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| The map Getting Ice Time by Kevin Hibma shows the movement of NHL players from North American teams and cities to European teams and cities during the present NHL lockout. |
The map is dynamic so that when you click on a line you bring up some background information, including NHL salary, about individual players. When you click on a point symbol, it gives you information about the team situated there (e.g., the buildint they play in, etc.).
Each red star depicts the location of the 30 NHL teams, while the orange stars represent minor-league and junior affiliates. Many young players have moved from their current NHL teams minor-leauge affiliate team - some even going back to the junior ranks - during the lockout to hone their skills and get some more ice time. The movement of these players is shown using orange lines for players going to the minors, and yellow lines for players returning to the junior leagues.
As you can see the map is dominated by green lines, representing players moving overseas to play in the European professional leagues. A number of European NHLers have returned to the teams they grew up watching, but many North American born players have also decided to play in Europe.
The colors and symbols (circles and squares) are used to depict the different leauges. For example the Russian league (KHL) is shown using red circles. Each icon represents a team location, so note that not all teams have added locked-out NHL players to their rosters. The map also includes some social media links (tweets and facebook) related to the NHL lockoout that you can click on and read/view.
The lines on the map are shown using great circle routes, which represent the shortest distance as-the-crow-flies between the two locations on the globe. The use of great circle route lines make for a pleasing visualization, one you may be familiar with from back-of-the-seat airplane magazines.
Overall, just a really cool map showing a bunch of information about players involved in the NHL lockout which can be used to learn more about professional hockey teams abroad. An article on ESPN.com has featured this map, along with some comments from the creator. Thanks to my pal Ben Stewart who passed the link on to me.
Nice job Kevin!
