This is where the conversation ends from anyone willing to take a crack at this idea.
Junior hockey is still a big deal, and any market willing to take a crack at the new league would get dunked on by junior IMO.
Realistically, there probably should be a CFL/CanPL style hockey league in Canada, but it's just never going to happen. The barrier to entry is too big now.
The (ongoing) death of Senior Hockey post-pandemic is really tough to see too for small towns.
The only way it happens is if a broadcaster subsidizes an existing league to try and generate TV viewers the same way TSN did for curling and CFL - But the CFL is summer/fall, curling is afternoons/daytime filler and this theoretical league would be up against every other hockey league already existing.
If we take this in a serious direction, which would be somewhat different than this thread, I would take the following as essentials:
1) It cannot simply be another pro hockey league
2) It cannot attempt to compete with established pro leagues for talent
3) It needs to be a different enough form of hockey to establish its own niche, a la the CFL
4) It needs to pull HARD on cultural/emotional ties to host cities
I would point to Little League baseball as an example of a “big deal” sporting event which was commercialized out of thin air by broadcast networks. LLWS used to be a nothing event, like the national spelling bee. Now it’s a huge TV event every year. Why? Free labor, no competition with the pro leagues (if anything it helps drum up interest in baseball) and it doesn’t look or feel like a worse version of MLB. It’s a totally different product with heavy cultural ties.
Maybe capitalize on the lack of a platform for high-level adult amateur hockey in Canada. Take that annual pond hockey tournament to the next level, establish which teams are the elite-of-the-elite in each major market, and put serious money on the table. People might tune in with enough numbers to create an annual “big deal” thing that lasts a month or so, and draws sponsorships while becoming a big enough cultural deal that it has some staying power.