The Chicago land population is approximately 9.5m people. The Aspen-Snowmass population is approximately 10k.
That means to find equivalent numbers you need to multiply the number of things we have in Aspen-Snowmass by 950 to get an approximate Chicago equivalent.
Lets have some fun with numbers.
In Aspen there are 2 sheets of ice---snowmass kinda has one sheet of seasonal ice but lets forget about that to give Chicago a fighting chance. Does Chicago have 1900 sheets of ice? Nope. Chicagoland has about 100 sheets. Not bad (and that includes crystal lake and Rockford and everywhere in between). And those 100 sheets probably produce about 100 pee wee teams, while we have 2 with a lot of kids double rostered but lets call it just 1. Still given the population differences Chicagoland would have to product 950 pee wee teams to have the same proportion of kids playing hockey that we have in Aspen-Snowmass. Think about how bad your ice times would be in Chicago--of course if you had another 1800 sheets of ice you would all have pretty sweet ice times.
Which bring us to Rec sports. On the hockey side Aspen fields 1 mens team (the super good guys who play other towns) 5 A teams, 8 B teams and 8 C teams plus the women field 2 teams (with the A team playing the likes of air force and U19AA girls teams). That is a total of 24 'Rec' hockey teams. multiple that by 950 for a Chicagoland equivalent and you get 22,400 rec teams. I can guarantee that Chicagoland doesn't come close. How can I be so sure. If Chicagoland had 22,400 rec teams and each team played once a week, the rec teams would need 68 rinks going 24 hours a day just to accommodate rec hockey. No youth hockey. No figure skating. no public skate. No way.
Lets take a quick peak at softball. Aspen snowmass has a total of 37 rec softball teams. That is one team for every 270 Aspen-Snowmass residents. The Chicagoland equivalent would be a mind-blowing 35k rec softball teams. Again Chicago doesn't come close. Truth be told I don't think anyone does. Maybe Aspen's new tag line should be:
Aspen---we out Rec you
And please don't forget most of us don't Rec at all--we hike, bike, fish, paddle, ski, snowboard.........
