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In the NHL, there's the Phoenix Coyotes situation and the whole "to relocate or not" question.
In Europe, there are several hot spots. There's the KHL, trying to challenge the NHL as the top hockey league in the world. Not today, but down the line. When I spoke with Alexander Medvedev, the KHL boss, during the World Championship, he seemed very optimistic about the league's future. Sure, there were some financial problems, and some teams hadn't met the payroll, but that's not going to stand in the way of the KHL expansion.
Maybe the league would have to send a few teams packing, but who cares when there are several teams knocking on the KHL door in the west.
According to another person I spoke with at the Worlds, the Czech champions might be interested in joining the KHL. Karlovy Vary has a sizable Russian community that would easily fill a new arena in the city, when a Russian team would visit, and the club's GM has been to Russia several times, my source said. The economic downturn has put the Czech expansion plans on ice, for now.
At the same time, Färjestad's GM, former NHLer, Håkan Loob has taken a leave of absence to investigate future growth opportunities for his club, and the four other "Nordic Trophy" clubs: Färjestad, Frölunda, Djurgården, Linköping, and HV71 and five Finnish clubs - IFK, Jokerit, Tappara, TPS, and Kärpät - have played a pre-season league the last couple of years.
Nordic Trophy, as the pre-season league is called, is seen as a stepping stone to a Nordic league.
Today, Swedish Aftonbladet quoted HV71's chairman about the group's plans for the future. And it was no small plan.
The vision is to have a true pan-European league with three conferences: Central, Nordic, and Eastern where the Central Conference would have teams from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic; the Nordic Conference would include the Nordic Trophy teams plus a few others from Denmark and Norway, and the Eastern Conference would be the KHL.
The games would be mostly intraconference, with a number of inter-conference games thrown in, all the way through the playoffs. The conference winners would then battle for the European championship.
Where would that leave the Champions Hockey League then, the IIHF sanctioned competition for the champions and regular season winners, played alongside the domestic leagues, on Wednesdays?
The CHL had a successful first season, with big media and fan interest across Europe - even if pessimists said that nobody would be interested in games between the Swedish and Swiss club teams. A lot of people were.
After the season, the CHL suddenly lost its financial backers, leaving the IIHF and the teams in a limbo. During the Worlds, the IIHF set a June 10 deadline for new investor groups to make their case for the CHL.
One of the parties the IIHF is talking to, according to IIHF President Rene Fasel, is the NHL.
For the NHL, taking control of the CHL would be a nice step into the European hockey pool, something to build a more permanent presence on. For the CHL, NHL's investment would bring instant credibility.
Without the NHL, the CHL may just "take a year off", due to "an already crowded calender during an Olympic year", as IIHF's Finnish vice president Kalervo Kummola already hinted, and try to find new investors somewhere else.
Meanwhile, Loob & Co would get one more year to build their league, and the KHL another year to try to lure big-name NHLers to Russia. Medvedev told recently Bloomberg that the league has put aside 31 million dollars to attract star power to Russia.
The Champions Hockey League could have used the 31 million dollars. As could the new league the Swedes are trying to kick off.
European hockey is turning into a whole new ballgame.
