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Posted: Mar 29, 2018

Houghton ranked a top 10 US hockey city for fourth straight year

Houghton ranked a top 10 US hockey city for fourth straight year

HOUGHTON, Mich. – For the fourth 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. 7 this year. SmartAsset, a personal finance technology company headquartered in New York, released its fourth annual ranking on March 20.

To find the best hockey towns in 2018, SmartAsset pulled data for 114 cities and towns with a team in one of the following four hockey leagues: the NCAA Division I men's hockey league, the National Hockey League, the East Coast Hockey League or the American Hockey League. They looked at data on nine factors split between fan intensity metrics and quality of life metrics. The fan intensity metrics are attendance rate, percent of population attending games and Google trends data for the term "hockey." The quality of life factors includes unemployment rates, crime rates and dining and entertainment establishment data.

Houghton was ranked No. 6 in 2017, No. 3 in 2016, and No. 5 in 2015. It is one of only four cities to be ranked in the top 10 all four years of SmartAsset's ranking.

SmartAsset's Evaluation of Houghton: Coming in right behind Ann Arbor is another Michigan town, Houghton. This city is home to the Michigan Tech Huskies. The average Michigan Tech Huskies game is attended by over 3,000 people, an enormous figure for a town of only 8,000. According to Google data, residents search the term "hockey" about as much as they Google the term "food."

Another plus to living here is the home affordability. According to our data, the median home costs only $730 per month, almost $430 per month less than the average home in Ann Arbor.

Grand Forks, North Dakota, home of the University of North Dakota, was named the No. 1 hockey city for the fourth straight year.