The Toronto Maple Leafs rank as Europe’s favourite NHL team, according to a new report. The report analyzed Google Keyword Planner data from over the past 12 months regarding the number of terms that ice hockey fans search for about their favourite teams, like “Toronto Maples Leafs score” or “Boston Bruins highlights.”
The total number of searches for these phrases, regarding every NHL team, was combined to establish the most searched ‘sides’ from 47 major European countries. Each team was given a score according to its rank in every country (5 points for ranking 1st, 1 point for ranking 5th), dubbed the “European ranking score”.
Of the 47 countries analyzed, the Leafs topped the table in as many as 23 countries and came within the top five in 39 countries. The Toronto team was favoured in large countries like the United Kingdom, where there were close to 30,000 searches for the analysed terms during the period studied. Toronto also came first in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, where search volumes reached between 2,000 and 3,000. Even in Sweden, where ice hockey is particularly popular, close to 12,000 relevant searches were carried out over a 12-month period (Feb 2023 to Jan 2024).
“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,” Ben Smith, manager at My Betting Sites Canada said in a statement.
“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.”
Following the Leafs were the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers in second and third place, with the Florida Panthers and Vancouver Canucks rounding out the top five. The Edmonton Oilers came in sixth place, followed by the New Jersey Devils and the Las Vegas Golden Knights (tied for seventh), and Colorado Avalanche and the Pittsburg Penguins (eighth place).