NHL could be playing in a new country in the “near future.”

Very exciting times for the National Hockey League.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 7 years ago
NHL could be playing in a new country in the “near future.”
Keystone Press

These are very exciting times for the National Hockey League.

Like many expanding businesses in North America the NHL has been looking at China as a potential gold mine waiting to developed for some time now, but for the first time we truly got a sense from the top brass at the league that early steps into the Orient may actually be close.

After a recent visit to China NHL Deputy comissioner Bill Daly was asked if the trip had impacted his enthusiasm for a potential future in China and his response was overwhelmingly positive.

“I think in a lot of ways it did,” Daly said as per the Toronto Sun. “I think once you are there it makes it more real and less theoretical.

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“We hope we’re at the point where the commissioner (Gary Bettman) can go over there and have the same reaction. We hope that happens in the relative near future. And it definitely makes it more real. There seems to be a high level of interest in learning the game.”

Daly's decision to characterize the timeline as potentially in the "relative near future" is extremely telling and some have speculated that regular season games could be played in China as early as the 2017-2018 season. Should those efforts prove successful a team in China is the next logical step, and with the Olympics in Beijing set for 2022, something tells us the NHL is eyeing that event as a potential catapult for NHL hockey in China.


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