Houghton ranked No. 3 US hockey city
HOUGHTON, Mich. – For the sixth year in a row, Houghton has been named a top 10 hockey city in America. The hometown of the Michigan Tech Huskies checked in at No. 3 this year. SmartAsset, a personal finance technology company headquartered in New York, released its sixth annual ranking on Wednesday (July 29).
To find the best hockey towns in the country, SmartAsset looked at a total of nine metrics that fell into two general categories: fan intensity and quality of life. Fan intensity metrics include average game attendance as a percentage of stadium capacity, per-game attendance as a percentage of population and Google search traffic for "hockey" relative to "food." Meanwhile, the quality of life factors considered includes median household income, median monthly housing costs, violent crime rate, property crime rate and dining and entertainment establishments per 100,000 residents.
SmartAsset considered data for cities that have a team in either the National Hockey League (NHL), National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 men's hockey, the American Hockey League (AHL) or the ECHL.
Houghton was ranked No. 10 in 2019, No. 7 in 2018, No. 6 in 2017, No. 3 in 2016, and No. 5 in 2015.
SmartAsset's Evaluation of Houghton: Houghton, Michigan is the home of the Michigan Tech Huskies — the alma mater of John Scott, the legendary NHL tough guy who was famously voted as an All-Star Game captain in 2016 after a fan campaign. Houghton is in this study's top 10 for both fan intensity and quality of life. Average game attendance represents 38.63 percent of the town's population, which is fifth in this study. It also ranks third in the Google metric: People in the town search for hockey 89 percent as often as they search for food. Median monthly housing costs are $709, fifth-lowest in this study.