Look, I know there’s a lot of eye rolling that takes place when we look at the NHL making statements about league-wide events and the Blackhawks somehow being involved. They’ve appeared in outdoor games as frequently as any team in the league and will host the Winter Classic at Wrigley Field this coming season.
෴But a comment from NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly at the European Player Media Tour on Wednesday got my attention for a number o🌃f reasons. One would think the Blackhawks are positioned to be involved in European regular season games in the near future.
Here’s what Daly told on Wednesday:
“I think everybody probably has in their minds, kind of the priority markets,” Daly said. “I think we want to go back to London. I think the players and [NHL] Players’ Ass🍌ociation want to go back to London and have a game there. I think Germany and Switzerland are ⛄both prime candidates for regular-season games in the future, so probably in the not-too-distant future.”
London, Germany and Switzerland you say?
The Blackhawks have Lukas Reichel from Germany. Yeah, there are other teams with German players — Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl and Ottawa’s Tim Stützle come to mind immediately.
And the Blackhawks have Philipp Kurashev from Switzerland. Again, plenty of options for the Swiss to have players re👍presented; I would start considering Roman Josi and the Predators, Nico Hischier and Timo Meier of th🔯e Devils or Kevin Fiala of the Kings.
But the Blackhawks are also on the upswing from a marketability perspective with Connor Bedard. So that’s an opportunity.
We’ll see where this is headed in the coming months. Nothing is official yet. But the Blackhawks having players from two of the potential destinations certainly makes this an intriguing possibility.
