from Kevin Kurtt of Let'sPlayHockey,

Let’s say, just for the heck of it, that NHL teams are organized with players playing for their home American state, Canadian province or European country instead of for a professional franchise. And let’s say, just for fun, that teams in the NHL consist of a total of six players – a starting lineup of three forwards, two defensemen and one goalie.

Who would prevail in this scaled-down, community-based NHL?

Minnesotans are a provincial bunch, happy to celebrate when ‘one of us’ succeeds on the local, national or international stage. In the new-look NHL, that provincialism would be commonplace as states, provinces and countries would laud their homegrown talent playing for their local club.

It would be like high school all over again. Instead of cheering for a team with players that have little to no connection to the area, fans would ‘root, root, root for the home team,’ supporting their native sons in their quest for geographical supremacy and birthplace bragging rights.

In an effort to determine what the community-based NHL would look like, I declared myself Supreme General Manager and created 45 teams, made up primarily of current NHL players (with a few minor league goalies to fill some states’ lack of NHL netminders). Every state/province/country with enough NHL players to field a starting lineup was awarded a franchise, with several areas getting 2-3 teams based on the number of elite players available.

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