Europe should put a division in NHL

[Nordiques1979]

As soon as soon as Elon Musk builds a hyperloop to Europe, we can look into this. The travel would be impossible right now.

do you have any idea how the KHL travel during one season??

 

[MrThomas]

The Seattle team is buying in at 650M for a new team, that price will only go up over time. A division has 8 teams, that's 5 billion dollars + that you are looking for from European owners. These markets may turn out for a couple games every few years, but how in the world can you guarantee they would show up 41+ times a year? I'm not sure which cities you are thinking of, but most of the areas we think of as hockey hotbeds dont have huge populations. Helsinki has smaller population than Winnipeg. How many times zones will this division span? Is it largely in Scandinavia? Going into eastern Russia? The majority of the leagues games, and a large portion of your teams games, are played at a time when 0 casual fans would be awake and watching. This isn't even getting to travel. Some locals might want to play at home, but how much can you count on that for filling out teams? Theres only like 30 Russians in the league, and some will want to stay with their current teams (or be locked into contracts). If you thought lindros was upset about going to Quebec just wait for some kid like Matthews from Arizona to get drafted to Siberia. This is just one stream of consciousness rant, there are way to many flaws to blame with this idea.

Hmm first of all there are almost 1.5 million people living in the Helsinki area. More than the whole Manitoba or Calgary.

Then I'm talking about Europe not Asia lol

One division is about 8 teams so there are huge hockey cities like Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Prague, Zurich, Gothenburg, Bern for example. You have absolutely no idea how big the sport is in those cities and countries. There is a reason why there are coming as many hockey players from Europe than NA nowadays to NHL. Or do you think European players are just much more talented then?

 

[MtlBoxFan]

There is maybe one arena in all of the nordic countries that is NHL calibre.
That's a major problem.

 

[MtlBoxFan]

Hmm first of all there are almost 1.5 million people living in the Helsinki area. More than the whole Manitoba or Calgary.

Then I'm talking about Europe not Asia lol

One division is about 8 teams so there are huge hockey cities like Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Prague, Zurich, Gothenburg, Bern for example. You have absolutely no idea how big the sport is in those cities and countries. There is a reason why there are coming as many hockey players from Europe than NA nowadays to NHL. Or do you think European players are just much more talented then?

If the players are coming to North America, why open a division in Europe? What is the benefit? Do you see the English Premier league opening divisions in the United States?

 

[Echo Roku]

Maybe if it was a whole conference and you could reasonably do scheduling for one or two big trips to Europe for each team.

Or maybe if divisional scheduling was changed to be almost entirely inter-divisional

Would require a ton of significant changes just to make it work at a scheduling level, bar everything else

Edit: and I just thought about playoff scheduling

 

[MrThomas]

Problem is that the most appealing market (England/London) don't care about hockey. Sure they could put a team in Berlin, Moscow (lol), Prague and maybe even Paris. But hockey is only #1-2 sport in Sweden and Finland which are two very minor markets.

Moscow is the biggest city in Europe with 12 million people and they care about hockey much more than in New York for example. Sweden and Finland are not minor markets. There are 10 million people in Sweden and 5.5 million people in Finland Also 83 NHL players from Sweden and 45 from Finland.

 

[PatrikBerglund]

Apparently it does - for you. The comment was moronic, completely moronic, and you you're standing by it. That says a lot.

Your comment?

 

[Charlie Conway]

I'd just be happy with an occasional Champions League-style thing every few years. Get the best teams from all the leagues to play each other, or even just a series between the NHL and KHL.

Then it can all be done within a few days, raise the profile of hockey overall, and not be the crazy amounts of stress and travel that a global league would require while also not taking away from the fun of the Olympics.

I think the real issue might be getting owners to sign off as well as the NHLPA due to risk of injury.

 

[MtlBoxFan]

Greater Winnipeg is 800k, Metropolitan Helsinki is 1,4 million

Yeah but Winnipeg has 799k hockey fans.

 

[MtlBoxFan]

I'd just be happy with an occasional Champions League-style thing every few years. Get the best teams from all the leagues to play each other, or even just a series between the NHL and KHL.

Then it can all be done within a few days, raise the profile of hockey overall, and not be the crazy amounts of stress and travel that a global league would require while also not taking away from the fun of the Olympics.

I think the real issue might be getting owners to sign off as well as the NHLPA due to risk of injury.

This guy has a way better solution than the OP.

 

[MrThomas]

Yeah but Winnipeg has 799k hockey fans.

Winnipeg has 799k fans but Helsinki has 1 399k hockey fans. Hockey is as big in Helsinki than in Winnipeg.

 

[AvsFan29]

do you have any idea how the KHL travel during one season??

They certainly don't travel to north America

 

[MtlBoxFan]

Winnipeg has 799k fans but Helsinki has 1 399k hockey fans. Hockey is as big in Helsinki than in Winnipeg.

I think you have pro-european bias. If this were the case, they would not have AHL sized arenas.

I think you have been universally shot down by everyone that has read this thread. Moving on.

 

[jfhabs]

They would need to bring the Concorde back in order for it to be doable!!

 

[nucksauce]

I think as the game grows and the talent spreads out it would be sweet to see a champions series.

Winners of the KHL, SHL, DEL, Liiga, National League(Swiss) and the NHL playoffs play in a short series to determine Hockey's Champion. Heck, even throw in the IIHF champion into the mix.

 

[devbouz12]

Whoever supports this idea is a bad person

 

[The Red Line]

Stop changing the things I love. And turn that ****ing music down.

 

[TheGoldenGod]

No

 

[AvsFan29]

I think as the game grows and the talent spreads out it would be sweet to see a champions series.

Winners of the KHL, SHL, DEL, Liiga, National League(Swiss) and the NHL playoffs play in a short series to determine Hockey's Champion. Heck, even throw in the IIHF champion into the mix.

There's a better chance for a 7 game series on the moon. After battling through the NHL playoffs, with some players playing with injury, the team has to go play a tournament against lower tier teams? Every owner in the league would die laughing if that idea was brought up.

 

[Oddbob]

This a dumb idea, BRUTAL!

The travel would be ridiculous and the games played would have to be much lower to adjust for all the extra travel. Fans already complain when their team doesn't play for 4 days in a row, imagine with Europe added to the mix, we would see week off between games all the time. Players, and THEIR WIVES AND CHILDREN would hate all the back and forth, you know they would. Also, European attendance is great for the big teams in short tournaments, but even then sometimes fans don't show up, and the NHL being there all the time, would lessen the thrill big time.

I just saw highlights from a Team Canada vs Team Sweden game at a World Championship game from sometime in the past 5-7 years and the arena was literally almost completely empty, I honestly think I saw 4 people in the stands during the highlights for a WC game, between two of the better teams.

 

[Johnny Rifle]

Wouldn't it be great if once every so often, like four years, we take the best players from all of the leagues and compete for our countries. Oh yeah, Gary Bettman screwed that opportunity.

 

[MrThomas]

I think you have pro-european bias. If this were the case, they would not have AHL sized arenas.

I think you have been universally shot down by everyone that has read this thread. Moving on.

Haha so you are only talking about the arenas, okey Hartwall Arena in Helsinki is almost as big as the arena in Winnipeg. I don't really see the difference. You are kinda funny guy!

 

[Nineteen67]

TSN underestimates the interest for the domestic leagues and overestimates the one for NHL. KHL already tried and it doesn't work in the big markets. People want their already established rivalries. Take Sweden for instance, Gothenburg vs Stockholm is a huge rivalry in sports, neither of them would care what so ever if a team from Riga or Zurich were in town.

The sports culture in Sweden goes beyond quality of the product. The soccer league is crap in the world rankings but is superpopular amongst fans. Point is; They don't care if two NHL calibre teams play if there is no history, rivalry, or any kind of connection to the team they would face.

Edit: And on a personal note I truly despise the idea. NHL is slowly losing its soul and this would just emphasise it's all about money.

The NHL is a business, of course it’s about money.

 

[Atrusai]

What we need is a mad scientist to somehow reform Pangaea.

 

[Nordiques1979]

They certainly don't travel to north America

worst, they travel to Siberia.