Remember this jersey ?
My point of view :
Call this a last ditch effort by Gary Bettman to leave a lasting foot-step in the US market, after the flamboyant failures of expansions in Miami, Nashville, Colombus, Anaheim, Carolina etc ...
we're seeing another attempt by the NHL to make headway in the USA.
Now don't get me wrong, Carolina won a cup and Anaheim might be on the brink of winning one, but Carolina is still struggling with attendance and Anaheim will be too ...
The problem with the US market isn't american hockey fans, they are actually a commited bunch, but let's be frank, teams are left to themselves to advertise within their market, the league has no marketing plan and there is barely any grassroots push. Teams like Colombus and Nashville have so little ''awareness '' in St. Paul and Nashville that most of the people and commercial interests have little will or interest to attend or invest.
You have to make people WANT, CRAVE hockey, make it omni-present, push it into people's mentality, send people in schools give equipment, it would cost : under half a million dollars US ( for all these city's high schools we're talking 200 highschools ) to supply these city's schools with floor hockey sticks and goalie equipment, send NHL people, talk about it, make the kids DREAM hockey.
What the NHL did was some slave video with Forsberg ...
