In my spare time I've been developing a hockey sim and perhaps over the summer I'll have some more time to work on it, and I thought it'd be fun to use an alternate history from around the time hockey was starting to develop (1860s-'70s) to make some cities more prominent

so that I could rationalize having teams there. I was thinking of sticking a PoD in the early 1850s as a starting point, since- while being fairly early, the actual sport of hockey is likely preserved as a possible future (it picked up around the 1860s apparently), is before Canadian confederation and gives enough time for any population increase.
Anyway, the point is many Canadian cities are simply too small to host professional hockey clubs. I figure this didn't have to be the case. Perhaps places like Halifax, Fredericton, Saint John's, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon etc. could've been bigger than IOTL, as well as other cities that are small being more prominent. That's sort of what I'm looking for: how exactly could Canada increase its population in places like this. As a sort of secondary objective, it might be nice to see a resolution to the Oregon dispute more in favor of Canada- but my main thing is "with Canada's current borders, how could they get a larger population?"
I'm thinking some major changes to immigration policy but I bet there a few things I have not considered. I'm all ears to cities that might have favorably developed, and my biggest want is to increase the populations in Saskatchewan and the Maritimes enough to justify plopping down some franchises there when I get time to finish my sim (perhaps in the mean time just hack EHM and do it)

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EDIT* I know there's a Canada-wank thread but I'm not trying to wank Canada or anything, just as a disclaimer. Just get 0.6mil populations in a few more cities at the very least. As a second note, sorry about the awkward title, I don't think "stronger" is the best world here but I just wanted to get the thread out so I could pop in tomorrow and maybe one or two people might care to respond.