Team Golden Horseshoe

[namttebih]

I know that this is more of an off-season type thread but I was bored while waiting for a flight and I threw it together...

We always hear about how amazing it is that Finland with a population of approximately 6 million people and Sweden with 10 million can produce teams full of high quality hockey players and rightfully so.

I wondered what it would be like to throw a team together made up of players born within a one hour drive of Toronto - otherwise known as the Golden Horseshoe. It has a population of approximately 8 million people.

You’ll notice that not unlike the Canadian national team, there are a ton of natural C that had to be moved to the wing. Likewise, the D is made up entirely of RHD that had to be moved to the left side. The goaltending would be the demise if there was one. Honestly - they are the best that I could come up with. Even looking through the remainder of southern Ontario, the best that could have been added would have been McElhinney and Mike Smith. You have to go all the way north to Thunder Bay to find Murray. Why is there so much a shortage of quality goaltending coming out of such a hotbed?

Enjoy! Please go ahead with any additions or subtractions. Also, how would this team stack up against the Scandinavian countries?

Skinner - McDavid - Monahan
Duchene - Scheifele - Seguin
Stamkos - Tavares - Marner
Wilson - Couture - Simmonds

Subban - Ellis
Burns - Pietragelo
Monitor - Hamilton

Talbot
Elliott

Edit: replaced Henrique with Couture

Click to read more...

 

[Staniowski]

I know that this is more of an off-season type thread but I was bored while waiting for a flight and I threw it together...

We always hear about how amazing it is that Finland with a population of approximately 6 million people and Sweden with 10 million can produce teams full of high quality hockey players and rightfully so.

I wondered what it would be like to throw a team together made up of players born within a one hour drive of Toronto - otherwise known as the Golden Horseshoe. It has a population of approximately 8 million people.

You’ll notice that not unlike the Canadian national team, there are a ton of natural C that had to be moved to the wing. Likewise, the D is made up entirely of RHD that had to be moved to the left side. The goaltending would be the demise if there was one. Honestly - they are the best that I could come up with. Even looking through the remainder of southern Ontario, the best that could have been added would have been McElhinney and Mike Smith. You have to go all the way north to Thunder Bay to find Murray. Why is there so much a shortage of quality goaltending coming out of such a hotbed?

Enjoy! Please go ahead with any additions or subtractions. Also, how would this team stack up against the Scandinavian countries?

Skinner - McDavid - Monahan
Duchene - Scheifele - Seguin
Stamkos - Tavares - Marner
Wilson - Henrique - Simmonds

Subban - Ellis
Burns - Pietragelo
Monitor - Hamilton

Talbot
Elliott

Halifax, NS, has a population of about 400 000, and has a top line of Crosby, MacKinnon, and Marchand, which could probably outplay just about any other line....but Team Halifax, of course, has no depth.

The 905 could ice a great team.

 

[namttebih]

Actually, I’m going to add another team from the 519 area code. London and area produces a ridiculous amount of NHL talent.

 

[1989]

Seriously thought this topic might be regarding a team comprised of high PDO players/players with high shooting percentages.

Also, even being Canadian I've never heard of the geographical term "golden horseshoe".

 

[Staniowski]

Seriously thought this topic might be regarding a team comprised of high PDO players/players with high shooting percentages.

Also, even being Canadian I've never heard of the geographical term "golden horseshoe".

The term "Golden Horseshoe" has been around since the 1950s, but it's not as common now as it once was.

 

[Puckclektr]

Seriously thought this topic might be regarding a team comprised of high PDO players/players with high shooting percentages.

Also, even being Canadian I've never heard of the geographical term "golden horseshoe".

Term is quite common. The USA inflated their metro statistics by using consolidated metro areas. For example. The gta is like 4,000km squares. Atlanta’s is 28,000km. Golden Horseshoe is similar to Atlanta’s area.
Therefore if Toronto used similar population stats that th e USA does the golden hosrsehoe and it’s 8.5-9 million would be just a little smaller than Chicago

 

[namttebih]

Seriously thought this topic might be regarding a team comprised of high PDO players/players with high shooting percentages.

Also, even being Canadian I've never heard of the geographical term "golden horseshoe".

Is that true for their careers or this year?

 

[Sens With Benefits]

So they would play against team Eastern Ontario/Gatineau (Ottawa, Kingston, Belleville etc.)

Hall-Giroux- Spooner
Shaw-Brassard-Cousins
Byron-Pageau-Baptiste
Elie-



Methot-Ceci
Gudbrandon-De Haan
Weegar-Borowiecki
Hutton

Mike Smith
Jared Coreau

 

[Dr Pepper]

Team BC:

Jamie Benn - Matthew Barzal - Brett Connolly
Evander Kane - Ryan Johansen - Sam Reinhart
Andrew Ladd - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Jake Virtanen
Milan Lucic - Kyle Turris - Troy Brouwer

Morgan Rielly - Tyson Barrie
Shea Weber - Shea Theodore
Brent Seabrook - Brenden Dillon

Carey Price
Martin Jones

Not bad.....but not quite on the Horseshoe's level.

 

[93LEAFS]

I don't think Haliburton is in the Golden Horseshoe which removes Duchene, and I don't believe London is either, which removes Couture (born in Guelph, but raised almost entirely in London).

The funny thing is, I don't think anyone outside of Wilson was raised inside pre-mega city Toronto. Pretty much everyone is from the suburbs. Simmonds and Subban are from what would currently be classified as Toronto.

 

[namttebih]

I don't think Haliburton is in the Golden Horseshoe which removes Duchene, and I don't believe London is either, which removes Couture (born in Guelph, but raised almost entirely in London).

The funny thing is, I don't think anyone outside of Wilson was raised inside pre-mega city Toronto. Pretty much everyone is from the suburbs. Simmonds and Subban are from what would currently be classified as Toronto.

I did my homework. Haliburton is right inside the border. Splitting hairs with Couture, no?

You’re right though, almost entirely 905 guys. Obviously has to do with demographics. That being said, a lot of them played AAA on Toronto proper based teams.

 

[93LEAFS]

I did my homework. Haliburton is right inside the border. Splitting hairs with Couture, no?

You’re right though, almost entirely 905 guys. Obviously has to do with demographics. That being said, a lot of them played AAA on Toronto proper based teams.

Somewhat, most of the upper-middle class suburbs are in the boonies, but the ultra-wealthy parts of Toronto don't tend to produce many NHLers. Hyman is from Forest Hill, and Tom Wilson is from Lawrence Park. I can't think of any from Rosedale or York Mills/Bridle Path.

I lived in London for university, so I remember Couture was a local. I get how it happened though, it is not really something you often double check.

Pretty most of 905ers played GTHL though.

 

[WesMcCauley]

Would guess its because of the sport beeing a «national sport» and because they have a lot of rinks. Thats why they have so many good players compared to a country like Norway where hockey isnt that big and they have very few rinks compared to Finland and Sweden. Finland and Norway have almost the exact same amount of citizens, Sweden 4-5 million ish more than both of them.

 

[end]

Manitoba has some old goalies who will fight ya.

 

[Kaners Bald Spot]

I find this hilarious, because I thought the thread was going to be about the players who were incredibly lucky with their shooting percentage this year, and had a golden horseshoe stuck up their ass.

 

[Staniowski]

Somewhat, most of the upper-middle class suburbs are in the boonies, but the ultra-wealthy parts of Toronto don't tend to produce many NHLers. Hyman is from Forest Hill, and Tom Wilson is from Lawrence Park. I can't think of any from Rosedale or York Mills/Bridle Path.

I lived in London for university, so I remember Couture was a local. I get how it happened though, it is not really something you often double check.

Pretty most of 905ers played GTHL though.

I think Max Domi grew up mostly in York Mills. Born in Winnipeg, but Toronto is his hometown.

 

[Machinehead]

Monitor - Hamilton

 

[Hivemind]

I'm surprised there aren't any better goaltenders from that area.

 

[nucksauce]

Looked at putting together an East coast team, not nearly enough active players. I did however notice that Newfoundland has only produced 1 NHL player ever, thought that was interesting.

Edit: Nevermind! Had the filter on active, forgive me Dan Cleary and Michael Ryder

 

[adsfan]

Term is quite common. The USA inflated their metro statistics by using consolidated metro areas. For example. The gta is like 4,000km squares. Atlanta’s is 28,000km. Golden Horseshoe is similar to Atlanta’s area.
Therefore if Toronto used similar population stats that the USA does the golden hosrsehoe and it’s 8.5-9 million would be just a little smaller than Chicago

You can still find the population of a US city, or a county or a MSA. Where I live, the City of Milwaukee has 600K, Milwaukee County has 950K, and the Milwaukee MSA is 1,572K. There is no inflating. Each figure is for a given area, city, county or metro. Left to right, as those areas get larger, so does the population. Of all countries in the world, the US ranks third in population, behind China and India. Some US cities, like Chicago, have lost population to the suburbs, the metro area stays about the same.

Chicago has 2.710K in the city, Cook County has 5,211K, and "Chicagoland" or the MSA has 9.5 million with a CSA at 9.9 million.

The city of Toronto has 2.8 million (2016), which makes it larger population wise than Chicago. Toronto CMA of 5.926K, The GTA has 6.417K.

I heard of the Golden Horseshoe many years ago, but my wife is also from the Buffalo (260K in the city) area. The Golden Horseshoe increases the population of the Toronto metro area to 7.82 million (2016), Greater Golden Horsehoe has 9,245K, but there is no inflating, just misunderstanding.

 

[Puckclektr]

You can still find the population of a US city, or a county or a MSA. Where I live, the City of Milwaukee has 600K, Milwaukee County has 950K, and the Milwaukee MSA is 1,572K. There is no inflating. Each figure is for a given area, city, county or metro. Left to right, as those areas get larger, so does the population. Of all countries in the world, the US ranks third in population, behind China and India. Some US cities, like Chicago, have lost population to the suburbs, the metro area stays about the same.

Chicago has 2.710K in the city, Cook County has 5,211K, and "Chicagoland" or the MSA has 9.5 million with a CSA at 9.9 million.

The city of Toronto has 2.8 million (2016), which makes it larger population wise than Chicago. Toronto CMA of 5.926K, The GTA has 6.417K.

I heard of the Golden Horseshoe many years ago, but my wife is also from the Buffalo (260K in the city) area. The Golden Horseshoe increases the population of the Toronto metro area to 7.82 million (2016), Greater Golden Horsehoe has 9,245K, but there is no inflating, just misunderstanding.

Maybe not inflating. Calculated differently. The USA normally takes up a lot more space and combines areas.
I understand what you are saying as a lot of this related to my occupation. Many American cities slowly lose city population but the many metro areas still grow because of suburban growth. I get that.
Chicagoland is more comparable in size to the greater Golden Horseshoe and I know that Toronto city population has recently surpassed Chicago. If Chicago calculated their population the same way they do in Canada, cities like Kenosha and Gary would not be included the same way Hamilton isn’t in the GTA.
The greater Golden Horseshoe is essentially what Toronto’s CSA would be as we don’t have a comparable statistic.

 

[Robinson2187]

Looked at putting together an East coast team, not nearly enough active players. I did however notice that Newfoundland has only produced 1 NHL player ever, thought that was interesting.

Edit: Nevermind! Had the filter on active, forgive me Dan Cleary and Michael Ryder

Adam Pardy says HI b'y.

 

[namttebih]

Actually, I’m going to add another team from the 519 area code. London and area produces a ridiculous amount of NHL talent.

As promised:

Jenner - O'Reilly - Horvat
Couture - Sheifele - Konecny
Thornton - Kadri - Carter
Anathasiou - Henrique - Mcginn

Brodie - Doughty
Fowler - Ekblad
Beaulieu - Montour

Talbot
McElhinney

519 area code with a population of only 1.2 million.

 

[ps241]

Somewhat, most of the upper-middle class suburbs are in the boonies, but the ultra-wealthy parts of Toronto don't tend to produce many NHLers. Hyman is from Forest Hill, and Tom Wilson is from Lawrence Park. I can't think of any from Rosedale or York Mills/Bridle Path.

I lived in London for university, so I remember Couture was a local. I get how it happened though, it is not really something you often double check.

Pretty most of 905ers played GTHL though.

The kids in those ultra rich areas can’t afford the cut in pay to play in the NHL.

 

[adsfan]

The kids in those ultra rich areas can’t afford the cut in pay to play in the NHL.

I think that you are correct. A long time ago, working class kids flocked into athletics. Joe Diamaggio's family owned a restaurant in San Francisco. Ted Williams' mother worked for the Salvation Army. Carl Yastrzemski was born in Bridgehampton, New York and raised on his father's potato farm. Athletics was a way to move up the economic ladder. It still is if you are a poor or working class kid.

Wealthier families want their sons and daughters to become a white collar professional; a doctor, lawyer, engineer or business executive. My neighbor in college was majoring in Chemical Engineering. His father and grandfather were both chemical engineers. He had a head start in his education. His roommate was majoring in Metallurgical Engineering. I believe that his dad worked in a steel mill doing analysis of the steel. I didn't even know what that was as a freshman and tagged along to his lab and a few lectures. They were both from a suburb of Cleveland and went to to same high school. The estimated median household income in that suburb was $75K in 2013.

I live in a suburb of Milwaukee where the 2000 average income was $47K and average family income was $67.5K. There are a lot of apartment buildings, that is part of why the numbers diverge so much. There are some million dollar homes along Lake Michigan. The per capita income in Wisconsin in 2008 was $35.2K, so we are a relatively wealthy, but not insanely rich, area. About 90% of the high school graduates go to college from my local high school. A few go into military service. The US average is 66% as of 2013. We had a Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, a Secretary of Defense, a rock star, two guys who made movies (Airplane) and a few minor TV stars graduate.

The only pro athlete that I know of is Leif Shiras, the former pro tennis player. His career highlight was at the Queen's Club Championships in 1984, where he lost to John McEnroe 1–6, 6–3, 2–6 in the finals (having beaten Ivan Lendl in the first round). That tourney is one of two held just before Wimbledon.