When you get older and your friends start living in different parts of the country relative to work/family/etc., you sometimes hop on GeoMidpoint to figure out the best place for a group to meet up (news flash: if you put six major cities in that thing and weight it, it almost always comes out with some random town in Arkansas or whatever — but it’s still fun). I decided to apply the exercise to the eight teams remaining in the NBA and NHL playoffs — namely Miami, Indianapolis, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Miami stretches it south and Montreal stretches it north, while OKC + San Antonio bring it back down towards the center middle again … and the geo midpoint of the NBA/NHL Conference Finals in 2014 is… Millersville, Missouri (which has quite a lengthy history, actually).
If you do just the NBA teams — Miami, Indy, San Antonio, OKC — the geographic center is Yazoo City, Mississippi (the home of Stella Stevens, mind you).
If you do just the NHL teams — Los Angeles, Chicago, Montreal, and NYC — the midpoint is Rochelle, IL (75 miles west of Chicago, ironically, and the home of Joan Allen).
All the above means nothing about the actual games soon to be played, but if you find yourself in Yazoo City or Millersville in the next 10 days, you know you’re on hallowed geographic ground with respect to the intersection of the top teams in two sports.
Having read this I thought it was really enlightening.
I appreciate you spending some time and energy to put this article together.
I once again find myself spending way too much time both
reading and commenting. But so what, it was still worth
it!