Hockey Night in Europe

30 Sep 2008 by Craig in National Hockey League

Part of a new annual event the NHL has sent four teams to start the NHL season off in Europe. It’s part of the leagues continued efforts to increase its market and make the NHL the globally excepted best hockey league in the world. The NHL is an international league and it makes sense that they would want to show off in Europe. Its yet to be determined whether or not these games have a positive effect on the game or not, but it all gets underway on Saturday October 4th.

Stockholm Sweden - The Pittsburgh Penguins and. Ottawa Senators, will play two regular season games in Sweden. The NHL has sent there poster boy Sydney Crosby across the pond to grow the game in new markets. The league has shown that they will use Crosby in special events and he will participate in high profile games for the second straight year, last year he played in the Winter Classic. Last years Winter Classic was a success for the league and they hope that this years European schedule will be much of the same. The Penguins are going to use this trip as a team building experience, they hope this trip will bring the team closer together. There are big expectations on Pittsburgh this season after they made the Cup final a year ago. The team has some new faces in the locker room this year and there hope is when they come back to North America the team will be one and ready to have a great year. Yes Crosby is in Sweden, but he probably isn’t going to be the fan favorite, Senators forward Daniel Alfredsson is a home town hero. Alfredsson will be met with great fan fair and the expectations of putting on a good show in his home country. Daniel will skate on the top line with Spezza and Heatley, and they will look to put on a show. Ottawa will be looking for a bounce back year and will need to get off to a good start in Europe. These teams will play two games one on Saturday night and the other on Sunday night and should be fun to watch.

Prague Czech Republic - In Prague the New York Rangers will play the Tampa Bay Lightning in two regular season games. Both these teams made big changes in the off season and are looking forward to having big seasons. The Rangers have two Czech players in Petr Prucha and Michal Rozisal, that will no doubt be the fan favorites. The Lightning have some of the NHL’s biggest stars in Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St Louis and 1st overall selection Steven Stamkos. Stamkos will play in his much anticipated NHL debut and will draw attention from both sides of the pond. Tampa Bay has a lot of new players and will be looking to build some chemistry and build towards what they hope is a much improved season.  The Rangers are a big market team and the NHL will be looking to draw a lot of fans out to the games. Both these teams will be looking to get off to good starts, to prove that they are favorite teams in the Eastern Conference. The games will be Saturday and Sunday, the crowds should be rocking and hopefully the NHL gives them a good product.

Traveling to Europe has ups and downfalls for these four teams.  The travel and time change can take a lot of the players and put a damper on early season expectations. On the other hand, you can use these trips as team building experiences and bring the teams closer together. The teams are going to end up being in Europe for almost two weeks this season, I would expect when they get home it will take a while to get readjusted. Last year Anaheim and Los Angeles played in London and both teams got off to rough starts when they got home. Hopefully all four of these teams will adapt well and there will only be positive impacts on there seasons.

The future in Europe for the NHL is yet to be determined, but it makes sense for the league to expand its European fan base. The NHL more then any other North American professional sports league has a lot of European talent. Stars like Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Marian Hossa and Henrik Lundqvist all are European, and could go along way to the NHL being a success in Europe. In my opinion I like that four teams are going to these countries to start the year, but that is enough. You don’t need to send anymore then that, go over to Europe for a couple weeks and show off the great product the league has. This is not a vacation for these teams, the games matter and it will be important for them to get off to good starts.

It has been said that maybe there will NHL franchises in Europe within the next 10 years. I’m not sure I agree with that, the travel would be tough on everyone and the time changes would make it hard on the schedule makers. In my opinion if there is a good European league I could see an opportunity for the NHL’s Stanley Cup Champions to play the European Champion in a series at the seasons end. I’m not sure that will ever happen, but it might be interesting.  Whatever the NHL does, they need to capture the hockey market in Europe. Hockey is big in Sweden, Russia and the Czech Republic and the league has a lot of great stars from those countries. Who knows what the future holds, I hope the fans in Europe enjoy the NHL games this weekend and continue there love for hockey.