Back in the 1990-1991 season, there were 6,336 girls and women registered to play ice hockey through USA Hockey. Over half of those players came from just four states: Minnesota, Michigan, New York, and Massachusetts. Massachusetts had the highest number out of all of the states, contributing just over 20% of the total with 1,268 registrations coming from the state.
Now, 33 years later, the 2022-2023 season featured 91,254 girl and women registered, a 13-fold increase. Some things have stayed the same in that time: the four aforementioned states still remain the top four states in terms of registrations. But their dominance has waned slightly as ice hockey grows in other parts of the country as they make up around 43% of total registrations. Plus, Minnesota has overtaken Massachusetts as the state with the most total registration at 15,355 to 11,444 respectively. They are the only states to crack 10,000 registrations, with the next highest New York at 6,938 registrations.
All of this data comes from annual membership statistics provided by USA Hockey. Since 1990, there has been a few changes and upgrades to the data. First, since 2005, the data is subdivided into nine age group categories: 6 & under, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14, 15-16, 17-18, 19, and 20 & over, so it is possible to look at the growth of both youth and adult hockey separately.
In that same year, USA Hockey’s definition of a “state” for the sake of these statistics expanded a bit: Washington D.C. is considered its own state, and East and West Pennsylvania are considered separately, for a total of 52 states. The latter may be to facilitate districts, which are USA Hockey’s official geographical and organizational subdivisions comprised of one or more states, as East and West Pennsylvania were put in different districts in 2005.
The districts last changed in 2007, when the number of districts increased from 11 to 12 by giving Minnesota its own district instead of having it with North and South Dakota (the demise, much to my chagrin, of the Minnkota district); the latter two formed the new Northern Plains district with Montana and Wyoming.
The current districts are:
| DISTRICT | STATE(S) |
|---|---|
| Atlantic | Delaware, East Pennsylvania, New Jersey |
| Central | Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Wisconsin |
| Massachusetts | Massachusetts |
| Michigan | Michigan |
| Mid-American | Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Pennsylvania, West Virginia |
| Minnesota | Minnesota |
| New England | Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont |
| New York | New York |
| Northern Plains | Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming |
| Pacific | Alaska, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Washington |
| Rocky Mountain | Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah |
| Southeastern | Alabama, Arkansas, Washington D.C., Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia |
Some assorted observations:
- Adult hockey is growing the Pacific district: there were 393 more registrations in the 20 & over age group in the 2022-2023 season than the previous season, which was over half of the increase in registrations in the Pacific district overall that season.
- West Virginia had the biggest growth in registration in the 2022-2023 season for a state with over 100 registrations overall; they added 51 registrations for 171 registration overall, a 42.5% increase.
- In the 2021-2022 season, there was a single girl registered to play from Hawaii; she was in the 13-14 age group. They did not appear to return in the 2022-2023 season, but Hawaii did net 19 new registrations for 20 registrations overall. 13 were 20 & over and the other seven were all 12 and under.
All of this information and graphics come from a resurrection of an old project of mine: a web app to explore these registrations numbers visually. It has been expanded to display the overall numbers instead of just percent changes, and include the last two seasons that have occurred since the first iteration.
You can check it out here and explore for yourself:
http://women-usa-hockey-registration-422d1425d167.herokuapp.com/