NHL (ice hockey): the Facebook and Twitter communities of the franchises (June 2017)

The 31 franchises of the NHL (including the Vegas Golden Knights, who will begin play in the league from the 2017-18 season) have a cumulative 27 million fans on the social network Facebook as of 06/06/2017, an average of 873,729 per team for the North American Professional Ice Hockey League.

On the micro-blogging platform Twitter, the NHL franchises have a cumulative 23.6 million followers as of 06/06/2017, an average of 760,020 per team in the league.

The Top 5 most followed NHL franchises on Facebook (Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Montreal Canadiens) and the Top 5 most with the Twitter followers (Blackhawks, Toronto Maple Leafs, Penguins, Canadians, and Bruins) are not composed of teams based in at least one of the two most populated urban areas of the United States, namely New York and Los Angeles.

Five of the six original franchises (Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, and Toronto Maple Leafs), which comprised the NHL from 1942 to 1967, lead the league on Facebook and Twitter (the 6^th original…