
51 million and just 30 rinks.
At the over-20 level, South Korea has just 490 players, the second
fewest after Slovenia. That is just one player for every 104,000
people compared with one per every 123 in the Czech Republic, which
has the world's largest density of adult hockey players.
Even North Korea, which will send players for a unified women's team
with the South, has more than twice the number of adult players, at
1,090 with roughly three times as many women playing the game as its
southern neighbor: 920 vs 319.
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SMALL BUT MIGHTY
Finland clocks in with the fourth smallest population of the 14
participants at around 5.5 million people, but it packs a powerful
hockey punch.
The Finns come into the games ranked fourth by the IIHF and as the
only team in the men's tournament to have won a medal in each of the
last three Olympics.
In two of three measures of ice hockey might examined by Reuters, it
comes in at number two - players per capita (one per 148) and rinks
per capita (one per 18,000).

One problem is that Finland produces so many players, those rinks
are crowded. It has one rink for every 121 players. Only the Czechs
have more crowded conditions, at one for every 420.
(For graphic click http://tmsnrt.rs/2EruxAz)
SIZE MATTERS
The United States ranks number six in players per capita, number
nine in rinks per capita and number 12 in players per rink.
Still, thanks to its substantially larger overall population -
around 325 million - there are more American players participating
at the over-20 level than in any other country, nearly 235,000.
As a result its men's program is ranked fifth and the women are the
world's number one team, likely to battle Canada for gold.
SOFT TOUCH
Several countries stand out for under-delivering on their hockey
potential, perhaps most notably Switzerland.
The country has about 8.2 million people but comes in at number five
in players per capita and number four in rinks per capita and has a
middle of the road 41 players per rink. But the Swiss come to South
Korea with a men's team ranked seventh by the IIHF and a women's
team ranked sixth.
The Swiss women won their first medal in Sochi - a bronze - and
could contend again this year. The Swiss men, meanwhile, have not
won a medal since 1948.
(Reporting By Dan Burns; editing by Nick Mulvenney)
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