Counting NHL Logos at Disneyworld


I've been at Disneyworld in Florida for the last five days with my wife and daughter. We've done all four of the theme parks; Magic Kingdom (twice), Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. What does a hockey nerd like myself do during these long days of park exploring and family bonding? Why, count NHL caps I come across of course. I figured, what more neutral a place than Disney Florida to gauge the pulse of NHL fans and merchandise.

OK, of course most of my attention was on my family's activities and trying not to puke on the Spinning Teacups but I am a very observant person, especially when it comes to hockey logos. Whenever I spotted an NHL team hat or t-shirt I made a note and after five days, tallied up the results. Of course, the predominant sports logos worn were of the college variety. I can't count how many "U of This or That" and "Whatever State" I saw. Yankees and Red Sox paraphernalia would have to be tops among all pro sports logos I saw, (I only actually counted hockey ones) I must have seen at least a couple an hour of these two. Not surprisingly I saw only a grand total of 35 hockey logos over the five days.

Also not surprising, the two logos I saw the most were Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins with four each. A little bit of a surprise is that the next two teams I saw the most was Edmonton and Winnipeg with three each. The Oilers were the only team I saw adorning a full replica jersey. Some large fellow from Fort McMurray had a Nugent-Hopkins on. I wore my Maple Leafs cap each and every day (just in case some other idiot was counting NHL logos also) and thankfully I managed to see one other guy in a Leafs cap on the final day. I also wore my Seattle Metropolitans T-shirt one day. The other teams that I saw two each of were Montreal, Tampa Bay and New York Rangers. Strangely there was also two different guys wearing Minnesota North Stars gear.

In total there were 18 teams (one defunct) represented in my non-scientific survey. The teams I saw only once were Carolina, Detroit, Chicago, Minnesota Wild, Ottawa, Washington, San Jose, Philadelphia and Buffalo. I did see one hat go past me while in line at the Haunted Mansion that was full orange with a small NHL logo on the back of it. I couldn't see the front but have to assume it was a Flyers hat, so I'll bump them up to 1 and a half sightings.

Draw your own conclusions from my moronic study. I would however, be fairly comfortable in saying that Boston and Pittsburgh are indeed likely the two most popular team in these United States.

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