Id be willing to bet that most Americans dont even know where Hamilton is.
Hamilton's probably a bit of an unknown to most Americans, due to the simple fact that it's not a major city and they don't have any connection to the major sports in the U.S. (AHL doesn't count) like the other Canadian NHL cities.
Hamilton is a "sister city" to Pittsburgh and so well known in the steel community
Hamilton should be well known to most in upper Michigan as well. It wasn't all that long ago that the RedWings Jr farm team was in Hamilton many of Detroits players in the 60's and 70's came through Hamilton up to the bigs. In fact the current GM of the Carolina Hurricanes Jimmy Rutherford is an ex Hamilton Jr Red Wing. The other relationship to upper Michigan is that for many years there was something called the CanUsa games held annually between athletes from the Hamilton area and The Flint area in Michigan. I was fortunate enough to have competed 3 times in baseball.
There is also a connection to Chicago in that there was a annual hockey tournament for a time between Oak Park and the Hamilton Husky organizations
So while a place like Hamilton isn't widly known in the US there are some people who have a fairly good knowledge of the Hammer.....and of course there is the one ex-Hamiltonian almost everyone in the US knows and that's Martin Short but he is only one of many. Guys you love to hate like Damien Cox and to a lesser extent Stephen Brunt grew up there. My uncle and boxer Jackie Callura world featherweight champ in 43 was a Hamiltonian
There is of course a plethora of former NHLers who hail from the steel city such as Leo Reise Jr(RedKelly's partner in Detroit), venerated Leafs captain and Hofer Syl Apps, Babe Dye, old Ranger captain and Norris winner Harry Howell, Todd Harvey who is the son of ex Jr RedWing Buster Harvey, Dave Andreychuk, John Tonelli and of course "Big Irish" Pat Quinn.......those are just a few among many
There is even of course, a strange and beautiful connection to HF boards in that Jonathan Frid the star of "Dark Shadows" is a Hamiltonian....HF vets know what I mean