Parity is just another word for watered-down. Without elite teams - and there are currently NO elite teams in the NHL - we simply don't have the high quality of play we used to have - but we're still stuck with lots of teams that just plain suck.
While it may indeed be unlikely to happen soon, both the NBA and NHL would produce a higher quality and more entertaining product if they reverted back to 24-ish teams.
I am not sure how you figure that less teams would mean more elite teams.
The total talent pool for the NHL and all major sports with a real salary cap is the same. Dividing that pool evenly by 30 or 20 or 10 still gets you parity. You just have better player on a single team. There would be no elite teams in that scenario either. The only thing you get is less league revenues and lower players salaries.
And before you start tossing out way back in Mr Wizard's time machine, players were not free to move from one team to another so once on a team, they were on that team until the team decided they were no longer needed. And in the 50's when the Wings and the Hawks were owned by the same people, the Wings used the Hawks as their farm team to build up their team.
And way back then we did not have any swedish or russion or other european players.
I think this brings up a big issue within the unions. Rich vs. poor players. To a talented player this is a win situation because the move will be to reduce the number of positions with in a league while the salary cap stays as is, thus giving more money to all the players who can MAKE the top tier league. The talented players can say this all they want because they KNOW they will have a job and can make more money. The lower talented players want expansion because they would be more secured in the league.
Thus, as a league you can put in the CBA negotiations, "HEY! Play ball and we will expand the league 2 teams within this timeframe." Do you not think this would break the union?
The the talented players won't want contraction because it would be more competition for less salary dollars.
May as well expand to 50 teams, then, as the top teams would still be as good as the top teams of 50 years ago.
The quality of game would be quite a bit better with 24 teams than it is currently. That alone is, as far as I am concerned, reason enough to support contraction.
How do you figure that? With the lower amount of money available to pay players, how many do you think would rather take less money and play at home in Russia or Sweden or Finland? You take those players out and the total talent level goes down.
As for LeBron, he should really brush up on his knowledge of NBA history. There has really only been one team of which he speaks, the Celtics of the 60's. And I am sure that everyone outside of Boston was ecstatic to be able to watch such an elite team win year after year. Again, same thin in BBall, players were not allowed to go to the teams they wanted and there were no foreign players at all in the league. So perhaps LeBron would like his salary fixed at about 25k per year so he would have to actually work at a regular job during the offseason in order to make a living.