[News] NHL looking to expand on ‘European business plan’

[RT14]

I actually think the argument that an expansion will dilute the talent is starting to lose it's weight. Seems like there are a lot more highly talented young players in the league today than there were 10-15 years ago and I think that's due in large part to how well young athletes take care of themselves these days and how hard they train.

I would bet that over the next 10 years we see an even further increase in the number of skilled young players entering the league as Science unlocks even more mysteries about the Human body and there may be enough top talent to share with a larger number of teams.

Backcheck's idea of having a Euro division with 6 additional teams and that kind of schedule is something I'd like to see. Would be exciting and make the winner of the Cup an actual World Champion, unlike the World Series which only has two nations involved, one of which is slightly outnumbered.

[Pierre "Monster" McGuire]

Who cares about time zones? If our WJ kids can go Russia for half a month, I think the winning NHL team can go overseas for a small tournament.

I'd love to watch it.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Pierre "Monster" McGuire

Who cares about time zones? If our WJ kids can go Russia for half a month, I think the winning NHL team can go overseas for a small tournament.

I'd love to watch it.

As you know, the problem isn't the players, it's the teams and the owners.
Junior players are paid nothing, nhl players are paid millions and owners a not going to risk that for a silly tournament unless the payoff is huge (which it won't be). Especially since they are the defensing champs and just played until June 15th.

They don't even want to go to the Olympics, they're definitely not going to this.

The only solution I see is the Stanley Cup champs going to the Spengler Cup mid-season (since the structure of the tournament is already there) but then the same risks are there and their regular season games would have to be delayed making for a very condensed 2nd half.

[Itse]

There's still the same problems as always.

The time difference already makes all North American leagues marginal in Europe, and that will never change. TV is where the money is at, and sports needs to be watched live.

Then there's the KHL. They would never join this project, because their goal is to become the European competitor to the NHL. And that's where the best money is in Europe, and best players.

And still most western Europeans can barely name a team in the KHL. Which brings us to the third major problem. Sports organizations in Europe often have a decades long tradition, many date their roots back more than a hundred years. For an example from Finland, Espoo Blues has constant trouble attracting people to the rink, even though they've had success, even though they have a good youth program, even though they have a nice arena and even though they play the other traditional Finnish teams.

You're not going to get people to take time away from their teams to watch a new team in a new league. Most sports fans already watch as many teams as they can fill on their schedule, and are just not interested in new ones.

Then there's also all the language barriers.

And in the end, if for example it ever came to be that the KHL and the NHL started to put so much pressure to the western European national leagues that they would want to band together to form a new paneuropean league, there's very little in it for them to make it NHL Europe. They'd be better off just forming they're own league to run as they please without North American meddling.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

There is a huge difference between people being geed up to buy a one time cheap ticket for a game in London, no doubt every hockey fan in the country (and the UK does have a league of sorts) drove in to watch, that does not translate to a club being able to compete in a sports market that, in London has six premiership teams.
Trust me on this I have some very US sports savy friends over their who would be your target demographic, they will watch NFL or even hockey on TV but they are all season ticket holders to premiership clubs and wouldn't miss a night game at Arsenal to attend a hockey game.

Hell the league can't sell hockey to most of the US at this point.

It's true people won't pick hockey over football, but evening matches at home are seldom, even for teams in the Champions/Europa leagues. Chelsea for instance (which has as many fixtures as any club in the country) plays at home, at night maybe once a fortnight, if that, on average.

I think it would take Brits awhile to get used to the frequency of NHL games--the English consider most American sports berserk for playing at least three times a week on average.

Aside from that, I think London could support a club. Consider the Guildford Flames for instance: small town, not even in the top ice hockey league in the UK, plays home games inside a sports centre/multiplex, devoid of talent--they average over 1500 attendence per game. And don't forget London (unlike Guildford) is full of Russians, Canadians, Eastern Europeans, Americans, Scandinavians--I talk hockey with people I meet here all the time. I think you could get 13-14000 or more in London with top talent and opposition.

The question is whether people would buy into it as the real thing, or just an ersatz NHL club. If it can compete with the likes of the top clubs currently in the NHL then I think it could succeed. The question whether you can get to that point in the first place.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

The only solution I see is the Stanley Cup champs going to the Spengler Cup mid-season (since the structure of the tournament is already there) but then the same risks are there and their regular season games would have to be delayed making for a very condensed 2nd half.

Yeah I'm not really sold on the Champions league idea, but I agree if you were going to do it you might as well send the Stanley Cup champs to the Spengler Cup but of course in doing so you'll be six months removed from their Cup form.

But I suppose that's not much different to the case in the UEFA Champions League.

[Northendzone]

Originally Posted by Pierre "Monster" McGuire

Who cares about time zones? If our WJ kids can go Russia for half a month, I think the winning NHL team can go overseas for a small tournament.

I'd love to watch it.

to me it seems like you are asking a lot of the players to go to europe after 10 months of work and the last two being more intense - that would mean 6 weeks or less of an off season for the champions......

[UKflames]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

There is a huge difference between people being geed up to buy a one time cheap ticket for a game in London, no doubt every hockey fan in the country (and the UK does have a league of sorts) drove in to watch, that does not translate to a club being able to compete in a sports market that, in London has six premiership teams.
Trust me on this I have some very US sports savy friends over their who would be your target demographic, they will watch NFL or even hockey on TV but they are all season ticket holders to premiership clubs and wouldn't miss a night game at Arsenal to attend a hockey game.

Hell the league can't sell hockey to most of the US at this point.

Unfortunately the wise man from Wimbledon is totally correct, there is no way that you could get the required turn out for each game to fund the team, even in London. Hockey here has a following but to many it is not their first sport, soccer wins every time

icarus is correct their are a lot of different (hockey) nationalities in London but I still cannot see them coming out to support an NHL team, or even to be able to afford to buy a ticket as most are on low wages.

[BACKCHECK!!!]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

41 NHL games in London? Average attendance would be worse than Abbotsford.

The EIHL teams in Nottingham, Sheffield, and Belfast, all draw more average attendance than Abbotsford (4000+ avg), and I know that Giants tickets are more expensive than for the Heat. On a good day (playoffs, jersey retirement, etc) these teams will draw 8000-ish.

These 3 clubs alone sell a ballpark of about 300,000 tickets per season. And have a combined population of about 1/10 of London, with an even smaller fraction of advertising and corporate exposure.

I don't see how London does worse than a hole like Belfast.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by BACKCHECK!!!

The EIHL teams in Nottingham, Sheffield, and Belfast, all draw more average attendance than Abbotsford (4000+ avg), and I know that Giants tickets are more expensive than for the Heat. On a good day (playoffs, jersey retirement, etc) these teams will draw 8000-ish.

These 3 clubs alone sell a ballpark of about 300,000 tickets per season. And have a combined population of about 1/10 of London, with an even smaller fraction of advertising and corporate exposure.

I don't see how London does worse than a hole like Belfast.

None of the above mentioned towns have a premiership soccer club which probably helps a bit, also a brief perusal of wiki's 'history of failed Ice Hockey Leagues in the UK' (seriously it has its own entry!) will show you that the current league is yet another league that grew out of a previous failed league in the 2000's, London doesn't have a team in the local league so it seems unlikely that if it cant draw 2000 odd 24 nights a year (the english league plays only 50 odd games a year) for the local league there is no chance it could manage 17,000 for 42.

On top of all of that there isn't an arena in London that could accomadate an permanant NHL team in London, the O2 arena is where the exibition games were held but they are a major concert venue, I doubt they would accomadate a regular ice hockey schedule with everything else they do.

[BACKCHECK!!!]

I've played a reasonable amount of hockey in the UK. My last club has played friendlies against EIHL teams, and I've also played around in the farm system a bit.

So I've got a pretty good idea of the state of hockey in the UK.

One area where I agree with you 100% is the arena issue, and i think that would also really be the biggest issue with most European cities playing at an NHL level.

Very few cities outside North America have rinks big enough for an NHL team. I honestly expect filling seats wouldn't be a huge problem in London, but building a 20,000 seat NHL-quality rink anywhere near London would probably cost pretty much all the money in the world. And there are a lot of hockey-crazy cities in Europe that support multiple professional teams, but have just built brand-new 10,000-12,000 seat arenas.

[Daryei]

Originally Posted by icarus

It's true people won't pick hockey over football, but evening matches at home are seldom, even for teams in the Champions/Europa leagues. Chelsea for instance (which has as many fixtures as any club in the country) plays at home, at night maybe once a fortnight, if that, on average.

I think it would take Brits awhile to get used to the frequency of NHL games--the English consider most American sports berserk for playing at least three times a week on average.

Aside from that, I think London could support a club. Consider the Guildford Flames for instance: small town, not even in the top ice hockey league in the UK, plays home games inside a sports centre/multiplex, devoid of talent--they average over 1500 attendence per game. And don't forget London (unlike Guildford) is full of Russians, Canadians, Eastern Europeans, Americans, Scandinavians--I talk hockey with people I meet here all the time. I think you could get 13-14000 or more in London with top talent and opposition.

The question is whether people would buy into it as the real thing, or just an ersatz NHL club. If it can compete with the likes of the top clubs currently in the NHL then I think it could succeed. The question whether you can get to that point in the first place.

I agree. I used to go to watch hockey (any hockey) at F3K in West Kensington. The manager would draw hockey fans from all over London (Russians, Canadians, Swedes, Finns, you name it), and when some Brit came in complaining that they wanted to watch the footie instead, he said that the amount of business he did for tourneys like the World Cup would pay for his TV subscriptions (12 or so satellites on the roof) for the rest of the year.

London can draw upon a big expat crowd to support a team -- its one of the biggest cities in the world -- has a large enough rink already -- and is one of the biggest tourist draws in the world. They'll be able to compete with some other Euro cities to build a division around.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Daryei

I agree. I used to go to watch hockey (any hockey) at F3K in West Kensington. The manager would draw hockey fans from all over London (Russians, Canadians, Swedes, Finns, you name it), and when some Brit came in complaining that they wanted to watch the footie instead, he said that the amount of business he did for tourneys like the World Cup would pay for his TV subscriptions (12 or so satellites on the roof) for the rest of the year.

London can draw upon a big expat crowd to support a team -- its one of the biggest cities in the world -- has a large enough rink already -- and is one of the biggest tourist draws in the world. They'll be able to compete with some other Euro cities to build a division around.

The O2 arena is not an option, the ice they threw in there was temporary, it is also already extremely busy, the lesser arenas dont have the seating, therefore you are going to have to build a full size arena in one of the most expensive cities in the world for a team that you, the optimist, thinks might draw in the Phoenix range, wouldn't work and not gonna happen.

[FFF]

Very skeptical that European teams in the NHL would work as some central elements of the CBA are incompatible with EU law. Trading players would be a no-no (at least every player would automatically have an NTC), the drafting system probably wouldn't fly, salary caps & floors sound suspicious in light of EU law and so on. I'm sure some of this could be circumvented by creative lawyer work, but probably not all of it. And besides you'd still have the uncertainty of not knowing how the courts would decide it all.

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by BACKCHECK!!!

Ducks and Kings drew 17,000+ in London a few years ago for a meaningless pre-season game between two American clubs.

If there was an established UK team playing league matches, no reason why they couldn't do that on a more regular basis (no guarantees that they woud either, but they probably have a better chance of sustaining that than St Petersberg, Florida does).

I was at the first of those games - which were regular season games - the first being the season opener. I got interviewed by someone from HNIC as I was walking to the O2 arena in my Flames jersey. Was really pissed off when I got home and realised NASN (precurser to ESPNA) carried the US feed. Which was just as well as my prediction of the Flames winning the Cup that season didn't quite come off.

On the way home I got talking to some Ducks 'Fans'. When I asked if they were ST holders, I was told that one of the party was the CEO.

Anyway, a large proportion of the fans at those games travelled from all over Europe - I doubt that would be replicated for a local London team over the course of a season, it just would not be viable - as much as I would like it to be so.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by BACKCHECK!!!

You know that Zurich beat the Blackhawks the year they won the cup, right? And not an exhibition farm-team in Chicago uniforms, but the actual starting day roster of the Stanley Cup Champions lost to ZHC Lions in the Victoria Cup.

That was the year after the Rangers won the Victoria Cup 4-3 against Metallurg Magnetogorsk.

So, no, actually, you are incorrect.

We know this because there WAS a de facto champions league, and the NHL teams were unable to absolutely crush their opponents.

You know that those games don't count for anything and players on both sides have little incentive to treat it any differently than a pre-season game against the Blues, right?

[BACKCHECK!!!]

Originally Posted by valo403

You know that those games don't count for anything and players on both sides have little incentive to treat it any differently than a pre-season game against the Blues, right?

1) "Oh yeah, well I wasn't really trying" is the oldest excuse ever.

2) That's not the impression I got from watching those games.

3) Players make it to the NHL by being super-competitive. I've never met a professional hockey player who would be cool with just going out and having a good time, and allowing themsves to lose to a lesser team in front of thousands of people, just because it's no biggie.

4) I have however met hockey players who underestimate their opponent and get burned for it.

5) These games can get heated. A lot of the European players are playing the biggest games of their lives, and are not afraid to pay the price to win it. They are not just two teams going through the motions.

I don't buy the "It doesn't mean anything so we weren't really trying" argument.

[Flashpoint]

Perhaps the NHL should look after its "North American business plan" first.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by BACKCHECK!!!

1) "Oh yeah, well I wasn't really trying" is the oldest excuse ever.

2) That's not the impression I got from watching those games.

3) Players make it to the NHL by being super-competitive. I've never met a professional hockey player who would be cool with just going out and having a good time, and allowing themsves to lose to a lesser team in front of thousands of people, just because it's no biggie.

4) I have however met hockey players who underestimate their opponent and get burned for it.

5) These games can get heated. A lot of the European players are playing the biggest games of their lives, and are not afraid to pay the price to win it. They are not just two teams going through the motions.

I don't buy the "It doesn't mean anything so we weren't really trying" argument.

You pretty much make my point for me right there. One team looks at it like that. The other looks at it as another pre-season game.

I don't care what argument you buy, the fact of the matter is that those games do not matter to NHL teams and are used to prepare for games that do. Talk to me when a European club team beats an NHL team in a game that has equal stakes for both teams.

[TorqueDog]

I think they need to bring back Concorde if they want to get this off the ground.