Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Bill Daly On European Expansion

05/19/2018 at 6:34pm EDT

from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

The NHL, likely to name Seattle soon as its 32nd franchise, for years has eyed the possibility of expanding to Europe, as well as Scandinavia and Russia. It remains a curiosity, said Daly, but there are myriad impediments, including the obvious long-distance travel challenges as well as arena suitability.

“I think the biggest issue now is probably facility availability,” he said. “The facility is such a big part of the revenue of our sport now — the business and economics of our sport — and I just don’t think it’s even close to the same level in Europe in terms of arena sophistication and amenity standpoint.”

All sports leagues — except maybe the NFL because it only plays once a week — would need “a core number of cities” added simultaneously overseas to make such an expansion viable.

“I don’t know what that number of cities is,” said Daly, “but it’s more than one.”

more topics including the Vegas Golden Knights and the NHL/China...

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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