NHLEurope: Which cities?

[BaBeLuLu]

Bern
Zürich
Prague
Munich
London
Helsinki
Stockholm
Paris

 

[10YearsHaveGone]

A lot of those are nice cities, but make no sense.

Siberia, Russia makes more sense than Athens, Greece.

Would just pick a combination of Sweden, Finland and Russian cities.

If NA can have warm city teams why can't Europe?

 

[GettingYourMoms]

I don't know where you're getting your stats from but Prague isn't top 5 and Stockholm was actually higher in "bed nights" for tourism in 2022.

Top European tourism cities by bed nights 2023 | Statista

What are the most visited cities in Europe? In 2023, London, Paris, and Istanbul were the European cities recording the highest number of bed nights.

www.statista.com

Just to add, I'm European and have been to Prague. I haven't been to Stockholm yet as it is bloody expensive, which is why it makes far more sense for a commercial decision.

The Most Visited Cities In Europe | The Most Popular European Cities (2024)

A list of the European cities that attract the greatest number of international visitors each year.

thesavvybackpacker.com

Prague 2024: 6,8 milion visitors
Stockholm 2024: 2.6 milion visitors
not even close

 

[Iwishihadaspacebar]

The Most Visited Cities In Europe | The Most Popular European Cities (2024)

A list of the European cities that attract the greatest number of international visitors each year.

thesavvybackpacker.com

Prague 2024: 6,8 milion visitors
Stockholm 2024: 2.6 milion visitors
not even close

I mean sure, that's a blog but let's say it is correct, it still doesn't mean Prague would be a better commercial decision. Go to places where people have more money and they'll he happy to spend more money.

Tourism isn't going to be the selling point to expand a sport.

 

[heksagon]

At the moment Tampere would probably make more sense than Helsinki for Finland. It has the bigger and newer Arena, is the only City that currently supports two Liiga teams and is the more successful hockey city overall (It pains me to say this as a fan of non-Tampere based Liiga team). I know it has less population, but pure local population is not everything, especially when in this hypothetical situation it would kind of become "Finland's team" anyways.

Tampere should definitely be an option on the poll at least.

We'll see if it changes in the future if Helsinki gets its shit together with the new Arena project and if Jokerit returns to Liiga with some hockey hype. Or maybe Jokerit goes straight from Mestis to NHL?

 

[GettingYourMoms]

I mean sure, that's a blog but let's say it is correct, it still doesn't mean Prague would be a better commercial decision. Go to places where people have more money and they'll he happy to spend more money.

Tourism isn't going to be the selling point to expand a sport.

Yeah but being not mugged or raped in broad daylight is.

 

[Iwishihadaspacebar]

Yeah but being mugged or raped in broad daylight is.

See this is actually fascinating how some Americans have been lead to believe some weird stuff about Sweden, a lot of which has been driven by the hard and far right groups.

Here in Europe, we (the non far right) see Sweden as a pretty safe place, mainly because we know that the way they record crimes is different to other countries. For example, if a husband rapes his wife 7 times, they are counted as 7 different crimes, rather than in other European countries where they'd be put together as one charge.

But it seems like some have believed the con artists and think Sweden is some sort of hell on earth, which it just isn't.

 

[Nogatco Rd]

At least Helsinki, Stockholm, Berlin, Prague, Bratislava. I guess you'd be forced to pick a city or two from Russia.. Moscow and St. Petersburg would make sense. That's 7 teams which could be a division.

They wouldn't face against NA NHL teams during regular season because of logistics. So having one division would kinda suck, as it would be same teams over and over again. Either you need more teams added to the division (possible to some extent) or another division, which I don't believe is doable. There aren't ~14-16 cities in Europe that could provide NHL level product.

Could have each NHL team do one “europe division” trip a year, or every other year. If it’s gonna be part of the league doesn’t make sense to have it be completely separate until the playoffs ( a la the north division). Plus I’m sure it would be a big draw to see the top euro players who playing on NA teams.

 

[Hallonbroder]

NHL would never work in Sweden. More possible in Finland, Soviet Union, and Central Europe

 

[JoVel]

NHL would never work in Sweden. More possible in Finland, Soviet Union, and Central Europe

How about Czechoslovakia or West Germany?

 

[ponder719]

Treating this as something akin to a Pan-European league of its own, rather than a division of the NHL, I would start with 8 teams, 1 per country. The exact location in each nation can be debated, but Sweden, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Czechia, Slovakia, Russia, and either Norway or Latvia would be the 8 starting countries (unless the geopolitical situation hasn't changed by the time this gets invented, in which case Norway and Latvia both make the cut, and Russia stays on the sidelines until that changes.) Again, assuming geopolitical peace, once those 9 nations are in, my next three expansion choices would be Belarus, Ukraine, and probably Denmark. Other nations where hockey has less of a tradition would make more sense after the traditional nations are represented, once the league has a stronger reputation and is more stable.