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Just an idea...


nick17112

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Hey, I'm a big big Devils fan who lives in the UK and was just thinking about something before. I also follow the English premier league soccer and as well as the league, they have several cup competitions including the Champions league for the premier clubs. How would you feel about the NHL introducing cup competitions to run along side the Stanley cup? This would mean that if you were not qualifying for the playoffs you still might have a chance in the cup comps! There could also be the champions league of hockey. The four top teams in the NHL face off in a tournament with other top teams from leagues all over the world.

I look forward to hearing your opinions.

Nick

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I don't want it at all. In soccer there are numerous leagues that could be considered the best league in the world so the champions league makes sense.

In hockey the NHL is the best league in the world and there really isn't anything close to it. Some may argue that the Russian league is just as good but I've seen some of those games and they couldn't compete with the NHL.

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The KHL is dominated by NHL rejects, so I don't thinks it's even possible to make a credible case for such a claim. Personally, I think the american model is way cooler then the mess we have in europe.. If anything I wish we could copy the NHL instead, both for soccer and hockey, but that seems highly unlikely.

The KHL is certainly trying to move in that direction though. Salary cap in place now, and there have been talks of including clubs from central europe/scandinavia as well recently.

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I also wouldn't want it. In the UK, the cup competitions include lower league clubs and provide an important extra source of revenue. This isn't the case in this country and the NHL. There would be no point or interest seeing a team that didnt qualify for the playoffs, play for some meaningless cup.

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To many soccer leagues you cant keep up like in boxing their is to many belts. I'd pass.

 

It's actually not as complicated as people make it.  Most leagues have their domestic round-robin league and cup.  It's a best of both worlds argument as you get the predictability of the best team winning the league (say, ManU winning the EPL) or upsets happening in the playoff formats (relegated Wigan winning the FA Cup).  The only one that's really confusing is England, which has two seperate domestic cups, with the FA Cup being more prestigous than the regular league playoff.  

 

The international cups have more prestige than most of the domestic cups since they involve the best teams in different countries.  You could eventually have some European Cup in hockey where Russian teams face off against Swedish/Finnish/Swiss/etc teams for a European title.

 

That said, I don't want to change the NHL format either.  Besides, the soccer format only works because people are crazy about soccer in other countries to where they'll sell out mid and lower-tier teams playing out the string (partly to avoid the relegation sword hanging over their head).  You couldn't get away with it here especially in the US.  How many markets would shut off halfway through the season when you only have four or five serious contenders for the best record?  And you'd lose markets in a flash if there was relegation here.

Edited by NJDevs26
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What about a losers tournament where the remaining teams play for a high lottery pick?

The bottom 2 teams from each conference can't enter by default and the other 12 teams are seeded based on overall rankings.

The winner gets the same odds to win the lottery as the last ranked team overall (the best odds o win the lottery).

More hockey and it could prevent tanking as the worst 2 teams don't get to enter the tourney at all. And their odds to win the lottery go down.

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I don't think you would really get any spirited play out of the players with just a higher chance in the lottery at stake, especially when the lottery winner is usually going to be one of the bottom two teams anyway, which makes the tournament completely pointless.

Edited by devilsfan26
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I don’t think it would work. There just isn’t the desire or the need in North America for these types of tournament.
 

In terms of what they have in Europe/ the UK nothing is compatable with the current structure of North American sport:
 

Champions League- This format would have to be a global tournament in terms of ice hockey due to the lack of quality opposition. Tough to get teams together, vast amounts of travel, practically impossible.
 

Europa League- see above
 

Premier League- Currently like the NHL
 

Championship/ division 1+ football League- I guess the AHL is the equivalent, but not really, not enough quality in NA to make more than one competitive league.
 

FA Cup- This takes in all organisations in the football association, again not enough quality opposition in NA to make this anything but an all NHL affair after the first round.
 

League Cup- same as above minus non-league teams. same problem.


A parallel cup competition in the NHL could work, and it could be exciting, but trying to work it in with the current schedule would be a nightmare.
 

You could have an FA cup style competition , but just for the NHL , so all 30 teams go into a draw, in the first round the winners of each conference get a bye. the 28 remaining teams are drawn against each other. Each team has to then play a home and an away leg. The winner goes through to the next round where the draw id repeated.

 

The thing is that is basically what the playoffs are with a few less teams and a different draw structure. Again i dont think there is much desire or need for it.

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Being a huge hockey fan & a huge soccer fan, I like both ways, but the Stanley Cup is the ultimate goal, so I would not want to see the NHL change. 

 

1 of my favorite parts of soccer is the relegation system, in america teams come in last and get rewarded with great draft picks, in soccer you come in last and you get demoted!! I love that, you pay for a bad season, no rewards!!

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I agree the promotion/relegation thing is cool, but I also like having an entry draft and right now I can't think of a fair and sensible way to have both.

 

I like it too, but it would be hard to implement in American pro sports. Its a lot different relegating West Brom Albion for Norwich City (just randoms for the argument's sake) than it would be say a team from New York or another major market. Way too much money and such involved. The TV deals in the UK encompass the entire country (i.e. Sky/BBC/ESPN/whatever carrying Premiership games). TV deals are more localized here.

 

Who would encompass the 2nd Division? The AHL? Let's say they did a 1 team promotion/relegation between the NHL and AHL. This past season, that means that Columbus would've be relegated and Norfolk (who do not play in an NHL-standard building) would be in the NHL. That's just not going to work. Then you also have issues if say the Sharks were going to be relegated from the NHL and were replaced by say the Hershey Bears. It would totally screw up divisional alignments. This works in soccer overseas because the leagues are one much smaller country and dont have geographical divisions.

 

I dont think you could include other leagues like the OHL and such since those are juniors. 

Edited by ghdi
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Here's my other issue with the way the european leagues are setup. Its always the same few teams who are trying to win the championship. I feel bad for fans of the teams that are stuck in the middle and lower end of the standings because there really is no point in watching. I enjoy the english league here and there but I don't follow much cause its always gonna be the same teams winning the championship. Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal are the only 4 teams to win a championship since 1994. Who the hell wants to see that every year unless you are a fan of that team. Their system sucks.

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Agreed.

It's impossible to fix unfortunately. There is no way we will ever agree on a single set of rules for a salary cap and/or draft system across all of Europe.

We can only hope UEFA will actually force clubs to spend according to their actual income, so we avoid more of the ManCity/Chelsea/PSG/Monaco bullsh!t in the future.

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Agreed. It's impossible to fix unfortunately. There is no way we will ever agree on a single set of rules for a salary cap and/or draft system across all of Europe. We can only hope UEFA will actually force clubs to spend according to their actual income, so we avoid more of the ManCity/Chelsea/PSG/Monaco bullsh!t in the future.

 

Financial fair play comes in to play in 2015 across Europe, although it reamins to be seen how effective that will be.

 

Without investment in clubs such as Chelsea and City the Premier League would have gone stale and people would have lost interest, it was becoming a joke seeing  United winning the League every year with little or no challenge. When Blackburn won the leaguein 94-94 it was again it was through massive investment.

 

A number of clubs had gone to the wall trying to remain competitive with United, Chelsea were weeks away from financial meltdown on the scale of Leeds collapse. Arsenal are the exception to the rule, but at the time Wenger coming in was new to english football and he had an advantage which no other club will ever have in the future, in that he had fantastic knowledge of a relativley unscouted league. Those days are also long gone.

 

Also i hope a draft system is never introduced to football, it would reult in smaller clubs becoming farm teams, and each local club has its own identity and history. A draft system would just ensure that larger clubs would only ever get the best tallent. At least now if the larger clubs move for players smaller clubs get financial compensation.

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  • 3 months later...

Yeah -- I like One Cup only.  The rest is like the booby prize.  It sort of sucks to be the team that won the Also-Ran trophy.


i wouldn't mind watching an exhibition style atlantic cup between the champions of nhl and champions of khl. 

yeah - that would be cute and encourage having some strong world leagues.  Good options for hockey players. Healthy competition not so much stealing and hoarding away talent.

Edited by Pepperkorn
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