Does size of one’s community affect likelihood of being drafted into the NHL? Analysis of 25 years of data

Abstract

The consistency of community size effects in North American contexts but not elsewhere, reinforces the notion that the effect is driven by socio-cultural factors specific to the country under examination. In order to identify and understand the various forces driving the community size effect, it is important to determine whether the effect has changed over time. Stability or instability over time would assist researchers in identifying the specific socio-cultural mechanisms driving these effects. This study compared the influence of community size on the likelihood of being drafted into the National Hockey League (NHL) among Canadian ice hockey players drafted to play in the NHL between 1985 and 2009. Although there was some variability over the timespan examined, most notably in communities with between 250,000 and 499,999 inhabitants and over 1,000,000 inhabitants, trends were generally stable over time, suggesting that the socio-cultural mechanisms may have also been relatively stable, although further work is necessary to confirm this assumption.

Keywords:

• talent development
• expertise
• sport-geography
• community-size-effect