Goaltender Ryan Miller watches the other five Ryans on the Team USA hockey roster.
Olympic men’s hockey kicked off today in Vancouver, with Team USA defeating Switzerland 3-1. An exciting victory and an excellent start for the Americans, to be sure, but the the story starts to get a lot more interesting once you take a look at the American roster. Notice anything kind of odd? Like maybe, say, six of the team’s 23 members are named Ryan? It’s true, the roster includes goalie Ryan Miller, defensemen Ryan Suter and Ryan Whitney, and forwards Ryan Callahan, Ryan Kesler and Ryan Malone. (The total count goes up to seven if you count forward Bobby Ryan.) What’s more, with this mix of positions, the US could conceivably have a team comprised of nothing but Ryans on the ice.
Does this seem a little odd to anyone else?
Not counting Bobby, 26% of the US squad is named Ryan. By way of contrast, approximately 0.328% of US males are named Ryan. We have neither the time nor the math skills to determine the probability of such a team randomly occurring, but it has to be infinitesimally small. Is there something about being named Ryan that makes one more likely to become a world-class hockey player? Something about the kind of parents who name their kids Ryan?
Aside from being a truly odd coincidence, it poses a serious logistical problem for the team. If you shout, “Hey, Ryan!” at practice, over a quarter of the team will stop and look over at you. To make matters worse, Bobby Ryan’s presence makes it impossible to use last names, since you’d still have to call him Ryan. (Possible solution: call him Bobby and everyone else by their last name. Still, it’s cumbersome.)
Whatever they’re doing to address this, it’s working so far. U-S-A!
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