:Those figures are for two different things. The first (4:1 Canadians to Americans) is the ratio of players in the professional NHL. The second figures are for the total number of people in the country who play the sport - at all levels, not just professional. (And I'd point out that while Canada has only 90,000 more players, based on the percentage of the population who play the sport, there is over ten times the level of participation.) -