wildwing64 Posted July 15, 2016 Share Posted July 15, 2016 Puck Daddy's reporting that the KHL and Great Britain Ice Hockey Federation have agreed on putting a team in London. The city hasn't had a top-flight hockey team since the Elite League's London Racers folded mid-season in 2005 (even then their "Elite" status was questionable at best, lol). Since then the EIHL's been umming and ahhing over putting a new team there, and more recently there were rumours of the KHL planning on doing the same. Now it looks like it's all but confirmed that they've beaten our own Elite League to the punch. I don't have high hopes for the team name, but at least the hockey will be good... right? PotD: 24/08/2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyk33 Posted July 15, 2016 Share Posted July 15, 2016 Didn't they just get a team in Beijing? A road trip from Beijing to London (and vice-versa) is probably going to be the worst in professional sports. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildwing64 Posted July 15, 2016 Author Share Posted July 15, 2016 19 minutes ago, Nyk33 said: Didn't they just get a team in Beijing? A road trip from Beijing to London (and vice-versa) is probably going to be the worst in professional sports. Beijing won't quite be the furthest team. That would be the Admiral Vladivostok, more than 5,300 miles away. Either way it would be a logistical nightmare for all involved. Don't know how the KHL schedules their games but I'd assume - if there's any logic to the scheduling - that there's not much in the way of inter-conference play. In that case the furthest team out in the Western Conference would be HC Sochi. PotD: 24/08/2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyk33 Posted July 15, 2016 Share Posted July 15, 2016 1 hour ago, wildwing64 said: Beijing won't quite be the furthest team. That would be the Admiral Vladivostok, more than 5,300 miles away. Either way it would be a logistical nightmare for all involved. Don't know how the KHL schedules their games but I'd assume - if there's any logic to the scheduling - that there's not much in the way of inter-conference play. In that case the furthest team out in the Western Conference would be HC Sochi. I've been reading about other potential expansions and the KHL are not :censored:ing around here. Milan? Seoul? Switzerland? God damn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teddthebucfan Posted July 15, 2016 Share Posted July 15, 2016 Well that's interesting. London might be a good location, plenty of people, would get them into the English speaking world making for easier interest in the States and Canada, might have some troubles with generating interest in a foreign-dominated league, but hey, it could work. Only thing I'm not sure about is why a Russian League would be expanding to Southern Ontario. Shameless Self Promotion! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cosmic Posted July 16, 2016 Share Posted July 16, 2016 Maybe they could expand to St. John's, and then the sun would never set on the KHL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEAD! Posted July 16, 2016 Share Posted July 16, 2016 Well, Super Rugby now has teams in Japan and Argentina... imagine THAT trip. If the KHL can somehow make it's way to Tokyo and/or Seoul, the road trips to Vladivostok won't be so bad ... I saw, I came, I left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildwing64 Posted July 16, 2016 Author Share Posted July 16, 2016 11 hours ago, teddthebucfan said: Only thing I'm not sure about is why a Russian League would be expanding to Southern Ontario. Actually, fun fact: before the EIHL's Racers, there was another team playing in the league's predecessor the Ice Hockey Superleague, named the London Knights. That may have been inspired by the OHL team of the same name, but they were owned by the LA Kings ownership group. PotD: 24/08/2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WelshSteeler Posted July 16, 2016 Share Posted July 16, 2016 The Russian Football League has Baltika Kaliningrad and Energiya Vladivostok in the same division,now that is some trip!Not to mention the upcoming Toronto Wolfpack joining the Rugby League. Hockey in London has never really lasted any amount of time in the modern era.Belfast ,Sheffield ,Cardiff and Nottingham are the main centres in Britain. The Right will always be wrong,Conservatives-Dragging the world kicking and screaming into the 19th century. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildwing64 Posted July 16, 2016 Author Share Posted July 16, 2016 7 hours ago, WelshSteeler said: Hockey in London has never really lasted any amount of time in the modern era.Belfast ,Sheffield ,Cardiff and Nottingham are the main centres in Britain. Yeah, I'll give credit to those teams for maintaining the hockey culture and doing it well. Mind you the only Elite League game I've attended was in Coventry, and even that put my local team in Chelmsford to shame. Guess it might be tricky to generate interest in London where there hasn't been a real pro team for a long time. But we'll see how it goes. I think the problem more than anything has been the lack of suitable facilities. The Knights ceased operations because the old London Arena wasn't making money and was sold off to be demolished. Then the Racers played a season in Alexandra Palace which really wasn't (and still isn't) suitable for a top level team, and then a season and a half played at the run down Lee Valley Ice Centre which was deemed unsafe after a player injured himself on the rink boardings. In theory the O2 would be just fine for the new KHL team, after all it did play host to a couple of NHL games back in 2007 (which I regrettably didn't go to - in spite of my Anaheim Ducks being involved). But as far as I know in terms of events, that place is first and foremost a concert venue. A rink could be manageable in there, but Britain doesn't really do multipurpose venues the way North America does. PotD: 24/08/2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyk33 Posted July 16, 2016 Share Posted July 16, 2016 I would laugh my ass off if the KHL expands into Quebec City before the NHL does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcj882000 Posted July 17, 2016 Share Posted July 17, 2016 6 hours ago, Nyk33 said: I would laugh my ass off if the KHL expands into Quebec City before the NHL does. Well, just for what it's worth I remember the league's president once saying it was "very strange" that Quebec City doesn't have a team anymore. He even showed interest in buying a team and moving it there, until the NHL flat-out said, according to Bloomberg, that they'd "never allow a Russian to own one of it's clubs."http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/khl-founder-keen-to-buy-nhl-team-1.859640https://web.archive.org/web/20121024213617/http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aZ7cLyu.Wkvo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Posted July 17, 2016 Share Posted July 17, 2016 On 7/15/2016 at 5:44 PM, Nyk33 said: I've been reading about other potential expansions and the KHL are not :censored:ing around here. Milan? Seoul? Switzerland? God damn. Meh. Milan ain't happening (they had a deal with Milano Rossoblu for them to join the KHL after a couple years of build up ... they were supposed to join a few years ago), this is the first time I've heard about interest in Seoul, and, like Milan, the KHL has been trying for years to get into Switzerland and you see what that has gotten them so far ... nothing. Athletic Director: KTU Blue Grassers Football Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.