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mac_82
09-12-2008, 09:39 AM
The Globe and Mail reports that the National Hockey League is aiming to have teams based in Europe within the next 10 years.

"As time goes on, you'll see us making increasing movement into Europe," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told the newspaper. "Certainly, it's a possibility that within 10 years time we will be playing games there."

The league has already experimented with games overseas with exhibition games in Europe in the early 1990s and regular season games in Japan prior to the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Nagano. The Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings played in London, England last year, while four more teams - the New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators, Tampa Bay Lightning and Pittsburgh Penguins - will play in Europe next month.

Daly added that while further exposure in Europe was a possibility, there are no guarantees of it happening. "I think it's a long way between here and there," he told the Globe and Mail. "And I think all the pieces have to continue to line up in order for that to happen. So, certainly, we would hope that would be the case. But I can't say with any degree of certainty at this point."

NHL expansion into Europe has been talked about for years and has has been hot debate among the league's executives.

"(European) cities do a good job for international hockey tournaments, but can those cities afford NHL prices for 42 regular-season games plus playoffs?" Carolina Hurricanes general manager Kim Rutherford told the Globe. "I don't know the answer, but if they can, then at some point there will be expansion in Europe. But first we have to expand a couple more teams back into Canada, get back into Winnipeg and put another team in Ontario before we see expansion to Europe."

National Hockey League Players' Association executive director Paul Kelly said he was open to the idea of European expansion, with the proviso that the NHL's North American franchises were stabilized.

"Once we reach that point, I do think we should at least explore the process of perhaps one day having a division of NHL teams based in Europe," he told the Globe.

/////AMG
09-12-2008, 09:56 AM
It could take off. England has their own tournament city vs. city but its no where near as big as the NHL.
I reckon it'll take ages though. They love football and cricket way too much, as well as rugby.

88CRX
09-12-2008, 10:13 AM
Good luck getting any European players to come to any North American teams.

Bad idea IMO :thumbsdow :thumbsdow

PGTze
09-12-2008, 11:18 AM
I don't see how this is going to work at all, kind of sounds like a disaster to me. There is no way Europe based teams could play NA based teams, teams complain about the travel expenses as it is now. Flying across the pond (best case once or twice a year for the Cup final maybe?) would take a pretty huge chunk out of a teams profits.

What the hell would they do about the divisions and such? I guess make 5 and have them play almost exclusively within the division to make things fair? The problem with that is each team would end up playing divisional opponents like 10 times a year. I would assume the divisions might something like this...

1)NA ne
2)NA se
3)NA sw
4)NA nw
5)EU

JfuckinC
09-12-2008, 11:21 AM
Originally posted by 88CRX
Good luck getting any European players to come to any North American teams.

Bad idea IMO :thumbsdow :thumbsdow

Dude hockey players will play anywhere.
My best friend chose Semi-pro in finland over the american pro league or some shit haha..

i dunno i dont think this will impact who plays where..

88CRX
09-12-2008, 11:34 AM
Originally posted by JfuckinC


Dude hockey players will play anywhere.
My best friend chose Semi-pro in finland over the american pro league or some shit haha..

i dunno i dont think this will impact who plays where..

Your example is irrelivant. The money available in a European "semi-pro" league is much better than one in the States. Most players that don't make the NHL jump over to play pro in Europe.


Tons of European hockey players cappable of playing in the NHL would rather play in their home country (or closer) for a "Euro-NHL" team over a typical North American NHL team if they had the choice.

Tell me how that doesn't effect the on ice product for the North America viewing public?

Eleanor
09-12-2008, 11:36 AM
Travelling is going to be a big issue if this happens.

PGTze
09-12-2008, 11:47 AM
Originally posted by 88CRX


Your example is irrelivant. The money available in a European "semi-pro" league is much better than one in the States. Most players that don't make the NHL jump over to play pro in Europe.


Tons of European hockey players cappable of playing in the NHL would rather play in their home country (or closer) for a "Euro-NHL" team over a typical North American NHL team if they had the choice.

Tell me how that doesn't effect the on ice product for the North America viewing public?

I agree, a salary cap would be in place and players would be pulling a similar salary no matter where they play. The floor/ ceiling style cap the NHL has, would pretty much guarantee player salaries are similar no matter where the team is located.

I could see the European teams having most of the top end European players and most NA teams having the top NA players with very little crossover. The NHL would have to develop some sort of sort of strategy to prevent players from holding out and demanding a trade to their continent of choice (sort of like the Lindros/ Quebec thing).

buh_buh
09-12-2008, 11:49 AM
the quality of players has already been watered down since expansion. If the NHL decides to expand further, and into Europe say by 4 teams (at the least I would think since it would be pretty disadvantageous for a European team to only play against teams outside their time zone), the level of hockey would decrease even further. Although I like the idea, I think the quality of play would suffer a lot.

BerserkerCatSplat
09-12-2008, 11:52 AM
But first we have to expand a couple more teams back into Canada, get back into Winnipeg



WOOHOO! GO JETS! :clap:

bulaian
09-12-2008, 11:56 AM
Originally posted by BerserkerCatSplat



WOOHOO! GO JETS! :clap:

:werd: we could use a few more teams in Canada. A return of a team in winnipeg would be great, as well as a Sasky team and another Eastern team.

88CRX
09-12-2008, 12:10 PM
Originally posted by buh_buh
the quality of players has already been watered down since expansion.

:werd:

The NHL doesn't need any more expansion anywhere, whether it be in Europe, US or even Canda.

However relocating a couple American teams to Canada would be benifical.

max_boost
09-13-2008, 01:26 AM
^^

ha it was so rediculars when I first heard it. How the hell is it going to work?! It's not.....:nut: :confused:

FiveFreshFish
09-13-2008, 09:56 AM
If it goes through, this may happen:
- Fewer games per season and/or shorter season
- Longer road trips where you might not see your team at home for several weeks at a time
- Playoff format way different than what's current
- Adaptation of some European rules to the NHL rules
- Inconsistent officiating
- Possible renaming of the NHL to something more accurate

Hakkola
09-13-2008, 10:51 AM
Originally posted by buh_buh
the quality of players has already been watered down since expansion.

Bullshit.

There are more people in more countries playing better hockey now than there was 20 years ago, in the 80's there were very few quality european players playing in North America, not to mention the fact that the players are bigger, stronger and faster than they were 20 years ago.

They could add another 10 teams and still fill the teams with players who are better than most were before expansion.

If you look at international play or exhibition games against teams in other league's you'll notice that most of these games are not blowouts, and there are many nhl caliber players playing in European and Russian leagues.

On the other hand, if they could somehow water down the average talent level that would also provide more entertainment by having a larger spread between elite players and everybody else like we saw during the Gretzky/lemieux era, Crosby and Ovechkin would be having 200 point seasons.

Anybody who thinks the player quality is worse now than before expansion is smoking some serious crack.

GC84ever
09-13-2008, 10:55 AM
I think This is a bad idea.


Originally posted by Eleanor
Travelling is going to be a big issue if this happens.

I agree with Eleanor, but there is a even bigger problem to consider.
With the time differences? Who's gonna be free to watch a game on TV from Europe? Most of us will be at work still. And if i'm correct the NHL makes most of their money with TV deals. Unless everything will be prerecorded.

Hakkola
09-13-2008, 11:03 AM
Originally posted by GC84ever
I think This is a bad idea.

Who's gonna be free to watch a game on TV from Europe? Most of us will be at work still. And if i'm correct the NHL makes most of their money with TV deals.

LOL, the European market has more potential viewership than North America with 720 million people versus 300 some odd million in N.A. It makes business sense, especially with the strength of the Euro, besides, I doubt they would be flying back and forth all the time. Teams would probably go on tours for a month or the European and N.A teams would meet after the regular season for a playoff series in some particular venue like they do in soccer.

Flights between continents would be a pretty negligable cost when you take into account how much money is being thrown around in this sort of business.


Originally posted by FiveFreshFish
If it goes through, this may happen:
- Fewer games per season and/or shorter season
- Longer road trips where you might not see your team at home for several weeks at a time
- Playoff format way different than what's current
- Adaptation of some European rules to the NHL rules
- Inconsistent officiating
- Possible renaming of the NHL to something more accurate

I agree with everything you've said except adaptation of some European rules to the NHL rules, if anything we've seen the opposite trend happening, and we already have inconsistent officiating so that is not a change by any means.

FiveFreshFish
09-13-2008, 11:16 AM
Originally posted by Hakkola
I agree with everything you've said except adaptation of some European rules to the NHL rules, if anything we've seen the opposite trend happening, and we already have inconsistent officiating so that is not a change by any means.

I guess I should have said even greater inconsistencies in officiating. :D

dino_martini
09-13-2008, 11:45 AM
Originally posted by bulaian


:werd: we could use a few more teams in Canada. A return of a team in winnipeg would be great, as well as a Sasky team and another Eastern team.

Canada needs atleast as many teams as it takes to fill up all the playoff spots

buh_buh
09-13-2008, 06:43 PM
Originally posted by Hakkola


Bullshit.

There are more people in more countries playing better hockey now than there was 20 years ago, in the 80's there were very few quality european players playing in North America, not to mention the fact that the players are bigger, stronger and faster than they were 20 years ago.

They could add another 10 teams and still fill the teams with players who are better than most were before expansion.

If you look at international play or exhibition games against teams in other league's you'll notice that most of these games are not blowouts, and there are many nhl caliber players playing in European and Russian leagues.

On the other hand, if they could somehow water down the average talent level that would also provide more entertainment by having a larger spread between elite players and everybody else like we saw during the Gretzky/lemieux era, Crosby and Ovechkin would be having 200 point seasons.

Anybody who thinks the player quality is worse now than before expansion is smoking some serious crack.

You honestly think adding another 10 teams to the NHL wouldn't water down the talent level? When expansion first happened in '91 the league had 21 teams, now there are 30 teams. 20 players a team multiplied by 9 teams makes 180 less players in the league. In a league with 600 players, taking away 180 of them is equivalent to eliminating all 4th liners and half of all 3rd liners in the NHL. That would take away the David Hales, the Zach Stortinis, the Dominic Moores of the league that belong in the minors.

You can't compare talent levels of players in the 80s to players today. Yeah, there's more talent today, but the game is completely different. Of course players today are bigger, strong and faster. Players today actually train. Have you watched any vintage games on the NHL network? The play is sloppy, goaltending is sloppy, the on ice product is overall sloppy. The reason top players were still respected back then is because they dominated in that era. I'm willing to bet 75% of the NHL in the 80s couldn't crack any top 6 in the league today. The game has evolved so much from where it originally started, comparing the two eras is completely irrelevant. What I'm referring to is the spread of talent. By increasing the number of teams, the talent level between the best and worst player increases, thereby making the on ice product shittier, I'm not comparing the best players of the 80s to the best players today.

And as far as watering down the talent level to pad stats, I don't watch hockey to see people put up 200 points for the sake of putting up 200 points. I'm watching the NHL to see the best players in the world play against each other, not for Crosby and Ovechkin to embarss some Joe Schmo who'd be playing in some adult rec league if it weren't for expansion.

Adding an additional 10 teams as you implied would add an additional 200 players into a league where half the 4th liners in the NHL right now should be in the minors. I think the talent level today is watered down. There are so many players that don't belong in the NHL already, and expanding by even one more team would even further worsen the on ice product. I agree with 88crx, that we should move the teams that are in trouble, and lets not even think about further expansion.

Hakkola
09-13-2008, 08:48 PM
Originally posted by buh_buh



Adding an additional 10 teams as you implied would add an additional 200 players into a league where half the 4th liners in the NHL right now should be in the minors. I think the talent level today is watered down. There are so many players that don't belong in the NHL already, and expanding by even one more team would even further worsen the on ice product.

How can the talent level be watered down after expansion if the talent levels are higher than the were before expansion? :rofl:

There aren't any players in the NHL who don't belong in the NHL, if they didn't belong there, they wouldn't be there. Besides, we're talking about expansion into Europe, it's not like all the players will be redrafted and redistributed, it's likely that players already over there playing in PROFESSIONAL leagues would be playing on these European NHL teams.

It's quite easy to see how close the different leagues were by looking at scoring during the lockout by NA players.

Swedish Elite League:
http://stats.swehockey.se/



A whole bunch of leagues:
http://hokej.snt.cz/wrld/wrld2005.html
Especially interesting is the Finnish SM-Liiga goaltenders, Andrew Raycroft a starting goalie in the NHL was only the 14th best goalie in the finnish league that year.

THe russian super league is interesting to look at, lots of guys I've never heard of with ppg close to kovalchuk.

Only in Slovakia did a couple of the NHL players seem to dominate, but there are still some very respectable numbers coming from players you've never heard of.

My best friend's dad is a head scout for an NHL team and he spends much of the year watching hockey in Europe, and there are a lot of guys playing in Europe that could easily play in the NHL even on second lines and he want's them on his team, but the owners won't pick them up. Politics plays a huge part of it.
There are a lot of players that should be playing in the NHL and aren't, the number of teams has nothing to do with it, and you have ZERO evidence to back up your claims.