from Damien Cox of Sportsnet,

Bettman and his NHL board of governors will meet next week on the California coast near Pebble Beach to consider the usual array of topics and issues without any headline-grabbing announcements likely to emerge. Stability is the name of the game right now, it seems, with the first World Cup of Hockey since 2004 now scheduled for next summer, an event that could significantly impact how the NHL looks at a wide variety of growth possibilities in the second century of its existence.

Does the Chinese market beckon? Will NHLers be part of the Olympics going forward? Will we ever see teams outside North America?

None of those specific topics will be resolved or even formally addressed next week. They’re more like larger issues hovering around the meetings at a time when the biggest threat to the game may be the declining Canadian dollar.

Here’s what they will be talking about:

EXPANSION
What you need to know is there won’t be a formal recommendation from the board’s executive committee, which has interviewed the prime investors for both the Quebec City and Las Vegas expansion bids. Neither Quebecor nor would-be Vegas owner Bill Foley will be in attendance, either. Basically, with all the relevant information now in hand, the governors are expected to give Bettman a sense of where they want this expansion process to go, although it’s likely he already knows.

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