
Gee, you'd think Winnipeg would be tops on that list, what with 8 regulars
being European.



Well, being a Jet fan, I sometimes wish that Bure would get knocked silly
too.  (Nothing serious, just enough to keep him out of a game. :)



In most cases, the owners have very little to do with it.  They give their
general managers one order when it comes to the draft...find me the best
players so that our team will win the Stanley Cup.  Whether that player is
in Kindersley, Saskatchewan or Chelyabinsk, Russia, if the GM believes him
to be the better player, the GM should be drafting him.

Where do you get off calling the NHL THEIR league, when referring to Canadian
players.  It doesn't belong to them, it belongs to the owners.  The owners
can do what they want.  While a 'Canadian content' rule might be enforcable
here in Canada, there is enough doubt that it would be enforcable in the US
that the CFL (sorry for the football reference) didn't even TRY to push their
import ratio rule on the Sacromento Goldminers.

Increasing the competition for the 'elite' positions, in most cases, would
make players better anyways.  (Oh yeah, and how many Europeans play at the
lower levels of professional hockey in North America?  While there are some
that play in the AHL, or the IHL where that's an NHL team's primary farm
club, you don't hear of many Europeans playing in the CHL, the ECHL, or on
the secondary farm teams in the IHL.  (ie. the Jets do have a few Russian
players in Moncton, but I don't believe there are any Europeans in Ft. Wayne.))
So with all those teams, there are plenty of positions for hockey players
in North America.


I'm in favour of the NHL being the league for the premier players in the
world.  I've grown up with Europeans playing on 'my' team, and some of those
players were the among the best in the world.  From Hedberg, Nilsson, and
Sjoberg, to Sel{nne, Zhamnov, and Olausson, and all those in between and to
come, I wouldn't have it any other way.