For the second straight year, the NHL opened its season in Europe. Commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly have said that they’re only trying to market the league on a global platform – but both agree it’s possible that the league could expand eventually, with teams in Europe.
Daly says he’d like to see gamesplayed regularly in Europe over the next ten years. This is alarming.
Expanding the league into Europe is like wearing white skates to play hockey. It didn’t work for the California Golden Seals in 1971 and it won’t work now.
This expansion could go wrong for several reasons.
Look at the way the game and the players would be impacted.
The NHL already has 30 teams and a handful of its American franchises are struggling. But it’s unlikely Bettman would give any existing teams the boot, and adding six more would only water down the league. More teams lead to more players and the best ones are already playing. Let’s keep it like that.
Speaking of the players. Around 70 per cent of the NHL is made up of North Americans, not all of whom share dreams of playing in places like Russia or Finland.
Some players – especially those raising families – would be outright opposed to uprooting their entire lives to play for a European team.
It took ex-Maple Leaf Bryan McCabe over six months to finally lift his no-trade clause and accept a trade to the Florida Panthers.
Good luck getting a player to accept a trade across the Atlantic Ocean.
Then there is the issue of time zones. Football fans watch their sport during the afternoons and hockey fans watch their sport at night. That’s the way it’s always been. Most NHL games start at or after 7 p.m. – but Ottawa is six hours behind Stockholm and eight behind Moscow. Who wants to watch a hockey game at lunchtime on a Saturday? Beer and wings would be replaced with milk and cold cuts.
Apart from changing their schedules, fans may also have to start paying to watch their favourite players play. Unless broadcasting companies like TSN and Rogers Sportsnet set up overseas bureaus, fans could have to buy expensive TV packages to view games.
Fortunately, hockey fans are a loyal group and they’ll probably dish out the coin. But hockey fans can also be stubborn, especially when it comes to keeping tradition.
Tradition surrounds this game, and has kept it popular since the Original 6 emerged in 1942. It is the reason fighting in hockey hasn’t disappeared. It’s why fans were up in arms when the league expanded to Southern California in the early 1990s. And it’s the same reason CBC was recently bombarded with hate mail when it gave up the rights to its popular theme song, that played every Saturday night since 1968.
This isn’t to say the NHL shouldn’t make changes to improve the game.
The shootout, for example, was added to regular season games in 2005 and has generally been well received.
But taking the game overseas on a regular basis would take North America away from the game. And Hockey Night in Europe just doesn’t have the same ring to it.