Talent Pool by Decade

[Stonefly]

It's been mentioned repeatedly in these forums that the talent pool that the NHL draws from has expanded and that the number of very talented players has therefore also grown. I do not dispute this at all. But I was wondering if anyone had any kind of statistics or numbers to show the difference from today to say the 60's. How many were enrolled in minor hockey back then versus today? Anyone?

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[Sens Rule]

It's been mentioned repeatedly in these forums that the talent pool that the NHL draws from has expanded and that the number of very talented players has therefore also grown. I do not dispute this at all. But I was wondering if anyone had any kind of statistics or numbers to show the difference from today to say the 60's. How many were enrolled in minor hockey back then versus today? Anyone?

Well the NHL consisted of around 90-95% or more Canadians until the 1970's - and even by the mid 1970's there were not that many players from other countries, more and more Americans and a handfull of Swedes and Finns. Like Salming and quite a few WHA stars. But in those days most Europeans who came over were stars or very good players. There were few "role players" coming from Europe.

For much of NHL History all the players were Canadian or from the Northern US.

Canada's population:
1921 8.8 million
1931 10.4 million
1941 11.5 million
1951 13.7 million
1956 16 million
1961 18.2 million
1966 20 million
1971 21.6 million
1976 23.5 million
1981 24.8 million
2006 32.2 million

So with a far smaller population Canada had 90%+ proportion of the players. Since the 1970's through today more and more Americans are playing hockey and from areas like Florida and California where they never played hockey previously. The Swedes and Finns began sending over all kinds of players rather than stars beginning in the 1980's through to the last 10 years when ANY role could go to a European not just the role of star or semi-star.
1989 the Iron Curtain fell and the Russian and Czech players could join the NHL. And in the last 5-10 years you have all kinds of other countries producing top level players. Like the Swiss, Germans, Austrians and of course the former Soviet republics.

The talent pool has massively increased since the 1960's.

 

[Stonefly]

I keep reading posts that the talent pool is so vast now. It would be nice to see some numbers of the increase and maybe the percentage increase in talent pool versus growth of the NHL. These numbers probably don't exist or would take a great amount of work to come up with but it would be nice to see just how much the ratio of talent pool to number of NHL players has changed.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Notwithstanding eras with competing leagues (WHA, PCHA, etc) or World War Two, the Canadian talent pool has been remarkably similar over time.

Here's a chart showing regular NHLers as a percentage of Canada population, based on C2SR's numbers.

Year|NHLers|Population|Proportion
1921 | 34 | 8.8m | 1 in 259,000
1931 | 130 | 10.4m | 1 in 80,000
1941 | 98 | 11.5m | 1 in 117,000
1951 | 99 | 13.7m | 1 in 138,000
1961 | 100 | 18.2m | 1 in 182,000
1971 | 245 | 21.6m | 1 in 88,000
1981 | 371 | 24.8m | 1 in 67,000
2006 | 574 | 32.2m | 1 in 56,000

The number for 2006 should be doubled since Canadian only make up half the league now. This means that 1 in 112,000 Canadians make the NHL today, which is actually a higher rate than during the Original Six era.

On the main boards we see people trash Shore because there was "no competition" for the Hart. Considering his era roughly spanned 1931 to 1941, we see that Canadian made the NHL at only a slightly lower rate than they make it today.

Obviously these are rough estimates, but the numbers make sense. The Canadian talent pool was higher in the Original Six era than it was today; there are more than three times as many jobs to go around today (for Canadians) and the total population has only doubled.

When people say that there are so many quality NHLers nowadays, they forget that there were literally only 100 jobs available during the 1950s and 1960s. Canadians made the NHL at roughly the same rate then as they do now. The huge amount of talent, good enough for the NHL but not in it due to the lack of jobs available, is also shown by the fact that when the NHL doubled, there were enough NHL-calibre players to build (mostly) healthy, sustainable franchises.

The overall talent pool is higher today due to non-Canadians in the NHL, but the question is: have the number of new jobs created through expansion outpaced the population growth from all countries? The only was to really estimate this is to look at the percentage of advanced junior/semi-pro hockey players in each country, in proportion to the jobs available today.

(Two quick technical notes: I'm defining "regular NHLer" as a player that appears in more than half the schedule. Of course, it would be useful to look more specifically at the percentage of Canadians playing hockey. If Canada's population is higher now due to seniors living longer, that doesn't really add to the country's ability to produce NHL players).

 

[Stonefly]

Fantastic work as usual Hockeyoutsider. Thank you.
I have had a hard time swallowing this larger talent pool theory that keeps being presented as fact but I can't really argue against it as it hasn't been proven one way or the other.

Here's one thought on it though. If the talent pool is so great and vast why are there so many guys bouncing between the NHL and minors?

 

[Philanthropist]

Fantastic work as usual Hockeyoutsider. Thank you.
I have had a hard time swallowing this larger talent pool theory that keeps being presented as fact but I can't really argue against it as it hasn't been proven one way or the other.

Here's one thought on it though. If the talent pool is so great and vast why are there so many guys bouncing between the NHL and minors?

because with the talent pool increasing, mediocre players are having a hard time fitting in.

 

[Stonefly]

because with the talent pool increasing, mediocre players are having a hard time fitting in.

What mediocre players? There are no more mediocre players, what with all the talent to choose from.

 

[ck26]

Never seen that percentage-of-populations stat ... thank's HO.

Here's one thought on it though. If the talent pool is so great and vast why are there so many guys bouncing between the NHL and minors?

I think this question hurts your argument. Guys in the O6 era played together for years and really bonded as a team, probably moreso than they do today. Teams would remain almost intact from one year to the next, and a core group of guys would stay together for a decade.

Stability can be a product of excellence, but more often it's a product of complacency and stagnation. Suppose 100 random Canadian families eat at the same restaraunt every weekend. The families from Toronto or Montreal are probably eating at what is really a great restaraunt, but the families from rural Saskatchewan are probably doing it because there's only one restaraunt in town, not because the place is worth a darn. If teams roll out the same lineup year after year, they're probably suffering from a barren farm system.

There are many stories of old players either retiring early or simply never turning pro because it wasn't as socially acceptable 100 years ago to play sports as a profession. Dickie Boon was one of the best players of the early 20th century, but he never played professionally because his parents didn't approve. Surely THAT didn't help the overall talent level, especially compared to today, when, especially in the United States, sports are viewed in some demographics as THE way for you and your family to escape a life of poverty.

There is so much prestige and reward that comes with making it to the NHL guys will try harder and longer to make it, because even a 4th-line role player will be set for life if he sticks on a roster for a couple seasons.

Factor in that teams stand to gain or lose so much based on results and teams are quicker to pull the plug on someone who isn't producing and replace him with a younger guy who is.

The sport of hockey has always been cutthroat, but in the modern world, the business of hockey is too.

It certainly appears that there is more talent, and I'd be inclined to say that there is, but the sport has changed in other ways too, so it's certainly up for debate.

 

[Philanthropist]

What mediocre players? There are no more mediocre players, what with all the talent to choose from.

haha

In any league, there are people on the fringes trying to make it. You can see this at any level of hockey.

I think the argument here is whether a 4th liner today could have been a 1st liner 70 years ago.

Well, back 70 years ago the NHL was composed of primarily North Americans, with little diversification of European talent in the league. Along with that, most players had to have a part time job to support themselves, seeing as they weren't provided with today's multi-million dollar contracts.

In my opinion a greater diversification of players along with a full time focus on their game has greatly increased today's talent pool (not to mention the switch from flat sticks to curved ones ).

 

[pappyline]

Cirved sticks have been around a long time. In fact the curves were more pronounced 40 years ago.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

haha

In any league, there are people on the fringes trying to make it. You can see this at any level of hockey.

I think the argument here is whether a 4th liner today could have been a 1st liner 70 years ago.

Well, back 70 years ago the NHL was composed of primarily North Americans, with little diversification of European talent in the league. Along with that, most players had to have a part time job to support themselves, seeing as they weren't provided with today's multi-million dollar contracts.

In my opinion a greater diversification of players along with a full time focus on their game has greatly increased today's talent pool (not to mention the switch from flat sticks to curved ones ).

The question is has the growth of the talent pool exceeded the growth of the league.