Look homeward, NHL

Coming off the NHL's second straight season-opening festivities in Europe, some of the hockey pundits are excited about how this brings the league closer to expansion to another continent.

Let's hold on a second there. The NHL needs to fix its primary residence before thinking about a vacation home.

First of all, let's agree that Europe is a rich and fertile hockey market that currently goes underutilized by the NHL and is at risk of being secured by European interests who would lock out the NHL. But given the lack of organization overseas, the threat isn't particularly pressing. And the NHL has plenty to do here before looking across the Atlantic.

Here's a question: How will the NHL sell hockey in Europe when it can't sell hockey in the United States? It's so typical of the league to think about making a desperate gesture when better marketing at home (and a higher-profile TV deal) might produce better financial results.

There are practical concerns here, too. Playing more NHL games in Europe, or adding teams based in Europe to the mix, raise pragmatic questions that have no answers. Specifically, there's the potential to do great damage to the on-ice product. The Anaheim Ducks never recovered from their excursion to London to open last season, possibly costing them a chance to defend the Stanley Cup.

A better course of action would be to establish an NHL-sanctioned and -supervised European league that would produce a champion that would interact in some way (probably a season-opening playoff series) with the Stanley Cup champion. Perhaps someday, the NHL and EHL champions would play for the Cup itself.

Until reality catches up with science fiction and we have hyperspace planes capable of whisking NHL teams back and forth to Europe in an hour or two, the idea of actual NHL expansion to Europe is ludicrous. Even these season-opening extravaganzas take their toll.

Expanding the NHL's presence in Europe? Great idea. Doing it as a cash grab instead of a reasoned, planned, incremental strategy for significant, meaningful growth? Bad idea.

Of course, the same logic could be applied to Sun Belt expansion, and look how that worked out.