The Champions League won't work though.
I'll tell you why, in football the contest is over 50 years old, and the teams have become so big, that their previous rivals have become so small in comparison :
Manchester United (global) Manchester City (Manchester)
Arsenal, Chelsea (global) Tottenham etc (London)
Milan, Inter, Juventus etc (global) Atalanta, Napoli etc (Italian city)
Real Madrid (global) Athletico Madrid (Madrid)
Barcelona, Valencia etc (global) Espanyol, Sociedad etc (spanish city)
That new rivalries have formed.
Real Madrid vs AC Milan ,Manchester United vs Bayern Munich etc etc
Nobody except Southampton fans care about Southampton vs Arsenal, half of europe wants to watch Arsenal vs Barcelona though..
But in european hockey, the rivalries will never grow to compete.
Kärpät played in the Super 6, whoop-de-doo, kärpät finishing first in the SM-Liiga table -> *wild cheers*
HIFK vs Lugano -> whoop-de-doo
HIFK vs Jokerit -> WAR
No, if you want a big successful european league or super league in hockey, you must start from a position of strenght.
I've always felt the most logical and smartest move to do that would be to start by merging the Finnish and Swedish leagues into one.
- short distances
- finns vs swedes
- easy travel between the two countries
- just as easy for TPS fan to travel to Stockholm to see a game than it is to travel to Oulu
That keeps the exisitng rivalries (Hifk vs Jokerit, jokerit vs tps, tappara vs ilves etc) and has a very very good possibility of adding more -> TPS vs MoDo, Jokerit vs Djurgarden etc
It also allows you to easily keep two conferences -> East: Finland, West: Sweden
And provides a natural spot from which to expand:
create teams/franchises like the Oslo Nordiques (cound't resist that :p), Copenhagen Cavaliers, Tallinn Tigers
and bring in exisiting teams in a new form:
SK Riga, mayeb some other Latvian teams (hockey is huge in Latvia)
and eventually expand further by getting teams from germany, the czech, slovakia, russia, etc to join.
Basically it gives as a viable business option, every possible way to expand. Norway and Oslo could probably support a team there's enouhg fans for one team, there isnt enough fans for a norwegian league, but this short cut would be of immense help to them.
There already was talk of having an estonian team in the Finnish Mestis last season, it was cancelled at the 11th hour.
SK Riga could be a huge team, but its stuck in that eastern european league or whatever it is. Back in the soviet days it was a big strong team that played in front of huge crowds vs the best of Moscow.
Also the Finnish-Swedish league is good for business for both countrie's companies, be it regional companies like clothing stores, to multi-nationals to joint finnish-swedish companies.
Now that bonnier bought Alma Media, they have a tv channel in both finland and sweden. So the distribution outlet exists, the sponsorhip exists.
It is the natural route, I feel any other way of trying to provide a big super duper euro league will fail.
It needs to be built on existing strenght, and it needs to be able to expand in batches (say if Swiss teams get invited to the league, no use adding one , say Fribourg, by itself. they need their rivals to join too, so adding Fribourg, Lugano, Bern, Zurich overnight is the way to go)
Remember, the last time the EHL chrashed, was beacuse Finnish and Swedish teams would play home games against Frankfurt, Bern, Prague etc in empty arenas. Now this super 6 is in russia for 3 years, not exactly making fans over here.
It just took place, kinda like a pre-season tournament.