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NEWS > SPORTS > NHL MULLING PLANS TO MOVE THE ENTIRE LEAGUE TO EUROPE
NHL MULLING PLANS TO MOVE THE ENTIRE LEAGUE TO EUROPE
December 20 2010
Toronto, Canada – There was a time, a brief moment in the history of the NHL, when the league believed with all its heart that it would be able to finally break through and become one of the big sports in the United States. That moment was ‘The Trade’
which sent the greatest player of all time, Wayne Gretzky, from his homeland to the City of Angels, a move that was supposed to put the sport in the spotlight for the first time.
That didn’t happen. Despite his willingness to take on the mantle of progress for the league and his continued high level of performance, the sport still struggled in much of the United States. Certain teams did well, principally in northern states and in Original Six cities, but the much hoped for breakthrough into the mainstream sports consciousness did not happen. More than twenty years after that break, things haven’t improved much. Despite aggressive expansion into southern states and intermittent success stories, hockey has remained one of the last things on the minds of sports fans throughout the United States, resulting in financial losses and near bankruptcies of multiple teams. Now the league apparently is considering a new plan which would relocate the entire league to Europe where the sport has long enjoyed success and high levels of talent.
“The other three sports are obviously predominantly American. Hockey is not. There is a very important European contingent which you don't have in the other three sports. I don't know that eventually [a transatlantic rivalry is] the future, but it does seem to me that's something that makes hockey unique and really ought to be looked at,” said the newly crowned executive director of the NHLPA, Don Fehr. “I know this idea has been bandied about for a few years and it makes perfect sense. There is huge opportunity here that is being missed out on and the onus is on the league to ensure that the best opportunities are being taken for the health of the league and the sport.”
Fehr previously worked for the MLBPA where his attempts to move baseball to Asia and Latin America were unsuccessful.
“There has been a lot more talk about this idea in recent years. There was the idea of simply starting another division in Europe that could play a kind of transatlantic rivalry but that has been largely abandoned largely for pragmatic reasons but the idea of just moving the whole league full scale is something else entirely,” said an NHL insider. “Look, the reality is that the talent pool is limited and you split the available talent amongst a whole bunch of teams the product will be reduced and interest will wane. By just picking up and moving to Europe you have a bunch of teams ready to go and ready to play with players and infrastructure in place. It’s a perfect fit really.”
Swedish officials have reportedly already been pressing the league to take on the maligned Phoenix Coyotes franchise for Stockholm.
“The reality is the dollars are starting to dry up across the board. There are so many other entertainment options now that every sport is starting to suffer and the NHL is going to bear the brunt of that because they are the low man on the pole and so moving into a fresh market might be the best option,” said Scrape TV Sports analyst Mark Marvins. “It’s not a perfect solution and there are certainly going to be people who will be angry, but for the good of the league this might be the best move. The reality is that people in the United States simply aren’t going to buy into the sport and they simply need to move on and Europe is the best option for that.”
Under the plan the remaining Canadian teams would also move despite the sport being near religion in the country. The NHL apparently has no contingency plans to appease those fans.
Alexi Orton, Sports Correspondent
NEWS > SPORTS > NHL MULLING PLANS TO MOVE THE ENTIRE LEAGUE TO EUROPE
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