It took me a couple of weeks to find some time to update the timeline to reflect the new realignment. And so it goes. The NHL and all of its glory.
It looks like the NHL has proposed a new league realignment. It has yet to be approved, but this is what it would look like. Detroit and Columbus will move to the East while Winnipeg will move to the West.
With the future talks of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, the NHL and NHLPA will discuss future changes to the NHL to help with issues of travel while keeping the majority of rivalries.
For the NHL Timeline, I wanted to look at how the league was formed and molded over time. I also wanted to look at how the logos evolved (should probably do this as a separate project). And of course I show the Stanley Cup winners.
After looking at the Nationality in the NHL for each season, I wanted to look at the total Nationality of the NHL from 1917 to 2012.
Buffalo Sabre’s Buffalo has gone through quite a few different changes. From the icon, to the cartoon-ish logo, to a simplified version, then back to the icon.
After taking a look at the transformation of the National Hockey League through divisions and conferences, I wanted to add the number of teams throughout each season. I kept a simplified version of how the league was broken up into divisions and conferences.
While working on a giant time line of the NHL, I put together this wireframe of the NHL.
The size correlates to the years each franchise has existed in the NHL. The color represents the number of Stanley Cups each team has won. Dark gray mean more Stanley Cups. Light gray means fewer. Teams in red have not won a Stanley Cup.
After looking at the number of U.S. Players, I thought it would be nice to look at the nationality of the NHL as a whole by games played.
This July 4th I wanted to look at the U.S. born players in the NHL who played at least one game during any season. You can see a rise in U.S. players prior to World War 2. After the war, there was a slow increase in U.S. born players until the expansion era (1967). Although 6 new teams were added to the NHL, it took the expansion of 6 more teams by 1974 to increase the number of U.S. born players substantially. More NHL teams in the States = more NHL fans = more hockey camps = more American hockey players.
Combining the assets and order of the draft, I looked at the movement of each draft pick that traded hands from one team to another. Don’t be scared of how complicated it looks. The purpose of this piece is to see and feel the movement of picks from an NHL Draft. If you need to see every detail, Wikipedia explains everything (Warning: Everything is explained backwards).
Using the same organization as order, I look at every draft pick that was in the possession of each team.
I take a different look at the order of the draft. I start with the lottery winners and continue adding in the draft numbers for each pick. All trades are distinguished by a color similar to the team the pick originated.
This image has been featured on Pro Hockey Talk NBC Sports
What can I say about a sports logo that hasn’t changed since it was created in 1967? Stay classic, Philadelphia.
Next year the lightning bolt turns 20. Here is how its evolved over the three variations starting in 1992.
The Boston Bruins have used 6 different B’s for their primary logo. That’s it. How boring!
I guess it doesn’t matter how tall you are to win a Stanley Cup, you just can’t be on the Maple Leafs.