Is Hockey Big in the UK?

[RichardM]

No idea where Hockey Big is. Who is she anyway? Is she related to Bell Hooks? Who the chough is bell hooks and why hasn't she got proper initials? bell hooks remembered: ‘She embodied everything I wanted to be’
Never heard of her.
Never heard of Hockey Big, either.

Thank you for constructive addition to the thread

 

[DavidDetroit]

I go to Toronto and New York quite a lot and would love to see a Leafs or Rangers game, but understand tickets for either are hard to come by due to price and scarcity.

I was curious and checked Rangers tickets online from the official NHL website. You can get them and I didn't check too far out, date-wise, either which would indicate a month from now will have an even bigger selection.
As low as $70/ticket for one of the games I checked were available. I guess that's a usual price.
Then I saw the visiting Redwings prices and those were almost sold out and double the price or more.

 

[Dorst]

Controversial!

I'll double down on this take with numbers!

I looked at international ranking found that the Netherlands is ranked 11. All other nations are former colonies, were formerly occupied, or were governed otherwise by the British at one moment in time. You would guess that cricket must be really popular over in the Netherlands right?

When I look at cricket clubs / associations in the Netherlands I can find that in 2018 we had 46 cricket clubs in the Netherlands. This is more or less the same number as ice hockey clubs (42) so the popularity is not that different.

It ranks below cross-bow shooting, skiing (how?! we don't have any mountains!), fencing, and the ever popular klootschieten (road bowling) in terms of active clubs.

It's completely eclipsed when you look at football, (field) hockey, handball, tennis, ice skating, volleyball, cycling, korfball, base ball, basketball.. and that's not counting the perhaps not sports asociations like bridge, chess, checkers, rescue swimming, golf, horse riding, shooting etc.

The point that I'm trying to make that cricket is not super popular and ranks somewhere between beugelen and klootschieten in the Netherlands - and that makes it a niche sport because you most likely never heard of these sports. In my experience it's also practiced mostly in areas where we have large expat communities with Indian, Pakistan etc. population.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I'll double down on this take with numbers!

I looked at international ranking found that the Netherlands is ranked 11. All other nations are former colonies, were formerly occupied, or were governed otherwise by the British at one moment in time. You would guess that cricket must be really popular over in the Netherlands right?
View attachment 59545

Of course, it depends a bit on how you define "occupied" (1945?) and "governed", arguably William & Mary means that you could argue all the above are Dutch in origin! Afghan is a bit debatable, it's never really been "controlled" by the UK and cricket only really became a thing there once the Taliban were pushed back - it's been a huge success in a country that desperately needed some good news. They were due to make the big step up to Test cricket this year but unfortunately events got in the way.

I assume that's the 1-day list - you'll see in practice there's a huge step between the 10 Test-playing nations which are all above 2000 points and the rest (aside from Zimbabwe, who have their own issues). I notice you didn't use the T20 list, which has the likes of Nepal and Namibia above NL.

 

[Dorst]

Of course, it depends a bit on how you define "occupied" (1945?) and "governed", arguably William & Mary means that you could argue all the above are Dutch in origin! Afghan is a bit debatable, it's never really been "controlled" by the UK and cricket only really became a thing there once the Taliban were pushed back - it's been a huge success in a country that desperately needed some good news. They were due to make the big step up to Test cricket this year but unfortunately events got in the way.

I assume that's the 1-day list - you'll see in practice there's a huge step between the 10 Test-playing nations which are all above 2000 points and the rest (aside from Zimbabwe, who have their own issues). I notice you didn't use the T20 list, which has the likes of Nepal and Namibia above NL.

I used the first list that popped up when using my Google-fu. Another telling sign of my cricket ignorance :-)

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I used the first list that popped up when using my Google-fu. Another telling sign of my cricket ignorance :-)

That's OK, it's complicated. Traditionally international cricket was played over 5 days (or more!) between the big countries of the British Empire in what were known as Test matches, but in the 1970s various formats were developed that took one day and so were more audience/TV friendly, and in the 00s an even shorter form called T20 was introduced which takes 3-4 hours. Almost all the money is in the shorter forms of the game, particular T20, and they've been using T20 as the way to spread cricket to new geographies but the prestige is more in Test matches, even though they're only really popular in a handful of countries. So there's only 10 Test-playing countries, 20 approved one-day countries, and 91 T20 countries.

NL has actually got a long history in cricket, and historically was one of the strongest of the non-Test countries, and also eg played in the English domestic one-day competitions.

 

[Braufather]

I'll double down on this take with numbers!

I looked at international ranking found that the Netherlands is ranked 11. All other nations are former colonies, were formerly occupied, or were governed otherwise by the British at one moment in time. You would guess that cricket must be really popular over in the Netherlands right?
View attachment 59545

When I look at cricket clubs / associations in the Netherlands I can find that in 2018 we had 46 cricket clubs in the Netherlands. This is more or less the same number as ice hockey clubs (42) so the popularity is not that different.

It ranks below cross-bow shooting, skiing (how?! we don't have any mountains!), fencing, and the ever popular klootschieten (road bowling) in terms of active clubs.

It's completely eclipsed when you look at football, (field) hockey, handball, tennis, ice skating, volleyball, cycling, korfball, base ball, basketball.. and that's not counting the perhaps not sports asociations like bridge, chess, checkers, rescue swimming, golf, horse riding, shooting etc.

The point that I'm trying to make that cricket is not super popular and ranks somewhere between beugelen and klootschieten in the Netherlands - and that makes it a niche sport because you most likely never heard of these sports. In my experience it's also practiced mostly in areas where we have large expat communities with Indian, Pakistan etc. population.

I’m from Kent originally and cricket is big there( or used to be,) My dad played into his 60s at village level and umpire into his 90s. My brother stats up all night listening to the ashes. Personally I played and watched as a kid but now for me it’s just football.

Don’t follow cricket at all these days But it does have a big following, especially in the shires and as you say internationally in the commonwealth. Similar to rugby in that respect

Would never have associated the Dutch with cricket at all before but I read a novel a few years back that focused a bit about Dutch cricket. Can’t remember what it was called.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Do the Dutch play cricket because of the number of 'Dutch' Saffers that want to play international cricket?

 

[moto748]

I doubt they need to go to all that trouble. It doesn't seem a problem to incorporate Saffies into the England cricket and rugby union teams. The Aussies have got one or two as well, I think.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Do the Dutch play cricket because of the number of 'Dutch' Saffers that want to play international cricket?

No - it's been a thing in NL since before South Africa was a country, there's a long history to it there.

 

[jceg316]

I was curious and checked Rangers tickets online from the official NHL website. You can get them and I didn't check too far out, date-wise, either which would indicate a month from now will have an even bigger selection.
As low as $70/ticket for one of the games I checked were available. I guess that's a usual price.
Then I saw the visiting Redwings prices and those were almost sold out and double the price or more.

Is $70 for the nosebleeds? I did get incredibly cheap tickets to see the Bluejays and we sat in the nosebleeds. It was a lot of fun though. I'm not at all into baseball, but it was a sunny day and we sat with a couple of hot dogs, a few beers, and chatted, was really relaxing. Although the atmosphere looks very different at a hockey game

 

[DavidDetroit]

Is $70 for the nosebleeds? I did get incredibly cheap tickets to see the Bluejays and we sat in the nosebleeds. It was a lot of fun though. I'm not at all into baseball, but it was a sunny day and we sat with a couple of hot dogs, a few beers, and chatted, was really relaxing. Although the atmosphere looks very different at a hockey game

Yeah, those are the ones. Seating is actually really relevant and I should have taken that into consideration. I went to a Michigan game and a Michigan State (American college football) game and I couldn't really see or tell what was going on--teeny tiny figures--and I know much about the sport. TV is much better. If I do go to a game, I prefer a half in the stadium for the atmosphere and then to the bar to actually see what's going on. I've only had one good seat to a pro event in my life.
Hot dogs are usually really good at the stadiums. The Detroit Tigers' ones are so good and I can't duplicate them at home. As an aside, a popular hotdog vendor at Detroit's baseball stadium got fired because he refused to give ketchup to a customer. Mustard, yes, Ketchup, no.
Speaking of atmosphere, we went to a Buffalo Bills game (NFL) and they are crazy fans there. I didn't feel safe until I bought one of their caps.

 

[Clint]

Is ice hockey more popular in "colder" areas/countries? Or places that have proper winters? Or is it a culture type sport and there's indoor rinks regardless?

 

[DavidDetroit]

Is ice hockey more popular in "colder" areas/countries? Or places that have proper winters? Or is it a culture type sport and there's indoor rinks regardless?

Yeah, there is a direct correlation but it gets blurred a little like for college teams.
When an NHL team gets placed in a warm state, the fans have no idea what's going on and attendance can wain after the novelty wears off. It's not cut and dry though as a lot of northerners move to Florida and they fill the stadium and know their ice hockey.
It is less popular and fewer rinks, on average, where snow isn't a factor.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Is ice hockey more popular in "colder" areas/countries? Or places that have proper winters? Or is it a culture type sport and there's indoor rinks regardless?

Well the Olympic medals are usually won by Canada, USSR/Russia, Sweden, Finland and the US, although to be fair the Czechs are randomly very good too. So that gives you an idea...

I imagine part of it is just the economics of running a massive freezer in different climates, it's noticable that Scotland has more than twice the number of rinks that England does on a per capita basis.

 

[DavidDetroit]

economics

I almost mentioned that but I'm not writing my thesis.
Here we have a lot of poor, warm areas so even if they wanted to play, it's not feasible.

 

[Eskimo John]

Many people think homebrewing is longwinded and boring when you could just go down the supermarket for a multipack of Carling; within homebrewing many people think all-grain is longwinded and boring.

I love both Cricket (I have my own seat at the Oval) and brewing from grain.

I can be longwinded, I blame the Christmas dinner sprouts for that, and am definitely boring, a right of someone of my age.

........ I'll get my coat.