From the Palm Beach Post:
Globalization. With more than 35 percent of [National Hockey League] players from Europe, there's a keen interest in taking more games overseas and even establishing teams there.
"Growing the revenues of the sport is a huge issue," Kelly said. "Should we be bringing our games to Europe, where we have a natural fan base? European players certainly favor that. Many North American players favor it."
I've always thought that, of the major sports, hockey had the chance to go furthest with an international professional sports league. More countries play soccer, of course, but that's what would make an international soccer league difficult to manage: too many competitors. With hockey, on the other hand, you are, to a great extent, limited to northern Europe and North America. What you could do is have two conferences, one in Europe and one in North America. The teams would play mostly within their conference during the year (with maybe one trip to the other continent) and then the championship would be between the European and North American conference winners.
