Since the first crewed spaceflight in April 1961, when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin circled the earth in Vostok 1, spacefarers have been a rarity. The number of people to have “slipped the surly bonds of earth”, to quote poet John Gillespie McGee Jr., is somewhere between 600 and 700, depending on how outer space is defined.
Cleveland, Ohio
However, despite such a small roster, NASA astronauts do share commonalities. The city producing the largest number of spacemen in the US is New York, closely followed by Cleveland, Ohio. The first one seems obvious. New York is one of the most populous places but Cleveland’s prominence in spaceflight is because people want to get as far away from Ohio as possible – or so the joke goes.
The idea that certain places can produce many people with certain talents isn’t too strange. Ohio is the birthplace of aviation, for instance, while Texas gets its Hall of Fame football players from heavy investment in the sport. Still, researchers have spent time and money working out why things like this happen at all.
In 2021, Kingston’s Queens University wondered whether a person’s birthplace could give them an easier route to the “big leagues”. The project informed an Apple TV show called The Hockey Miracle in the Middle of No Where, which told the story of Herning in central Denmark. Herning, a place with no real history in the sport, somehow created five NHL-standard players in under a decade. That’s a little bit stranger than Ohio’s penchant for pilots.
Gabriel Vilardi
Kingston itself popped up in Queens’ research. Like Herning, the city has a talent for birthing elite hockey players – around 70 of them, including Doug Gilmour (1,414 career points) and Kirk Muller (959 career points). Most recently, 23-year-old Tye Kartye found a place at NHL expansion team Seattle Kraken, after getting a start at Greater Kingston Frontenacs and the Soo Greyhounds.
Kingston is in a lull right now, however. There aren’t many names active in the NHL or the smaller leagues. ZSC Lions’ Scott Harrington (b.1993) is perhaps the most well-known player from the city since Jay McClement retired. There’s still hope. Winnipeg Jets’ forward Gabriel Vilardi, aged 24, is rapidly catching up on Harrington.
Vilardi has struggled for time on the ice this year due to an enlarged spleen but the 2017 first-round pick has an impressive list of contributions. With an 18.85 shooting percentage, Jets Nation considers the youngster a potential 50-goal man. Whether this will lift the Jets from its +2500 with Bodog for the 2024/25 Stanley Cup remains to be seen. The NHL lines are quiet while the league is recessed for the summer. Fellow Canadian outfit Edmonton Oilers are the +800 favourites for the Cup.
Bored to Tears
The question to ask is, is the “small town effect” actually real or just a lot of coincidences taped together? Queens University seems convinced it’s a real thing. Professor Jean Côté of Queens’ Kinesiology and Health Studies dept. writes that elite sportspeople tend to come from places with populations of between 50,000 and 100,000. While Kingston’s numbers are a little bigger than this – 137,987 people – it’s close enough to slot into the same bracket.
The quality of infrastructure plays a role. For instance, towns with less than 1,000 people aren’t known for their athletes, according to Côté’s research. This means that, while many of the criteria guiding promising players towards success might exist in a (very) small place, including competitive opportunities, open spaces, and “quality relationships”, a lack of transport, stadia, and training facilities may hinder their development.
Oddly enough, being bored to tears helps. A lack of variety in leisure activities in small towns may help people focus on sports.
Infrastructure
The idea that pro athletes come from out in the boondocks isn’t new. In 2010, the Wall Street Journal opened its discussion of the topic by talking about Oakland Raiders QB Jason Campbell’s upbringing in Taylorsville, Mississippi. Taylorsville had just 1,341 people living in it a decade ago. Now retired, Campbell had been drafted by the Washington Commanders in 2005, in the first round.
Ironically, as the quality of infrastructure increases, i.e. in cities with more than half a million people, pro athletes become increasingly rare. This strange quirk of sport may have something to do with increased competition making things harder for everyone or more leisure opportunities keeping people distracted. As mentioned, being bored to tears is a boon to sport.
The WSJ claims that half of all NFL and MLB players and PGA Tour golfers hail from places with fewer than 50,000 people. Of course, the requisite of talent still means that most of us aren’t going to be winning the Stanley Cup any time soon, regardless of where we come from.