Photo by Dave Cottenie, Stadium Journey
A study from online sportsbook My Betting Sites Canada has revealed the NHL teams most supported by European fans. While 13 different teams ranked as the favorite in at least one country, the overwhelming favorite team by the majority of European fans is the 13-time Stanley Cup champion Toronto Maple Leafs.
Researchers with the betting site analyzed Google Keyword Planner data and determined the number of searches for NHL teams and related info, such as “Toronto Maple Leafs score” or “Boston Bruins highlights,” over a 12-month period. The searches were tabulated by team across 47 major European countries.
“To illustrate the favorite teams across Europe, each team was given a score according to its rank in every country,” said a spokesperson for the site in a news release. [Five] points for ranking 1st, 1 point for ranking 5th, etc. This score was dubbed the ‘European ranking score.’”
Out of the 47 countries that were analyzed, Toronto ranked first in 23, including in large countries like the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. One of the highest search volumes for Toronto came from Sweden, where ice hockey is particularly popular. The overall European Ranking Score for the Maple Leafs was 168.
“Whilst ice hockey is enormous in Canada, and experiences great popularity in the US with the NHL spanning the two countries, it’s a relatively underrepresented sport in much of Europe where soccer takes much of the limelight from all other sports,” said Ben Smith, Website Manager at My Betting Sites Canada. “With this, it’s interesting to see the teams that European fans of the game chose to follow, perhaps due to a lack of televised hockey, and huge travel demands for spectating live matches.”
In distant second place on the rankings was the Boston Bruins with a score of 119, followed by the New York Rangers (74), Florida Panthers (66), and Vancouver Canucks (27) rounding out the rest of the top five.
Research results courtesy of My Betting Sites Canada
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