ABSTRACT
Migration is an essentially geographical phenomenon. Like other migrants, those who ply their sporting talents move from place to place, often between different cultural and physical environments and collectively form migratory flows at a variety of geographical scales (Bale, 1991; Rooney, 1980). Canada is the home of ice hockey (Kidd, 1970; Ojala and Kureth, 1979) but in recent decades the out-migration of Canadian ice hockey players has been a characteristic feature of the sport’s geography. While the recruitment of Canadians by US college hockey squads and professional teams in the National Hockey League (NHL) has been commonplace for many years, the migration of Canadian players to Europe (and Japan and Australia) has been a much more recent phenomenon. The purpose of this chapter is to chart the extent of such migration, focusing especially on the regional (Canadian) origins of such migrants and their national destinations in Europe.
