NHL in europe

[jackknife77]

I'm asking you europeans.. We heard here often that NHL is thinking about expansion in Europe but im questioning myself wich city could have a NHL team.
Any suggestion on place you are sure it would be a succes?

[B. Stinson]

NHL expanding to Europe? I'm not so sure that's ever gonna happen.

They're already crying about travel problems within our own continent(which is why the NHL has been split into two leagues... uh, I mean, the schedule was rearranged)... so an expansion across the Atlantic Ocean wouldn't be very logical for the league.

Unless you mean an "NHL Europe" type thing, like the NFL's "NFL Europe" has?

[Calv]

The NHL is coming to London this september with a double header of Kings v Ducks(which I'm going to!) but I can't see them extending the league over here(or anywhere in Europe). It would take hours for an east coast team to fly over here.

What is the 'NFL Europe'?

[B. Stinson]

What is the 'NFL Europe'?

It's a small American Football league based in Europe(mostly Germany), and backed by the NFL. It basically acts as a developmental league for the NFL. I don't get any chance to follow it since it's based in Europe, so that's really all I know about it.

[jackknife77]

Its more fast to fly from montreal to london than montreal to vancouver. it wouldnt be worst than detroit going to LA.
Last interview Yvon Pedneault (RDS jounalist) made with Bettman, he asked the question and Gary said it was still a priority for the NHL to see if it would be possible.

[Shadd666]

Its more fast to fly from montreal to london than montreal to vancouver. it wouldnt be worst than detroit going to LA.

Yup, but it would be hell of a travel for Vancouver to play in London!

Anyhow, i doubt a european expension is possible. Maybe a dependent european league, like in the NFL, but not an expansion. There are already 30 teams in the NHL, which is enough, and maybe too much! And if the league wants strong hockey market, they should look anywhere in Canada and find places that perfectly fit their needs (Jets, Nordiques, where are you?).

Furthermore, euro teams that would be included in an expansion would never be able to make something good. They won't sell as many tickets and so won't have the same amount of money to build a team. And the travel costs would be enormous. There would be only a few european teams, so they would have regularly to fly accross the ocean for their away game, which would cost them a lot!

So why not creating an affiliated league in Europe instead? A close league like the NHL, without relegations and promotions, but with a draft. It should be kind of a european AHL which would devellop more european prospects...

Thoughts?

[Calv]

I like the idea of an affiliated league in Europe(although I'm not sure how many British teams would be in it... ), it may be quite hard to get existing teams into one league with the same wage cap, and I would like to see various import rules and a mandatory number of players have to come from your country, as opposed to Europe as a whole. It could work if people were willing to travel quite a distance and if teams could afford/if the NHL subsidized them a bit

[oxenhoper]

I like the idea of an affiliated league in Europe(although I'm not sure how many British teams would be in it... ), it may be quite hard to get existing teams into one league with the same wage cap, and I would like to see various import rules and a mandatory number of players have to come from your country, as opposed to Europe as a whole. It could work if people were willing to travel quite a distance and if teams could afford/if the NHL subsidized them a bit

None Calv as english attempts at the euro cup have proved.... i think only Belfast have got past the first stage.... There is no way we can compete with the swedes, fins etc..

I do think that we should limit the amount of imports though.... 14 years ago when team GB made it to the dizzy heights of pool A, playing against canada, russia, germany and the like, the english league teams were limited to 4 imports and we had some cracking young british players at the time..... Sadly the superleague came about and that ruined english hockey as teams decided that a team full of canadians was the way forward......

[Calv]

But surely every league needs some whipping boys

I know what you mean, 10 imports in the EIHL means you can have 1 import GK, then all but one player of your top 2 lines can be foreign, hardly doing anything for British hockey.....

[crosby87]

*cough cough* the (UK) London Knights finished second in the Continental Cup 6 or 7 years ago!

< was there

[Kekkonen]

So why not creating an affiliated league in Europe instead? A close league like the NHL, without relegations and promotions, but with a draft. It should be kind of a european AHL which would devellop more european prospects...

Thoughts?

I really, really don't see our existing leagues agreeing to this. Maybe in countries where hockey is a fringe sport, but not in Finland, Sweden, Czech Rep., Slovakia, Russia, or even Switzerland. These countries already have popular leagues with established traditions.

Elsewhere... I really don't know. London and Paris, for example, are big cities, but would a hockey team still be a big enough draw for such a league to make sense? Mediterranean countries also have a good population base, but hockey is even more marginal there. Germany has a good economic base as well, but they also have an existing league which draws fairly good crowds. Then there's also the fact that the concept of a 'feeder league' isn't that well established over here, so I'm extremely skeptical about an Euro-AHL.

[eme]

I pretty much agree with Kekkonen. Due to the travel issues the teams should be based in western europe, and hockey isn't really the big thing around there.

And the Euro-AHL wouldn't work. If they were to go and create it in our hockey countries, there would have to be existing teams, otherwise the fanbase wouldnt be enough for the new team. And since the existing teams probably wouldn't play in the league the Euro-AHL might not really work.

I'd much rather see hockey working more like football, where leagues are more equal, without any drafts and where one league can't just rob the players from another leagues. Too bad it's pretty much impossible with the gaps between team budgets even inside europe for it to happen.

[Shadd666]

Sure, the probability that an eventual EHL (European Hockey League) works well is very low. But it would still be a better idea than expansion NHL teams in Europe... Well, at least, a less worse idea, as both are a bit stupid

eme: football leagues are equal? If you're talking about euro-football (ie soccer), it's a nice joke buddy! Winning in soccer is easy: have more money than your opponents. That's all. Nothing more. And in every big euro league, you always see the same 2-3 teams win the championship year after year.

The draft system displays talent to weakest teams, so that they can progress if they're well managed (and made a good draft-scouting). So every team have cycles of ups and downs, and should all benefit from their ups to win a title if the management is well done. You don't have that in soccer, where small teams remain small teams, no matter what they do, while big teams may have some down times but always get back, thanks to the money they have.

Anyhow, any kind of NHL wouldn't work in Europe. It's not the european tradition to have a closed league, just like it's not an american tradition to have levelled leagues with promotions/relegations. And i don't think anything will change about that in the upcoming decades...

[eme]

I didn't mean the teams themselves are are all equal, what i ment was that in soccer there are no universal number one league, meaning there are many teams from different leagues who can compete for one player. In hockey however it's somewhat useless to try to keep a promising player for more than a year or two in your roster since you know he's going to go to the NHL. Also there are no case Malkin's in soccer where some other league basically steals a player without paying the original team much.

Also the draft helps weaker teams in NHL. It has nothing to do with distributing the talent between the weaker teams in Europe. Sure it's a great thing for the teams in the NHL though. But it feels a bit strange that some team from some other league can basically just say that "you'll be playing for us next year, don't mind your contract". I know the NHL team needs to pay the european team some money, but you probably get my point.

[Shadd666]

I get your point

Fact is that a super-league like the NHL is leads to top-quality play. Even the worst NHL teams should be top contenders anywhere else! And personnally, i like how it runs in general.

You talked about Malkin... Do you think he would have a same kind of carreer if hockey leagues were like soccer ones? In the NHL, he'll have to battle against great players night after night, and so will learn a lot more than if he was battling most of the time against 'normal' players. Top league also means top coaches, so he'll learn more and faster. Same for the other NHLers.

Sure, european teams can complain about loosing their top players. But aren't they happy to see their NHL-superstars play for their national team in World Championships and Olympics? They are. But they forget that those same players wouldn't have been that good if they weren't playing in the NHL.

I believe that a top-league leads to a better play in general. Even in Europe, as the players want to play in the NHL, and so work hard to get it. Just compare how hard soccer players play and how hard hockey players does. Overall, there's a huge gap!

Build a top soccer league with teams like Milan, Chelsea, Barcelona, Munich, etc and you'll have players battling harder than they do in their actual championships, and so you'll have better players and a better quality of play. And so soccer wouldn't be so boring

At least, that's my point...

[flea]

eme: football leagues are equal? If you're talking about euro-football (ie soccer), it's a nice joke buddy! Winning in soccer is easy: have more money than your opponents. That's all. Nothing more. And in every big euro league, you always see the same 2-3 teams win the championship year after year.

Well Shadd, that the rule EVERYWHERE in todays world, not only in soccer....look at the NY Yankees, for example.

Top money brings top players and top players usually bring championships!!!!

[eme]

Good point with the top quality play.

I do believe that footballers work just as hard as hockey players to get where they want. Then again i can't really back this up since i can't really compare the two because i know no "proper" soccer players in person.

About Malkin. Surely it wouldnt be the same, because he might play in Europe instead of North-America, and well, the level of play in the NHL wouldn't be the same if hockey world worked like soccer one does. But as i said about the soccer players, i think this would not change the effort the players would put in to get where they want. Hence the level of would get lower in the NHL, but get higher in the euroleagues.

Overall I agree with you that NHL creates competition and might affect the level of play in Europe. What i don't like is the drafting system, it makes the European leagues seem like they're owned by the NHL and exist only to produce top players for the NHL, which is hardly the truth. Teams ofcourse like to see superstars play for our national teams, but they'd much rather have them on their team than to see them just every once in a while in some international competition. Unfortunately money talks.

Although this might sound weird, i much rather watch FEL games than i do NHL games. In fact i probably wouldnt even follow NHL if there werent any finnish players around. And this is why it annoys the hell out of me to know that in a while our top prospects or scouted players that turn out to be much better than expected won't be playing for my team or in the league for that matter during the next season. Finland is already behind Sweden, Switzerland and Russia in player salaries. Cory Murphy is a great example of this. 2 year deal when coming to HIFK and he plays so well that is regarded as the best player in the league. And then NHL comes in to picture and off he goes. I'm happy for Murphy, but sad for my team since he's hard to replace. But this is getting beyond the point now so i'll stop here

edit: Funny i should say that about the draft. It seems i've just been drafted in here ;p

[Shadd666]

edit: Funny i should say that about the draft. It seems i've just been drafted in here

Lol. Nice one

For sure, the draft is unfair towards euro teams. Here in France we're not really concerned about that, but i perfectly understand it's frustrating to have your top prospects go and play on the other side of the ocean.

On the other side, i believe (but may be wrong) that this system (top league + draft) is benefic to hockey in general. There's a high level of competition, and it gives great shows enjoyed by hockey fans. Compare this to soccer: when do soccer fans are the more passioned by the game? Champions League, and international tournaments. If the champions league wasn't a euro cup but kind of a superleague, it would be more exciting (and i'd maybe loose more time to watch soccer...).

Concerning how hard the players are working... Well, the harder it is to reach success, the harder the players have to work... For sure, top soccer players generally work hard. But i think they'd work harder if the challenge was harder. And, for sure, more player will work hard. Just watch the NBA over the past decades. Under Jordan's times (and before) it was hard and players were working hard. Now they can easily make the NBA at 18 if they've done one or two great games in their carreer and receive millions for that. The level of play has been lowered by far!

Flea: Sure, top money is spend in top players (well, in general...), and those top players win championships. But that wasn't my point I was saying that in soccer, all that matters for a team is to have more money than his opponents, and it ends with only 3-4 teams able to win a championship. With the draft system, including the entry-level contracts etc, you have talent everywhere. In every single NHL team, you can find highly talented players that would be megastars anywhere outside the NHL. This way you have a hard competition and it's a real battle every night. This system also allows any team to go from scratch to the title, which is nearly impossible in soccer and many other sports, even in euro hockey.

[Calv]

There is a new European Champions league for Hockey next season, the top 24 teams in Europe get a chance on entering: http://live82.ihwc.net/english/article/ ... artId=2477

[CrockerNHL]

I heard or read something about Siberian Amur (Khabarovsk) to join Pacific division...as well as one of the other top Russian team to go to Southeastern division.... that was a few years ago. To the best of my knowledge, Gary Bettman's name was mentioned in that artickle.