The Chicago Blackhawks just might be the hottest team in the NHL as the season rolls toward the playoffs.
And their fan base isn’t too shabby, either, at least according to a study by Fanatics, the licensed sports merchandiser.
Combing through everything from “arena occupancy, social media following and jersey sales,” the study pinpoints Chicago fans as the most loyal in the NHL, with Pittsburgh Penguins followers coming in at a somewhat-distant second place.
“Depending on the teams’ (survey) numbers relative to the rest of the league,” Fanatics explains, “they were assigned a number, zero to one, with zero being the lowest and one being the highest. By combining the results from the three categories and re-ranking the aggregate, we were able to develop a compilation ranking with zero being the team with the least loyal fans and two being the team with the most loyal fans.”
Chicago, with a clean ranking of “two,” stole the show, while all six of the NHL’s original teams cracked the top 10. Check out Fanatic’s full breakdown:
