I don't the think the expansion impulse was wrong, just misplaced. Great hockey towns like Hamilton and Quebec City go without hockey teams while players are greeted with low attendance and shrugging shoulders in places like Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Anaheim and perhaps the greatest crime of all: Phoenix. Ice is made from frozen water. Phoenix is like, the opposite of ice, why do they have a team?
I propose a massive realignment of the NHL, an acknowledgement that ice hockey is, for the most part, a regional phenomenon, and that that doesn't represent a failure. American football is enormously popular in the U.S. and a fourth class citizen everywhere else in the world. Why can't we just embrace that? Baseball has been fervently adopted in countries as diverse as Cuba, Japan, Venezuela and Taiwan but not much in the U.K. or Turkey. Is that a failure or should we just be grateful for whomever has embraced it?
The NHL is a cold temperature sport. The players come from cold temperature areas and so do the fans, by in large. Expansion can be achieved, but not into the southern U.S. It can be achieved into northern Europe.
I propose that we realign the NHL into 3 conference of 10 teams each: 10 in Canada, 10 in America and 10 in northern Europe.
The new conferences would look something like this:
European Conference:
Prague
Bratislava
Stockholm
Moscow
Helsinki
Berlin
Oslo
Copehagen
Kiev
St. Petersburg
American Conference:
Boston
New York
Philadelphia
Detroit
Chicago
Pittsburgh
Buffalo
St. Louis
Minnesota
Washington
Canadian Conference:
Toronto
Montreal
Vancouver
Calgary
Quebec City
Hamilton
Edmonton
Ottawa
Winnipeg
Victoria
More to come...
