Friday, August 21, 2009

Attracting Free Agents -- Promote A Stress Free Environment

Most of you are looking at the heading and wondering "What the hell is he talking about now?" If you will pause just a moment, I will enlighten and explain.

Forbes just released its list of the Most Stressful Cities in which to live in the U.S., ranking the top 40 metropolitan areas in the following categories: 1)median % drop in home prices; 2)unemployment rate; 3)cost of living; 4)air quality; 5) sunny days per year and 6)population density. Here are the results, from most stressful to least stressful:

1. Chicago
2. Los Angeles
3. New York
4. Cleveland
5. Providence
6. San Francisco
7. Detroit
8. Boston
9. Washington D.C.
10. San Jose
11. Seattle
12. Riverside (Calif.)
13. Philadelphia
14. Portland (Ore.)
15. Sacramento
16. San Diego
17. Minneapolis
18. Tampa
19. Cincinnati
20. Miami
21. Las Vegas
22. Atlanta
23. St. Louis
24. Milwaukee
25. Phoenix
26. Baltimore
27. Charlotte
28. Orlando
29. Pittsburgh
30. Indianapolis
31. Columbus
32. Houston
33. Jacksonville
34. Norfolk
35. Denver
36. Dallas
37. Kansas City
38. Nashville
39. San Antonio
40. Austin

So, from a hockey perspective (and remembering that the Canadian cities are not included in the poll), only 3 NHL towns are less stressful than Columbus -- Denver, Nashville and Dallas. We take a hit on the number of sunny days per year, but do remarkably well in all of the other categories.

So, it is time to lure those free agents with a new claim -- "Stress is Less In Columbus"!!! Go get 'em, Scott!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice post! Columbus seems to be getting good press amongst NHL players and this kind of information helps. The Dispatch had an article today talking about the things the team/wives do help incoming players/families adjust. I'm not sure how many teams do things like this, but it is good stuff.