Now that the KHL has entered the Czech republic and Slovakia, what's next? Italy? Croatia? Helvetia? (joke).Could not the other top European leagues each sponsor one or two teams and form a league of their own? Requirements would be a local high-income populace, an arena for 10,000 fans, an aeroport close by, a large metropolitan area, a strong local-content team (max.4 non-european players) and some financial and promotional support from their respective national federation. With 10 teams you could have a 54 game season, playing each other 6 times. The leagues with the highest attendances would have two teams. Eg. Stockholm, Göteborg, Berlin, Cologne (or Mannheim or Düsseldorf), Zurich, Geneva (future 10,000-seat arena planned), Helsinki and Turku. The 2nd-level Swedish league could be represented conjointly with the Danish league via a Malmö-Copenhagen (future arena on its way) team sharing games between the two sites, And the Ebel (AUT/SLO/CRO/HUN/CZE/SVK) league could be represented by a team in Ljubljana, with a 3rd of its home games played in Klagenfurt (3), Budapest (2), Zagreb (2), Szekesfehérvár (1) and Bratislava (1). Other teams would be encouraged to play at least two regular-season games in surrounding countries to encourage growth of the game in those nations. For example, Lyon, France (new arena on its way); Bolzano, Italy; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Tallinn, Estonia; Kaunas, Lithuania; Hamar, Norway; and Kraków, Poland (new arena on its way). The result of all this would be, as for the KHL, to keep more home-grown talent AT HOME, rather than they're all going to the NHL where the grass is greener but where one is quickly homesick, away from family, and more frequently injured because of the tiring and long 82 game regular season.

Posted By: Larry on Jun 13, 2012 12:24PM