Keep It Continental: Why The NHL Shouldn't Put Teams In Europe

The NHL season has already started, and they have six games scheduled in three different European cities: Hurricanes/Wild in Helsinki, Sharks/Blue Jackets in Stockholm, and Bruins/Coyotes in Prague. The NHL isn't the only leage to host games on another continent, however.

Next March, the NBA will have two games in London between the New Jersey Nets and the Toronto Raptors.

On Halloween, the NFL will hold it's fourth regular season game, also in London, between the Broncos and the 49ers.

The NHL has had several European players in the league over the past few years, and since 2007, when the King's and the Ducks had their historic 2-game clash in London, has had the practice of kicking off the regular season in Europe. This appears to be the first of many steps that the NHL is taking to put additional teams in Europe.

But in my opinion, the NHL reconsider putting franchises across the pond.

For starters, travel would be a heavy concern. It's about a seven to eight-hour flight from the east coast to many European cities, which would spell killer travel trips for the North American, and Euro teams.

To cut travel time a bit, we'd possibly see a baseball-like regular season series, where teams play two or three games in one city in a span of that time. This could make for a very biased schedule for European teams. The teams in Europe would possibly be exempted from playing any team in the Western Conference due to travel issues.

All Euro teams would possibly be put in the Eastern Conference, and there would be very few to start with; possibly two, but no more than four or six for a long period of time.

A European expansion would also mean more motivation for North American and European Players to play for teams in their respective continents. North American players would probably shun any offer a European team gave them, as not to make a radical adjustment for a player's family. Hockey wives can have their say where their husbands don their jerseys. (Remember Chris Pronger?)

Expansion in Europe would create heavy resistance from Swedish, Finnish, Kontinental Hockey League, and other hockey leagues in Europe could form if the NHL attempts to step foot on their turf. Note that several hockey arenas that house European teams are smaller than the average capacity of a typical NHL rink.

With the NHL a gate-driven league, Euro teams aren't likely to survive if their arena only has a capacity of 10,000 or only slightly more. Fans of teams in the smaller country-based leagues may not trade in their season tickets for the NHL.

It's a simple formula: we have our league, the European's have their own.

Another European expansion issue, which I'm surprised not many have brought up: time zones.

If it's 7 p.m. in the Eastern time zone, it's 2 a.m. in Helsinki. Even Moscow is eight hours ahead of the east coast and another three ahead of the west. How would start times of the games work?

I get headaches just thinking of the scheduling difficulties the NHL will be faced with.

The fans in Europe may not want to stay up till four o'clock in the morning to watch their team play in North America. Likewise, fans in North America may not be happy about afternoon games on a work day, especially during the playoffs. Unless you're a die-hard baseball fan who will take the day off work, or go home early, to watch your team in the MLB postseason, I would not recommend it.

The only solution for games on TV and those fans who want to watch their team play at a watchable hour is tape-delay, which is something that will never fly. We can check for the scores of earlier games on the Internet, or on our iphone, or whatever up-to-the-minute tool we have.

If the NHL did put franchises in Europe, Moscow, Helsinki and Stockholm would be candidates for a franchise. But they shouldn't stop there.

The warm-weather footprint the NHL has taken in America in the past fifteen years is debatable. But why not take it to the other side of the world? Once the NHL places a few teams in Europe, we may have warm-weather cities such as Lisbon, Madrid, and Istanbul getting into the mix.

When the NHL began play on foreign soil this season, the games drew respectable crowds. You can state the argument that the NHL would be feasible in Europe.

However, you can state the argument that a handful of the top soccer (or football as they say in Europe) clubs in Europe toured North America for friendly matches and drew big crowds in football and baseball stadiums in this continent. And this is the same part of the globe where Major League Soccer is struggling to fill it's stadiums in several markets.

Sounds similar to the NFL in London, and the rest of Europe itself. Just a few months after the NFL officially cut it's Euro league in 2007, a Giants/Dolphins game at Wembley Stadium was sold out. So were the next two games in London.

So if the formula dictates that the better the league, the better crowds, would novelty just wear off if we had these events all the time?

In conclusion, if the NHL did put franchises in Europe, maybe it would motivate European leagues to make a jump at North America. Maybe the KHL would want put hockey teams in cities that lack an NHL team, or maybe the top soccer leagues such as England's Premier League, Spain's La Liga, or Italy's Serie A would want to go out of their native lands and try to place teams on this part of the World.

Overall, that sounds exaggerated. So is the NHL and their poorly kept dream of placing teams in Europe.