Beware: thin ice

Sporting News, The, Jan 13, 1997 by Terry Egan

As the calendar turned to January only 10 of the 26 teams in the NHL had winning records. At the end of last season, five teams in the Western Conference finished with records under 500 and still qualified for the playoffs. Just five years ago the Minnesota North Stars, a team that finished 12 games under .500, made it to the Stanley Cup finals.

This parity - or is it parody? - is the backdrop for the NHL's current intentions of expanding its league by at least two teams and probably as many as four by the year 2000.

More than a few people are concerned.

"I do not think the current talent pool is capable of supporting four more teams," says Craig Button, the Stars, director of scouting. "To fill these rosters, it's not going to be done by bringing in high-quality people. I think the league will remain competitive, but the competition will be at a different skill level."

A lower skill level.

And that begs this question: Can a league that already faces criticism for sky-high ticket prices survive a dilution of talent and a drop in quality? It gets a chance to find out soon.

The NHL recently announced it had received 11 applications from nine cities seeking an expansion team. just to apply, cities had to ante up $100,000, putting $1.1 million into NHL coffers. Cities that lose out on a franchise bid get back half their application fee, but it's easy to see how lucrative this expansion business can be.

Why does the NHL want expansion?

Several reasons:

Each expansion team must pony up an estimated $75 million to join the league. Using that figure, adding two teams would net each of the current 26 existing franchises about $5.7 million. That money could cover a lot of operating losses or pay the contracts of a couple of 100-point scorers for a number of years.

The NHL's television contract is up in two years. me league desires a more lucrative deal to help subsidize the sport, as TV does in football, basketball and baseball. To make itself more attractive, the NHL wants a presence in the large U.S. television markets that do not have NHL teams. That means Atlanta and Houston, the ninth- and 10th-largest television markets in the U.S. and the two cities that are considered locks for the first round of expansion.

The league is out of balance. There are seven teams in the Atlantic and Pacific divisions, six in the Northeast and Central. Atlanta would fit nicely in the Eastern Conference. Houston would slip comfortably into the Western, giving the league 14 teams in each conference and seven in each division.

Those are compelling reasons for expansion. But there is an unmistakable downside, which begins with talent - or a lack thereof. There do not seem to be enough good players to fill the new rosters.

"There is no question we have tapped out the European market," says Jimmy Devellano, senior vice president for hockey operations for the Red Wings. "When the league went from 21 teams to 26 (from 1990 to 1993), it was the European market that allowed us to expand. We're not going to get very many more players from there than we already are.

"There are not 50 major league-caliber players outside the NHL right now."

Others disagree.

There are enough players for two teams, according to Anders Hedberg, the European scout for the Maple Leafs. "But four new teams, 80 new jobs, the level overall will go down," he says.

Scouts also say they are frustrated by a shrinking talent pool in Russia. "There are 275 million people in Russia, and there are just 40,000 kids 18 and under playing organized hockey there," Button says. "But when it was the Soviet Union, they produced some of the world's best players. They had an incredible sports system that took kids at a young age and said, `You're going to play hockey.' ... And then they developed them."

There are 500,000 kids playing organized youth hockey in the United States and about the same number in Canada. But the U.S. population is about nine times that of Canada. In the United States, the competition for athletes from baseball, football, soccer and basketball is fierce.

"Minnesota, which has always been the biggest area for producing players in the U.S., has not produced an impact player in the NHL in over 10 years," Button says. "Phil Housley was the last one, and he's 32. No one else, and that's from a hockey-playing state."

But although the league needs to add sources of player development it cannot afford to allow traditional ones to dry up. That may be happening in U.S. colleges, where, for years, recruiting had gone international. In the past few years, however, the junior hockey programs in Canada have done a better job of keeping their kids at home. The same is true for international hockey federations.

But the NHL has made a concerted effort to broaden its base in this country - 20 of the 26 teams are now located in the United States. Across the country youth leagues report swelled registrations.

"With the expansion to the United States, the popularity of the game, the exposure it gets on Fox and ESPN, more kids will be playing hockey in the United States," Devellano says. "This will become another source, a better source."