Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike F
The NHL season and playoffs are already too long. Adding in extra games in the summer for the NHL club or clubs that qualify for the Champions League would shorten the off season to almost nothing, putting those teams at a serious disadvantage for the next season.
Last year's Finals ended on June 13, after game 5. If it had gone to game 7, you'd be looking at June 18 or 19. How do you fit a Champions League in before the July 1 free agency deadline? And how to pending free agents feel about risking injury with even more, relatively insignificant, games after the playoffs are done? Even non-free agents would balk at more hockey, as most end the playoffs banged up.
Yes, you could shorten the regular season, but shortening the regular season significantly, and the loss of revenue from that, would not be made up from a Champions League, with far fewer games.
Finally, unlike soccer, where you have top talent spread throughout the different leagues in the world, the vast majority of the professional hockey talent is in the NHL. There's no reason to expect any European club teams to compete with the top NHL teams, making a hockey Champions League an uninteresting draw for most fans in North America, driving down profits.
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This has been discussed in other threads, and I think it is a long way off.
How it could work - 6 best teams from the NHL in September tournament vs 6 best teams from Europe (would replace training camp for NHL teams). I agree the NHL will be reluctant to shorthen the regular season, but they might be willing if there was a prospect of big Euro revenues.
I'm not sure I agree talent is spread evenly across UEFA. Since 1996 only one team not from Spain, Italy, Germany or England has won it. And you see the same dozen teams over and over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._League_finals