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One of the biggest knocks against professional hockey is that the proliferation of European-born players makes the game hard to follow. To the casual sports fan, names like Antero Niittymaki, Ilja Bryzgalov, and Vesa Toskola roll off the tongue like a lump of dime store peanut butter. And those are just some of the goalies. American sports fans have been accustomed to having sports heroes with easy names, like Tom Brady or Joe Montana or Michael Jordan. Nobody stands around the water cooler on a Monday morning extolling the praises of Zdeno Chara or Valtteri Filppula.

Recruiting more American players will make the NHL more marketable, thus ensuring the long-term survival of the game of hockey. Forget about Lord Stanley and his cup, forget about the Bullies of Broad Street, and forget about the dynasty of the Edmonton Oilers. At the end of the day, what it all boils down to, is the fact that professional sports is a business. For any business to succeed it needs to be marketable. And it's much easier to market a slice of apple pie to the American public than a plate of lutefisk or a bowl of borscht.

It sounds simple enough: if you want more American-born players in the league, draft more American-born players. The problem with this line of thinking is that the rules of the game have been modified over the years to favor the European style of play; less hitting, more stickhandling, and faster skating. With the rules favoring and promoting the European style of hockey, it would be common sense to draft more players out of Finland or Sweden than Hoboken or Elmira.

If the league returned to the rough and tumble style of hockey that was popular in the 70's and early 80's, it only stands to reason that young American hockey players would stand a much better chance of being drafted into the NHL than their smooth-skating European counterparts. Perhaps hockey could learn a lesson from many minor league and semi-pro teams, who restrict their rosters to include a set amount of local and regional players. After all, in the humble beginnings of professional sports, a team was nothing more than a local athletic club stocked with home-grown talent. It wasn't until the early part of the twentieth century that football clubs brought in "ringers" (out-of-town athletes) as a way to win championships and make more money. This ushered in the era of pro athletes, an era which has chosen the world's best to fill out a roster instead of Chicago's best or Pittsburgh's best or Cleveland's best.

As long as the NHL continues to promote the European ideal of the game of hockey, American players will have no choice but to adapt to the changes. So ultimately, the question may not be "What can the NHL do to recruit American players?", but "What can American players do to be recruited by the NHL?"

Learn more about this author, Marlin Bressi.
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