NJ Devils Are Surprisingly Big In These 2 European Countries: Study

NEWARK, NJ — If you’re a fan of the New Jersey Devils hockey team, you might find some kindred spirits in Switzerland and Slovakia, a study claims.

A recent analysis by sportsbook comparison site My Betting Sites Canada attempted to find out where NHL teams have the most clout in Europe. The research analyzed Google Keyword Planner data regarding the number of searches over the past 12 months, for terms that ice hockey fans search around their favorite teams: for example, “Toronto Maples Leafs score” or “Boston Bruins highlights.”

The Devils – who play their home games at the Prudential Center in Newark – ranked in the top five most popular teams in a total of seven European countries: Switzerland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Georgia, Liechenstein, Monaco and San Marino.

But it was in two nations – Switzerland and Slovakia – that the Devils are seeing some particular buzz, researchers said.

In Switzerland, the total search volume for the analyzed terms concerning the New Jersey side came in at a huge 11,085 in the past year. This means the Devils were searched almost 300% more than the second-placing team in Switzerland, the Toronto Maple Leafs, who were subject to 2,796 searches.

The Devils received a search volume of 2,326 in Slovakia, to be crowned the countries favorite side, just ahead of the Boston Bruins, who were searched a total of 2,115 times in the one-year period.

Overall, the New Jersey Devils ranked as Europe's seventh-favorite NHL team, researchers said. The favorite team? The Toronto Maple Leafs.

“Whilst ice hockey is enormous in Canada, and experiences great popularity in the U.S. 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,” commented Ben Smith, web manager at My Betting Sites Canada.

“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,” Smith said.

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