Annual IIHF survey shows growth of hockey worldwide

Ice hockey is growing worldwide according to the International Ice Hockey Federation's annual survey of players.

The IIHF published the results of their 2013 survey on Friday, pointing out that worldwide, the total number of hockey players from 2012 to 2013 has increased 2.47 percent. 1.64 million people in the world play organized hockey.

As you'd expect, Canada leads the world with a total of 625,152 registered ice hockey players. They lead in nearly every other category surveyed, too: players under 20, female players, number of officials and total number of rinks both indoor and outdoor. The one category Canada doesn't have the worldwide advantage is among senior players (those over 20 years old), where the United States holds the edge.

South Korea, which will host the 2018 Winter Olympics, saw a 28.73 percent growth in their total number of registered players according to the IIHF, and of their 2,106 players, 1,796 are under the age of 20.

The IIHF has a full breakdown of the numbers at their site. You can also play around with the data in our chart below, which you can sort by simply clicking any category. Here are some of the quirkier stats we found:

* One nation in the world has more female players than male players: North Korea. The DPRK has nearly as many female players as Russia, 515 to 562. Russia has 66,551 male players, though.

* Japan has more outdoor ice rinks than Finland. They have more than every country besides Canada, Russia and Sweden, actually.

* The USA and Canada have played head-to-head in every single gold medal game in Women's World Championship history, and that's not surprising: Combined, the two nations have 152,930 female players. The rest of the world combined? 26,442.

* Morocco, Malaysia, Ukraine, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Andorra, Israel, and Thailand all have female players in organized hockey, but none of those nations have enough female players to ice a standard 20-to-23-woman team.

* 63,156 of Russia's 66,551 total players are under the age of 20. A lot of them are learning hockey on outdoor sheets of ice, too. The country has more than 2,000 outdoor rinks (second only to Canada) and just 386 indoor rinks.

* There are more female hockey referees (one) in Lithuania than there are female players (zero).

* Should the Czechs be worried? Only 23,209 of their 105,242 male players are under the age of 20, a percentage lowest among leading hockey nations.

Which other interesting facts can you pull out of the data below? All numbers via the IIHF.

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