Nordic Elite League?

[vorky]

well look at khl, they have 30 teams.

i think shl with 18 teams would be nice, 14 swedish teams 2 norweigan 2 danmark

The KHL has now 24 sides.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

One could say I’m a conservative when it comes to hockey, and particularly Swedish hockey. I’m very skeptical when it comes to ideas that would radically try to transform hockey here, or make it more commercialized than it already is. It might come with the territory of being a fan of a smaller market team, but I know we’re a lot of hockey fans that are highly negative of what we deem “plastic” hockey. Many seem to suggest closed leagues and/or automatic qualification, I would hate that.

If I was to entertain a proposal of a Nordic league that I think I might regard palatable, it would probably concern expanding the SHL qualifiers. Basically, reinstate the old “Kvalserien”, but now enter teams from Norway, Denmark and, if there’s interest for it, Finland.

Kvalserien were the SHL qualification playoffs, and is fondly remembered with a lot of people still regarding it as having used to be the best hockey of the season due to the intense emotion, desperation, high stakes, crazy drama and whatnot. I think it fostered a lot more upsets than the SHL championship playoffs tended to do as well. I fortunately never had to see Luleå finish their season fighting for their SHL berth, so I’ve never really tuned in to see what the fuzz was about when people were fawning over Kvalserien, but at any rate there’s now another format in-place where the bottom SHL teams only face each other rather than HA teams in a playoff to avoid relegation.

As I said, if there was interest for it outside of Sweden, I could entertain the idea of expanding the SHL qualifiers and enter the leaders/champions of GET, Metal and Mestis into the mix with the top Hockeyallsvenskan teams that year, and have a playoffs for two SHL berths (maybe expand the SHL to have 16 teams when we’re at it).

What do you think, could something like this work out, what would be some of the implications?

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

As I said, if there was interest for it outside of Sweden, I could entertain the idea of expanding the SHL qualifiers and enter the leaders/champions of GET, Metal and Mestis into the mix with the top Hockeyallsvenskan teams that year, and have a playoffs for two SHL berths (maybe expand the SHL to have 16 teams when we’re at it).

The main thing I like with this idea is that no one is guaranteed a spot in the “Scandinavian HL” without deserving it. I also don’t necessarily think it would be bad news for the Hockeyallsvenskan teams. I don’t know what the difference in quality between top HA and top Danish and Norwegian teams are, but if there’s fear a Norwegian team will go in and steal a Swedish team’s “surefire SHL berth”, most of that fear should be offset by expanding the league to effectively increase each team’s chances.

And conversely, if top Norwegian and Danish teams realize they are a full step behind top HA competition, at least they’ll get valuable experience to improve their chances for the next year.

 

[HanTykje]

well look at khl, they have 30 teams.

i think shl with 18 teams would be nice, 14 swedish teams 2 norweigan 2 danmark

Must be better to have the teams from Get and Danish series together, about 35 teams?

Is so boring when i did see my local team Nidaros only play about 40 games that to little.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Must be better to have the teams from Get and Danish series together, about 35 teams?

Is so boring when i did see my local team Nidaros only play about 40 games that to little.

thats too many teams. there is not enough danish and norweigan teams good enough to play in the shl

 

[HanTykje]

thats too many teams. there is not enough danish and norweigan teams good enough to play in the shl

How can it be to many? SHL 14 teams + Fjordkraftligaen 10 teams and Metal ligaen 9 teams; 33 teams is a good balance.

 

[Valdemar]

At the moment there is not nearly enough money in Danish hockey to make a team for the SHL. The average budget for a Metalligaen team is around 1 million EUR, to make a competitive team for the SHL you will probably need 3-4 times more than that. The same is true for most of the Norwegian teams as well.

 

[Fjorden]

At the moment there is not nearly enough money in Danish hockey to make a team for the SHL. The average budget for a Metalligaen team is around 1 million EUR, to make a competitive team for the SHL you will probably need 3-4 times more than that. The same is true for most of the Norwegian teams as well.

I searched in google for this.
Norwegian teams the top-7 teams have budgets in the span from 1,3 million euro (Storhamar), Stavanger Oilers have 2,7 million euro budget. And many norwegian teams have budgets close to 2 million euro. The three bottom teams have around 500.000 euro in budget.
https://www.h-a.no/2020/sport/oiler...storhamar-med-billigere-a-lag-denne-sesongen/

Stjernen about 1,7 million euro
(+) Stjernen skal runde 17 millioner kommende sesong

Hv71 the best team in HA have a budget around 2 million euro
Den allsvenska klubben uppges ha en spelarbudget på cirka 20 miljoner…
Björklöven nr.3 in HA have a budget around 1,4 million euro
Det allsvenska topplagets spelarbudget: 13,9 miljoner kronor

So the best norwegian FKL teams have bigger budgets than the best HA teams.

SHL clubs have budgets from 5-10 million euro.
Så mycket betalade SHL-lagen ut i löner

They have a very lucratice tv deal in Sweden with C-more that account for 47% of the clubs total income.

So if norwegian or danish club had entered the SHL they would have gotten access to that TV money, and increased their budgets by a lot.

 

[Eye of Ra]

How can it be to many? SHL 14 teams + Fjordkraftligaen 10 teams and Metal ligaen 9 teams; 33 teams is a good balance.

becuse there is not enough shl quality teams in the norway and denmark leauge

shl is the 3rd strongest league in the world, i would say denmark and norway league is between 11-15 best, its big gap

im aware the budget would be bigger for the teams from denmark and norway, but if you look at shl teams, many players are young from their junior league. there is lack of that in denmark and norway teams. first 2 lines would be good imports becuse of the money, but lines 3 and 4 would not be shl quality

 

[Flukeshot]

Interesting topic to stumble across, as I enjoy the business side of sports. Reading through a permanent league doesn't seem like a great idea due to the budget differences of clubs. It would make most teams from Norway and Denmark uncompetitive or even worse, left behind in a less relevant league. It reminds me of when the English Premier League invited the top Scottish football clubs to join.

I would be curious if there are companies that span the Nordic countries that would sponsor a tournament instead. I know there is already the European CHL, but if there was a Nordic Cup with group stage and playoffs that would pull in teams from the top league or two from each Country?

 

[Fjorden]

Interesting topic to stumble across, as I enjoy the business side of sports. Reading through a permanent league doesn't seem like a great idea due to the budget differences of clubs. It would make most teams from Norway and Denmark uncompetitive or even worse, left behind in a less relevant league. It reminds me of when the English Premier League invited the top Scottish football clubs to join.

I would be curious if there are companies that span the Nordic countries that would sponsor a tournament instead. I know there is already the European CHL, but if there was a Nordic Cup with group stage and playoffs that would pull in teams from the top league or two from each Country?

I dont think a nordic cup will happen because the gap in quality between SHL, norway FKL and danish Metalligaen is to big. SHL teams will dominate a tournament like that.

The diffrence in budget is mostly because of the diffrence in TV money. If Norwegian or danish team entered SHL they would get access to that tv money, and they would have added about 6 million euro extra to their budget in TV money. With that extra tv money the diffrence would have been smaller since danish and norwegian teams could have recruited very good import players from e.g canada, finland, russia.
Swedish shl teams gets around 6 million euro in tv money each. Norwegian, danish and hockeyallsvenskan(sweden level 2 teams) gets from 100.000 euro to 300.000 euro in tv money each

Same thing with English PL and Scottish PL, their is a huge financial gap their because english PL tv money is huge. Premier league gets around 1,65 BN pund in TV money and Scottish PL only 30 million pund. If scotland had entered english PL they would have gained access to the english TV deal and increased their tv money from 3 millon pund(30 million pund divided on 10 teams) to around 100-150 million pund

 

[Lackhalak]

I posted this in a few other threads but i think this format could work.
-3 tiers
-still relegation
-travel would still be kept to a minimum
Tier 1

	Teams		Arena	Population (metro)
1	Stockholm	Djurgardens	13,850	2,392,000
2	Gothenberg	Frolunda	12,044	1,048,000
3	Malmo	Red Hawks	12,600	730,000
4	Uppsala	Almtuna IS	-10,000	295,000
5	Linkoping	HC	8,500	207,000
6	Stockholm	AIK	8,094	2,392,000
7	Karlstad	Farjestad BK	8,646	180,000
8	Helsinki	Jokerit	13,349	1,671,000
9	Tampere	Ilves	13,455	448,000
10	Turku	TPS	11,820	362,000
11	Helsinki	HIFK	-10,000	1,671,000
12	Riga	Dinamo	10,300	1,100,000
13	Copenhagen		12,500	2,057,000
14	Oslo	Gruner	-12,000	1,600,000

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Tier 2

	Teams		Arena	Population (metro)
1	Gavle	Brynas IF	7,909	184,000
2	Orebro	HK	5,316	208,000
3	Jonkoping	HV71	7,000	171,000
4	Vasteras	IK	4,902	200,000
5	Vaxjo	Lakers	5,700	156,000
6	Angelholm	Rogle BK	5,150	143,000
7	Timra	IK	6,000	117,000
8	Oulu	Karpat	6,768	260,000
9	Jyvaskyla	JYP	-7,000	185,000
10	Kuopio	KalPa	5,300	168,000
11	Lahti	Pelicans	5,371	191,000
12	Kaunas	Hockey	13,762	588,000
13	Aalborg	Pirates	5,200	217,000
14	Stravanger	Oilers	4,500	320,000

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Tier 3

	Teams		Arena	Population (metro)
1	Uema	IF Bjorkloven	5,400	156,000
2	Leksand	IF	7,650	69,000
3	Ornskoldsvik	Modo	7,600	56,000
4	Lulea	FH	6,300	78,000
5	Skelleftea	AIK	6,001	73,000
6	Sodertalje	SK	6,200	99,000
7	Pori	Assat	6,300	137,000
8	Espoo	Keikko	6,982	1,671,000
9	Kouvola	KooKoo	6,200	61,000
10	Hameenlinna	HPK	5,360	67,000
11	Lapreenranta	SaiPa	4,820	73,000
12	Tallin	HC Everest	5,840	455,000
13	Aarhus		5,001	350,000
14	Bergen	IK	-8,320	420,000

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Sweden - 20 teams
Finland - 13 teams
Norway - 3 teams
Denmark - 3 teams
The Baltics - 3 teams
Total - 42 teams

13x4= 52 games in a season
top 8 teams play 3 rounds of best of 7
bottom 6 in tier 1 play the top 6 in tier 2 in a best of 7 for relegation
Bottom 8 in tier 2 play the top 8 in tier 3 in a best of 7 for relegation
bottom 6 in tier 3 season is over once the 52 games have been played
eg. the team who finishes 9th in tier 1 would play a best of 7 vs the team that finishes 6th in tier 2

What teams would you add and delete? I kinda just sorted the teams based on population and arena size. i bet this could be the second best league in the world.

 

[OskarOskarius]

Well 42 teams would be too much and Norway/Denmark do not have the commercial base so they won’t really offer anything to Swedish hockey. I could see Danish and Norwegian teams joining the Swedish league system and through that work themselves up to SHL but I wouldn’t try merge the current Danish/Norwegian leagues with SHL. Norwegians and Danes don’t watch hockey. Sweden and Finland are the only countries in Europe really with real commercial interest. Not even the Swiss or Russian leagues are commercially viable but rely on low taxes and sugar daddies. So a Scandinavian Hockey League would primarily involve Swedish and Finnish teams. Even so I think SHL and Liiga still have a lot of organic growth ahead before its time for a league merger. At this point dropping CHL and create a cup between Swedish and Finnish teams makes the most sense commercially. Such a competition would generate far more income from a business perspective than CHL or a Nordic league with Norwegian and Danish teams. It’s all about TV money/team, and Sweden and Finland are really the only countries with big media rights. A Scandinavian league is more realistic in football (Sweden+Norway+Denmark but not Finland) and will probably happen if the Dutch and Belgian league merges (which seems to be happening). From a business perspective Norway and Denmark are just tiny markets on par with HA if even that.

 

[Vandalay Industries]

Well 42 teams would be too much and Norway/Denmark do not have the commercial base so they won’t really offer anything to Swedish hockey.

It’s all about TV money/team, and Sweden and Finland are really the only countries with big media rights.

From a business perspective Norway and Denmark are just tiny markets on par with HA if even that.

I was trying to explain this a few years ago: There's nothing in it for at least Sweden.

Why would the Swedish teams add small market Danish teams to SHL? Perhaps Aalborg or SønderjyskE might me interested financially since they could actually attract an audience of maybe some 2500 on average, but why would the Swedish clubs water down their product and share all the commercial interests with these small markets?

It would be like NHL adding a franchise in Arizona or something *lol* ;-)

No, but seriously, it just won't make sense. I COULD imagine the top-2 Norwegian teams be a little more interesting since there's a better environment for commercial ice hockey in Norway, but in Denmark the clubs just won't be very attractive in SHL to a Danish audience neither on TV or in the arenas and they definitely won't be attractive to the Swedish clubs or Union.

Malmö has been trying to attract a Copenhagen audience for several periods of time back in the 90's, 00's and perhaps also in the 10's, but there was such a small interest that it was clearly not worth the aim. They tried though.

Commercially it's just not interesting. Also, a Danish/Norwegian league would be completely irrelevant. The travelling expenses and the time line for the travelling is a no go. Still a bunch of players in the Danish league with a job or school/education along side playing hockey.

In order to have only professional players and much more travelling the expenses would go so far up only a couple or three clubs in Denmark could afford it. And what would happen to the rest of the Danish league, if you pluck out say SønderjyskE, Herning and Aalborg? You are right! It would drain the rest of the league to a Division 1 level which would make it a lose/lose/lose scenario for Denmark.

The only way I could see a Danish club be interested in going to SHL is if FC Midtjylland or FC København decided it would be an interesting business model for them to make an add on and they wouldn't have to ask the Danish Union. But still: I don't see why the Swedish clubs would give away that spot and if all they wanted was a bigger SHL they could easily expand with at least 4-6 Swedish teams before looking to the Danish market. I think people need to understand that SHL is not a KHL or NHL scenartio where business opportunities rule everything. It's a much more unionized scenario. They are definitely interested in growing the market, but the league is club owned. Not owned by a greedy group of business men. SHL works so well in its format now. No need to ruin that.

 

[Albatros]

Arguably it would make more sense at a lower level such as the Allsvenskan, the Swedish teams would have somewhat more to gain and discrepancies in general would be smaller.

 

[Urbanskog]

Malmö has been trying to attract a Copenhagen audience for several periods of time back in the 90's, 00's and perhaps also in the 10's, but there was such a small interest that it was clearly not worth the aim. They tried though.

What kind of a motive would a resident of Copenhagen have to cheer for a team from Malmö, other than a relatively convenient distance? A situation in which there's a team actually based in Copenhagen might have different results, though. Especially so if the hockey team would be affiliated with the established brand of FC Copenhagen.

 

[Vandalay Industries]

What kind of a motive would a resident of Copenhagen have to cheer for a team from Malmö, other than a relatively convenient distance?

The "motive" was to have a lot of Danish players and thereby try to attract Danes from Copenhagen and they even hired a Danish PR guy at one point to try to work their way into the Copenhagen market.

I cheer FC Liverpool and Detroit Red Wings eventhough I don't live there and I'm not neither English or American so I don't understand your objection.

 

[Urbanskog]

The "motive" was to have a lot of Danish players and thereby try to attract Danes from Copenhagen and they even hired a Danish PR guy at one point to try to work their way into the Copenhagen market.

I cheer FC Liverpool and Detroit Red Wings eventhough I don't live there and I'm not neither English or American so I don't understand your objection.

You don't understand my "objection"? You mentioning FC Liverpool and Detroit Red Wings perfectly exemplifies it as they are just teams that you have ended up rooting for by chance. It would be a rather similar dynamic between Danes and a team based in Malmö, there's no particular reason to expect that they would amass a lot of Danish fans, just like there is no particular reason to expect that someone in let's say Sweden ends up rooting for FC Liverpool or Detroit Red Wings although even then they play in leagues which are far more marketable than the SHL.

 

[Vandalay Industries]

You don't understand my "objection"? You mentioning FC Liverpool and Detroit Red Wings perfectly exemplifies it as they are just teams that you have ended up rooting for by chance. It would be a rather similar dynamic between Danes and a team based in Malmö, there's no particular reason to expect that they would amass a lot of Danish fans, just like there is no particular reason to expect that someone in let's say Sweden ends up rooting for FC Liverpool or Detroit Red Wings although even then they play in leagues which are far more marketable than the SHL.

I don't understand your point at all. You seem to have your own agenda for whatever. So let me just state my point in a single bullet point: There's not enough people in Copenhagen interested in ice hockey to have a team in a Nordic League here. That's the simple point.

 

[Urbanskog]

I don't understand your point at all. You seem to have your own agenda for whatever. So let me just state my point in a single bullet point: There's not enough people in Copenhagen interested in ice hockey to have a team in a Nordic League here. That's the simple point.

Then that is a regrettable limitation of your reading comprehension. There not being enough people in Copenhagen interested in following an SHL team based in Malmö would be an accurate statement but we don't know what kind of a traction would a Copenhagen-based team have in a Nordic League. My guess is that it would be much more.

 

[Bijelo]

Norweigan teams in NEL:

Frisk Asker
Stavanger
Storhamar
Vålerenga

Danish teams in NEL:

Aalborg
Esbjerg
Herning
SönderjyskE

Finnish teams in NEL:

Illves
Tappara
TPS
KalPa
HIFK
Pelicans

Swedish teams in NEL:

Frölunda
Malmö
Skellefteå
Färjestad
Djurgården
Luleå

However Nordic hockey is not as big as the national team.

And not so much interest from Nordic club's to start this even if the first idea were there.

 

[Bijelo]

A hypothetical Nordic hockey league would have mostly Swedish teams, a couple of Finnish teams and a few Norwegian teams, at least if you go by attendance stats. One could argue that Norway is too far behind Sweden and Finland toc compete but there are actually some Norwegian teams (Stavanger, Storhamar and Vålerenga) that would be competitive. Storhamar eliminated Djurgården in the CHL group stage and nearly got passed Skellefteå AIK in the play offs, so there's some good hockey in Norway. Commercially I'd say Stavanger and Vålerenga are two possible top teams in a future Nordic hockey league.

SHL: Swedish Hockey Liga
SML: SM-Liiga (Finland)
HA: HockeyAllsvenskan (Swedish second division)
GL: GET-ligaen (Norway)
ML: Metal Ligaen (Denmark)

If we look at social media then there's no Danish team in the top 50. The most popular non-Swedish/non-Finnish team is Stavanger Oilers, closely followed by Vålerenga. Storhamar is also doing better than some Swedish and Finnish top division teams.

#	Team	Facebook	Twitter	Instagram	Total	Land
1	Frölunda	123,898	54	64,9	242,798	Sweden
2	Jokerit	92	39,5	62,5	194	Finland
3	Djurgården	118,136	25,7	42,3	186,136	Sweden
4	HIFK	84,6	41	45,7	171,3	Finland
5	Kärpät	103,3	19,7	46,2	169,2	Finland
6	Färjestad	78,360	16,1	40,7	135,16	Sweden
7	Brynäs	72,922	13,5	34,9	121,322	Sweden
8	HV71	62,831	15,8	38,8	117,431	Sweden
9	Tappara	63,3	17,6	35	115,9	Finland
10	Leksand	73,410	11,4	30,5	115,31	Sweden
11	Luleå	46,251	11,1	26,4	83,751	Sweden
12	TPS	41,3	15,7	22	79	Finland
13	Ilves	39,9	15,1	21,7	76,7	Finland
14	KalPa	44,6	10,9	18,3	73,8	Finland
15	JYP	44,3	6,3	22	72,6	Finland
16	Skellefteå	31,893	6,270	30,3	68,463	Sweden
17	Ässät	30,7	12,5	16	59,2	Finland
18	SaiPa	31,4	13,4	13	57,8	Finland
19	Växjö	21,151	9,576	22,5	53,227	Sweden
20	Modo	22,495	9,679	20,5	52,674	Sweden
21	Pelicans	25,8	12,3	13,6	51,7	Finland
22	Malmö	27,012	5,379	17	49,391	Sweden
23	Stavanger Oilers	27,9	7,1	13,7	48,7	Norway
24	Örebro	22,795	5,379	16,8	44,974	Sweden
25	Vålerenga	19,0	6,8	18,8	44,6	Norway
26	AIK	12,4885	11	19,4	42,8885	Sweden
27	Sport	20,9	8,5	13	42,4	Finland
28	Lukko	18,2	11,2	12,3	41,7	Finland
29	HPK	19,9	9,9	11,4	41,2	Finland
30	Linköping	16,269	7,760	17,1	41,129	Sweden
31	Storhamar	19	5,6	15,9	40,5	Norway
32	Rögle	19,358	2,281	15,2	36,839	Sweden
33	KooKoo	14,3	5,9	10,8	31	Finland
34	Jukurit	14,2	4,6	8,5	27,3	Finland
35	Timrå	13,474	4,435	9,259	27,168	Sweden
36	Björklöven	13,716	2,946	9,164	25,826	Sweden
37	Västerås	15,169	3,893	6,493	25,555	Sweden
38	Södertälje	14,969	3,475	6,047	24,491	Sweden
39	Karlskrona	8,595	4,261	5,945	18,801	Sweden
40	Karlskoga	10,041	3,085	5,505	18,631	Sweden
41	Mora	9,127	2,392	4,953	16,472	Sweden
42	Lillehammer	8,0	2,7	5,0	15,7	Norway
43	Vita hästen	11,308	2,338	1,628	15,274	Sweden
44	Frisk Asker	8,2	2,4	4,3	14,9	Norway
45	Sparta Warriors	7,7	1,1	4,6	13,4	Norway
46	Stjernen	6,8	1,6	2,8	11,2	Norway
47	Västervik	3,173	1,427	5,205	9,805	Sweden
48	Oskarshamn	3,549	2,312	3,932	9,793	Sweden
49	Almtuna	4,733	1,462	3,445	9,64	Sweden
50	Tingsryd	4,193	1,792	2,388	8,373	Sweden

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

A common hockey league wouldn't work.

Social media is interesting.

 

[fredligh]

Pretty confident to say if 2 teams from Denmark joined the SHL or Nordic elite league, the rest of the danish league would degrade into a full amateur league., but you can always play with the idea

 

[Bijelo]

Pretty confident to say if 2 teams from Denmark joined the SHL or Nordic elite league, the rest of the danish league would degrade into a full amateur league., but you can always play with the idea

Nordic elite league not so likely rumor.