Can anyone tell me how much smaller the ice rinks in the NHL are than in Europe? Is it a really big difference?
This is exactly the problem with the NHL hockey because of the smaller rinks. Even though the NHL has unquestionably most of the best players in the world, the play is most of the time bloody awful there. I watch crazy amounts of hockey per year, which is about 200-300 NHL games per year and about 100-200 Liiga games per year. I do watch a lot of NHL hockey, because the best players are still there and there are a lot of Finnish and other European top players that I usually prefer a lot. But unfortunately the game play is way too often piss poor even despite all the talent.NHL should switch to hybrid small ice seems so cramped and chaotic
IIHF is moving all its competitions to NHL rink size from next season on.
2 KHL teams (Amur Khabarovsk and Admiral Vladivostok) are already playing on NHL size rinks. Several more are switching next season: Barys Astana (confirmed), SKA St Petersburg, Avtomobilist Ekaterinburg, Avangard Omsk (not confirmed yet).
8 KHL teams are playing on, what they call, "Finnish" size rinks, intermediate between NHL and international ones.
So, it seems that big ice is going to be phased out pretty soon in favor of standard NHL size rinks everywhere.
The KHL actually has this, some teams play on NHL-sized rinks, while the rest is either playing on the Finnish-sized rink of the traditional international-sized one.I wish all levels had flexibility to build whatever size they liked between NHL and International sized ice surfaces. Would make home ice much more of an advantage and you'd see teams constructed to win taking into account the differences.