How Hard Is It To Play in Europe?
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apoptygma
2-5-9-11
- Apr 9, 2011
- 519
- 387
Hello!
Even the 2.tier leagues in Europe like Norway's GET league usually got players with extended AHL experience or top ECHL players. Most
leagues have limit on foreign import, so its very important or them to get the right players. Your Dual-Citizen should help regarding that issue in Switzerland.
The season starts much earlier in Europe, so if you have any friends or family you can stay with in Switzerland, you might try to reach out to all NLB clubs in their area and ask for a tryout or something similar in preseason. The smaller clubs in EU have very little scouting abilities, so just going to some tryouts should atleast give some contacts. NLB might just be a semi-pro league but if you do well there the way to NLA or another good EU league is short.
The short contracts is a product of several reasons.
1. Every team risk relegation, so they do not want to sit on an expensive contract for several years if they get relegated.
2. EU hockey and the off ice stuff is different then US/Canadian, so it is a risk issue even there. My local GET league team got the top ECHL goalie a couple of years ago and he bolted after 10 games as his family could not cope, even in a city where 90% speak passable english.
3. Foreign contracts are often expensive, so in case of injuries etc. the clubs do not want to risk a longer contract for a injured player, ,y local team signed ex-NHL goalie MAtt Hackett this season, but he got injured so they negoited to break the contract to free up some money and a foreign player spot.
4. Many players use the 2. Tier leagues as a stepping stone to the top tier leagues, so the players themselves do want to be free to jump to another club the next season.
Good luck!
Just what i heard :
- In Slovakia top league you could earn 3-4 000 € / month. For a young rookies, like you, better you should count with 2 000/ month. But you must prove it, our league isnt a beer league
- be prepared to be kicked out between the first, if the owner is tight to budget (it can be a week to week change)
- the owners could be absolute nuts
- You will play and live in cities, that are out of your imagination (ask Matt Hackett, who played for Detva)
- Plus side: As a young and free Canadian hockey player you will be popular between young women supporters. And everybody can tell you, in Slovakia are a lot very beautiful girls.
- In Slovakia top league you could earn 3-4 000 € / month. For a young rookies, like you, better you should count with 2 000/ month. But you must prove it, our league isnt a beer league
- be prepared to be kicked out between the first, if the owner is tight to budget (it can be a week to week change)
- the owners could be absolute nuts
- You will play and live in cities, that are out of your imagination (ask Matt Hackett, who played for Detva)
- Plus side: As a young and free Canadian hockey player you will be popular between young women supporters. And everybody can tell you, in Slovakia are a lot very beautiful girls.
Artorius Horus T
sincerety
Here's my take (opinion)
1) It depends, are you willing to adjust/adapt to a different culture/language, different style of hockey and way of coaching/training?
To play well in a bigger ice surface, you need the end speed, you don't necessary need to be quick in your first few steps, but you need
to have skating speed and lots of stamina as well. You need to be more aware of things (every part of the ice), due to the bigger ice surface,
there are more space and time for the forwards (or offensive d-men) to operate, if you are not smart enough with or without the puck,
you will get caught in no mans land and get fooled by the opposition, right timing is the key.
- also the none (practically none) fighting thing is a huge thing to adjust, if you fight in Europe, you'll get kicked out of the game
2) if "quick" money and higher living standards are (relatively) important to you (not that elsewhere living conditions would suck, far from it, don't get me wrong but Switzerland NLA teams, generally offer more what others in Europe) or the being part Swiss is the "decisive vote" for you then def. you should be thinking going to play in the Swiss league + in most teams the coaching language is English. If not the above is that important, then SEL (or Allsvenskan) & Sm-Liiga are the best places for a young player to develop, they are always looking for young NA players to sign. (the latter option is more challenging, but the rewards are much higher thou)
3) Some teams have high expectations for NA players. Players culture shock; inability to adjust to a different culture,
but that doesn't happen that often, at least i personally don't think/believe so, nor have seen lots of NA players change teams,
because of personal issues, especially young players. But i suppose, it can be the main issue.
There's always this thou; if you play really well, bigger teams/leagues get interest of you and you get signed to a different team/league quite easily/quickly + one more thing, here in Sm-Liiga at least, its common for struggling team to off load its foreign players (on loans)
(or star players generally) for money to bigger teams late of the season (within league, or to elsewhere),
but its not the case with young players thou, not very often anyways.
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There is lots of information out there if you do some searching. Looking on Elite Prospects jobs page for example gives you an idea of which leagues pay what and what experience is required etc etc. Europe is big and every country has different rules, laws, culture so its not like playing in X is going to be like playing in B. You could be living in Davos in an international city one season then in some remote town the next in a place where nobody speaks English..
1. Swiss NLA is one of the top leagues in Europe, its high level and pays extremely well. You basically fine good ex-NHL guys going here. Look at Austin Matthews for example he started here. However there are many leagues so if you want to play in say the British Elite League, well some people leave CIS and join with a Professional British team straight away.
2. It depends what league and what your experience is. In Swiss NLA you can expect great money, hundreds of thousands for $s per season. In the British league you can make between $20-60k. In Russian KHL you can make millions!
3. I'd say in Europe the European players tend to stay at their local team and only move if the offer is worth it - how many Swiss players do you see playing in other Euro countries for example?. However the import (US/Canadians) move usually season to season 1 cause of the contract will 99% of the time be 1 season (reasons already explained) 2 their agent will be constantly trying to find them a better deal.
almostawake
Registered User
I want to be upfront and say that while I live here, I am not connected to the industry in any way. Although I have known a handful of NL imports over the years.
If you are serious about having a go in Europe, your Swiss citizenship will make you far more attractive to teams here than in any other country.
Just an aside, the top-tier league is now called the National League (NL) and the second-tier league is now called the Swiss League (SL). They used to be National League A and B respectively
To be blunt, cracking an NL roster seems incredibly unlikely to me. Guys that come from North America and step straight into NL are almost always guys with NHL experience, or at the least, were very good AHL level players. Now, your citizenship will definitely help, but even still, the level of the Swiss guys in the NL is not low. They are career professionals making very good money. Like, in the NL the imports certainly stand out a bit, but no more than most of them did while in the AHL. Which is to say that most of the Swiss pro's populating NL rosters are as good as mid to lower end AHL guys, or at worst, very high end ECHL players.
Perhaps you could find a NL team taking you on in a developmental capacity because of your age, but that also isn't super likely as you are kind of out of the age range for youth players in the Swiss system. Once a member of a NL youth set up hits 19/20 y/o they are usually pushed to the main roster, or are cut loose and find a spot with an SL team. So carrying a non-roster 21 y/o would be a bit unusual.
In my opinion, the SL is a really good place for you to try. There are a number of guys in that league with dual citizenship that moved over around the same age having played Junior A or Major Junior. If you can convince them that you're committed to making it in Switzerland (and not just looking for a paid European vacation) your profile seems to be up to snuff.
Purely a wild guess, but I could imagine them offering something around 60k CHF, which is pretty nice compared to other European leagues of that level, but in CH is basically what someone working full time at McDonalds would earn. But things are much more equal here and 60k is a totally resonable number to live off of at 21 y/o (and the cost of housing in most SL cities is a lot lower than the major cities).
And to be clear, I'm not saying that you only have the talent to be a SL player, just that based on profile that is where you're likely to find a team willing to take a chance on you. There is no reason that after breaking in you'd advance to the NL in good time due to your non-import status.
And one thing to keep in mind about the Swiss professional hockey scene, Swiss are way more in demand than foreigners, so at the NL level all the roster players make a very nice salary (200k, 300k easy).
HasbeenHallzy
Registered User
My cousin was a very solid 2nd liner in the NCAA and his best offer out of school was 3rd Div in Austria... Unless you're a very talented player the top leagues in Europe are far-fetched. You'll probably want to stick with school and go from there unless you're happy being a back-pack player making peanuts in shady cities.
Top European leagues (NLA, SHL, Liiga) are more or less on par with the AHL. If you aren't sure, you can make the AHL, then it's minor European leagues for you only. At least, at the start.
Still, I wouldn't recomend you to go to Eastern European leagues (Czech, Slovakia, Romania, Croatia and like). They probably can pay you decent money (not as good as in Switzerland or Sweden, but life isn't as expensive there as well), but they aren't very reliable comparing to Western Europe countries.
Still, I wouldn't recomend you to go to Eastern European leagues (Czech, Slovakia, Romania, Croatia and like). They probably can pay you decent money (not as good as in Switzerland or Sweden, but life isn't as expensive there as well), but they aren't very reliable comparing to Western Europe countries.
In what way isn't the Czech and Slovak leagues reliable? You gotta be a pretty good player to make those leagues. Even the Slovak league is pretty much on par with the ECHL. However, playing the Czech and Slovak 2nd and 3rd divisions may not be as lucrative.
OP, I'm sending you a PM.
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Financially reliable, I'd say. Slovan's history was a good example. Yeah, the team played in the KHL, but it still was Slovakian.
If Praha and Slovan didn't play in the KHL maybe they would never have suffered those economic problems. I don't know about attendence rates or tv ratings, but I imagine a team leaving the SHL to join the KHL would suffer the same economic problems eventually. Very few people here would be intersted in watching Frölunda or Djurgården play against Avtomobilist or Nur-Sultan to be honest. People here are very passionate about the domestic league. Maybe fans in the Czech Republic and Slovakia felt the same way.
kudla
Registered User
You could say the same about KHL since there were and are teams with financial problems
Of course, there were Russian KHL teams doing the same shit (i.e. not paying to their players), but as far as I understand, OP isn't interested in any Russian team...
Ciccarelli
Uncle Gelart
- Dec 17, 2005
- 1,563
- 292
Coming out of CIS you shouldnt have your hopes too high for signing with even a try-out deal with any of the better leagues. The absolute worst guys that finnish teams sign are very good ECHL'ers and most often they dont even cut it really. With that kind of background id say your best chance to make it "big" as in a player in NLA/Liiga/SHL is to work your way up EIHL/NLB/Mestis->Allsvenskan/EBEL->NLA/Liiga/SHL.
SoundAndFury
Registered User
- May 28, 2012
- 12,284
- 6,274
Like almostawake wrote, if you are really good, you should be aiming for NLB and maybe due to your dual nationality some team would pick you up. But NLA is a pipe dream at this point, you have to be roughly AHL level to play there and very few, if any, CIS grads are that good. NLB is not a terrible league though, some legios there can be crazy good too. Jussi Jokinen has signed a "holiday" deal to play for Kloten last year, for example. Maybe there are teams at the bottom of the league that would take you for a minor role if you impress.
I would suggest you stick in Switzerland because in other European leagues you will have little job security and legios are expected to put the points on the board, first and foremost. If you venture to a non-Swiss league pick the one you can actually score in. Which would lead you to the very bottom of the European hockey ladder where most CIS grads start - BeNeLeague, AlpsHL, Erste Liga. Maybe EIHL. But the pay first year will be enough to survive, not much else. Below 1k euros per month in a cheap country like Romania.
Eliteprospects has this helpful "where are they now" function where you can see the list of CIS grads and where did they end up, this way you will be able to ballpark your career path. Elite Prospects - USports - Where are they now? . As you can see, there are hardly any players who managed to reach the top tier of European hockey.
To answer your questions quickly:
1) as hard as any pro hockey league not named the NHL. KHL, SHL, NLA have players paid well above the AHL level which means most AHL guys can consider themselves lucky if they managed to get a job in such league. After all, they are in competition with a lot of guys with NHL experience. If they aren't in such luck they will go to DEL, Liiga or EBEL. So those (and Czech league but it has very little NA imports) are the leagues where you have to be roughly at AHL level to play in.
2) It varies a lot. It depends on the league, the role, the country. You might get less money in Slovakia, for example, but the living cost will also be way lower than in Austria or Switzerland. So the bottom level wage will be enough to live comfortably in that given country. The ceiling depends on the league. For that middle ground, you can once again take a look at the AHL/ECHL wages. ECHL guys gladly move to countries like Slovakia, Norway or Denmark meaning they are being paid more there than they would be in NA. Star players in the ECHL are paid roughly 1k dollars per week and the average salary is ~600 so again, it's a little more than that in mid-level European leagues.
3) It's all about the money. Players are betting on themselves, they look to be paid more and more year after year until they peek so signing long term deal doesn't make sense for them. Teams are the same way, they work with some fixated budget and if a player had relly good season he becomes too expensive for them to sign without breaking the structure of their budget. Same way, if a player disappointed he will probably move to be a star player in a different, slightly lower-level league rather than resign with the same team for the lower price tag. Those are the general rules of thumb in the cobweb of mid-tier leagues.
There are some exceptions to that but those are fairly rare and mostly at the bit higher (at least EBEL) level. Below that, 99% of the legios will just go year-to-year.
P.S. Also, isn't it better to just link your profile instead of extensive write-up? It takes like 2 minutes to find it. There really aren't many 6'5" dual-national Ds in the CIS, not to mention higgi21 is a fairly transparent nickname.
To put it bluntly, your European hockey journey will be really tough if you decide to go through with it and you won't be making much money. Very unlikely you will ever reach NLA, snowflake chance in hell kind of probability. It also seems unlikely you will accumulate any significant savings during your career. I would only suggest you take this path if 1) you absolutely want to experience the livelihood of pro hockey player and are ready to be an adventurous journeyman; 2) you want to tie your future to Switzerland/Europe rather than Canada/Noth America for some reason.
Most of the stuff I or people here have written doesn't really apply in your situation. You need to either look for options in SLR (3rd tier Swiss league) or other bottom-tier European leagues. But having Swiss citizenship SLR seems like a better option, obviously. Having said that, almostawake made an excellent comparison, your salary would be roughly that of a McDonald's employee in any of those places. Only choose this path if you absolutely want to try it or you are absolutely sure you can make it to the next level. In any case, this is a big risk to take.
By using the eliteprospects link you can find players who have gone through something similar, Jason Seed, for example, had a rather similar path. He is now playing in a small Polish mountain resort probably being paid ~12k euros (after taxes) per season with car and rent taken care of (usual practice). And keep in mind he had to spend two years in French 2nd league just to get there. So some might see him as the guy who made it, some might see him as the guy who wasted 15 years of his life by chasing hockey dream. It all depends.
I would suggest you stick in Switzerland because in other European leagues you will have little job security and legios are expected to put the points on the board, first and foremost. If you venture to a non-Swiss league pick the one you can actually score in. Which would lead you to the very bottom of the European hockey ladder where most CIS grads start - BeNeLeague, AlpsHL, Erste Liga. Maybe EIHL. But the pay first year will be enough to survive, not much else. Below 1k euros per month in a cheap country like Romania.
Eliteprospects has this helpful "where are they now" function where you can see the list of CIS grads and where did they end up, this way you will be able to ballpark your career path. Elite Prospects - USports - Where are they now? . As you can see, there are hardly any players who managed to reach the top tier of European hockey.
To answer your questions quickly:
1) as hard as any pro hockey league not named the NHL. KHL, SHL, NLA have players paid well above the AHL level which means most AHL guys can consider themselves lucky if they managed to get a job in such league. After all, they are in competition with a lot of guys with NHL experience. If they aren't in such luck they will go to DEL, Liiga or EBEL. So those (and Czech league but it has very little NA imports) are the leagues where you have to be roughly at AHL level to play in.
2) It varies a lot. It depends on the league, the role, the country. You might get less money in Slovakia, for example, but the living cost will also be way lower than in Austria or Switzerland. So the bottom level wage will be enough to live comfortably in that given country. The ceiling depends on the league. For that middle ground, you can once again take a look at the AHL/ECHL wages. ECHL guys gladly move to countries like Slovakia, Norway or Denmark meaning they are being paid more there than they would be in NA. Star players in the ECHL are paid roughly 1k dollars per week and the average salary is ~600 so again, it's a little more than that in mid-level European leagues.
3) It's all about the money. Players are betting on themselves, they look to be paid more and more year after year until they peek so signing long term deal doesn't make sense for them. Teams are the same way, they work with some fixated budget and if a player had relly good season he becomes too expensive for them to sign without breaking the structure of their budget. Same way, if a player disappointed he will probably move to be a star player in a different, slightly lower-level league rather than resign with the same team for the lower price tag. Those are the general rules of thumb in the cobweb of mid-tier leagues.
There are some exceptions to that but those are fairly rare and mostly at the bit higher (at least EBEL) level. Below that, 99% of the legios will just go year-to-year.
P.S. Also, isn't it better to just link your profile instead of extensive write-up? It takes like 2 minutes to find it. There really aren't many 6'5" dual-national Ds in the CIS, not to mention higgi21 is a fairly transparent nickname.
To put it bluntly, your European hockey journey will be really tough if you decide to go through with it and you won't be making much money. Very unlikely you will ever reach NLA, snowflake chance in hell kind of probability. It also seems unlikely you will accumulate any significant savings during your career. I would only suggest you take this path if 1) you absolutely want to experience the livelihood of pro hockey player and are ready to be an adventurous journeyman; 2) you want to tie your future to Switzerland/Europe rather than Canada/Noth America for some reason.
Most of the stuff I or people here have written doesn't really apply in your situation. You need to either look for options in SLR (3rd tier Swiss league) or other bottom-tier European leagues. But having Swiss citizenship SLR seems like a better option, obviously. Having said that, almostawake made an excellent comparison, your salary would be roughly that of a McDonald's employee in any of those places. Only choose this path if you absolutely want to try it or you are absolutely sure you can make it to the next level. In any case, this is a big risk to take.
By using the eliteprospects link you can find players who have gone through something similar, Jason Seed, for example, had a rather similar path. He is now playing in a small Polish mountain resort probably being paid ~12k euros (after taxes) per season with car and rent taken care of (usual practice). And keep in mind he had to spend two years in French 2nd league just to get there. So some might see him as the guy who made it, some might see him as the guy who wasted 15 years of his life by chasing hockey dream. It all depends.
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While i agree with everything said in here (except the McDonalds salary, 60k is what i got at the start of my "career" after an extensive 4 year education as software developer back when they were really sought after) and almost all already mentioned it: I don't think it can be stressed enough how huge the dual-citizenship is.
A CIS level player is normally not making the NLA in any capacity, because of the mentioned rules on imports. But i can see a dual-citizen maybe working his way up from the NLB (many NLA-clubs have a farm team there) if he's mobile enough and eager to learn new concepts for the bigger ice (and different rules on things like physicallity), especially with that frame. You'll almost certainly struggle with income though in the NLB while making the NLA will be really f***ing tough.
A CIS level player is normally not making the NLA in any capacity, because of the mentioned rules on imports. But i can see a dual-citizen maybe working his way up from the NLB (many NLA-clubs have a farm team there) if he's mobile enough and eager to learn new concepts for the bigger ice (and different rules on things like physicallity), especially with that frame. You'll almost certainly struggle with income though in the NLB while making the NLA will be really f***ing tough.
SoundAndFury
Registered User
- May 28, 2012
- 12,284
- 6,274
Yeah 60k would seem really high then again, I assume that's before taxes (~50% in Switzerland) and it is a really rich/expensive country. Still does seem high for an entry-level job.
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Teams are paying for production, FULL STOP. So start playing on your off hand and start working on 1 timers and snap shots from the top of the circle. Guys bounce a lot for various reasons.
Some guys try and move up a level for more money and if the production doesn’t match, they won’t be re-signed. Or the club finds out (last minute) that it doesn’t have the budget for next year and it becomes a game of musical chairs. As an import, NLA is the holy grail. 2 games a week, home in bed after every game, best pay.
With a Swiss passport, NLB is the place to start as you don’t count as an import. You get a car and a flat provided, wages can be $50k at that level, but a decent chance to catch a job in NLA after a year if you impress as there aren't enough quality Swiss players to go around. That’s when the pay goes up. Elite Swiss players getting up to $1mm/yr due to scarcity.
The quality in Denmark/Norway/NLB would be close to ECHL(family friend just moved to Denmark from the ECHL and his scoring rate is the same), NLA is high end AHL/Sens on a bad night with a lot of AAAA ex-NHLers on the back 3 of their pro career.
6’5” is a big guy, you need to get that weight closer to 220 to have an optimal power-weight ratio for skating.
BlizzardSloth
Registered User
almostawake
Registered User
Hourly wage for someone working a shift at McDonalds is ~25CHF. A 100% position is 42.5 hours per week. It works out to ~55k per year. The real issue is very few people actually get 100%.
I don't know when you entered workforce as a software engineer but starting salary is now far above 60k. I teach at a university here and the lowest starting salary I've ever heard from one of my students is 80k. Most start around 100k. Granted, they may be starting a bit high due to institution reputation. But after even two or three years experience all are making 100k+ and most making 120k.
Taxation is very low in Switzerland. Much lower than almost every other country in Europe. Much lower than Canada. Income tax is lower than the US, although consumption taxes make the net tax burden higher overall.
