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NHL looking beyond its borders

By Helene Elliott
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This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Got an e-mail the other day from a group that’s trying to bring hockey back to the frozen tundra of Winnipeg through expansion or relocation of an existing team. I was in the minority but I always liked visiting Winnipeg -- nice city, nice folks. And now a nice new arena, though a bit small by NHL standards. They’ve come up with a fine website, too, for making their case.

Today I got an e-mail from the league, with a follow-up announcement on the NHL’s website, that it had signed a broadcast deal to show its games in Asia and India. This on the heels of playing regular-season games last season in London (the one in England, not the Canadian province of Ontario) and playing regular-season games in Stockholm and Prague this season.

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Like the NBA, which has more employees in Europe and in China than it does in Los Angeles, the NHL is looking well beyond the Canadian and U.S. borders for fans. Don’t be surprised if the NHL has teams in Europe before it ventures back to Winnipeg or puts a team in Hamilton or other Canadian cities.

-- Helene Elliott

Sports Now
Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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