Blackhawks' trip to Germany will be just one part of NHL's push to grow hockey there

The Senators, led by German star forward Tim Stutzle, were a logical choice to participate in the first wave of the NHL's new campaign to grow hockey in Germany.

Stutzle was born just 20 miles outside of Dusseldorf, where the Senators will face the Blackhawks in two regular-season games in December.

But why were the Hawks, with no Germans, chosen as the opponent? NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly explained the reasoning in an interview with the Sun-Times.

"Having Connor Bedard at this stage of his hockey career is attractive to hockey fans...but the Blackhawks are an iconic NHL franchise with a long history," Daly said Saturday. "They'll always have that going for them, particularly with the relatively recent revival of the team's competitiveness.

"Whenever we can call on the Blackhawks — and they've always been great partners for the league on these kinds of events — it's a pretty easy call. They're our go-to."

The Hawks' business department has sought to strengthen the team's brand and fan reach in Europe. Although this wasn't their exact idea, it certainly won't hurt that objective.

Daly said the NHL has long restricted clubs' international marketing freedom in order to keep strategies aligned, but those policies may loosen as the league opens the faucet on European growth.

"We'll probably give clubs a little more flexibility to grow their brands and their businesses overseas," he said. "The Blackhawks are always ahead of that curve."

The NHL's new Germany plan includes at least three consecutive seasons of regular-season games in the country, regular fan events beyond those games, partnerships with German club teams and a program that teaches street hockey in schools. Daly said the league might even consider hosting outdoor games or All-Star games in Germany.

According to a 2024 IIHF survey, 26,517 Germans currently play hockey, which ranks sixth-most among European nations. Russia has the most, but the NHL won't venture there for a variety of reasons. The next four — Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Czechia — have total populations below 11 million, suggesting the sport has probably maxed out its popularity.

Germany, on the other hand, has 83.5 million residents. That's a lot of people who could learn to love hockey.

It also has the largest sports-oriented corporate sponsorship base of any European nation, as well as the second-most valuable media rights, Daly said.

"The participation numbers in Germany [have] a lot of room for growth," he added. "The people who are fans of the sport are crazy enthusiastic about it, which is endemic to the German culture. We think, if we can grow participation, we'll grow fandom."

The Hawks and Senators will soon learn all about Dusseldorf, which isn't as well-known to North American tourists as Berlin and Munich but which lies in the middle of Germany's most populous metropolitan region.

A number of other NHL teams will follow in their footsteps in future seasons.

"We did do some outside research with respect to how we go about lifting the perception of, participation in and fandom of our game," Daly said. "One of the recommendations we got back was to have a more constant presence in the German marketplace.

"Obviously, we're big in the Nordics and some places in Eastern Europe. This [signals] more of an emphasis now on Western Europe."

Speaking of Western Europe, France and Great Britain — two other countries with large populations, strong economies and intense sports fandom — rank seventh and ninth, respectively, in hockey participation.

Daly admitted he could see Britain and Australia emerging as focus countries for the NHL one day, but not right now.

"The reason Germany is the priority in the short term is its level of hockey knowledge and fandom at this point in time," he said. "It provides something that can be build on faster than other markets where we're basically starting from the ground up."

Watch for weekday matinees

Hockey fans in North America will likely notice one side effect of the NHL's increased investment in Europe next season: more games starting at unusual times.

The league scheduled a Red Wings-Predators game in Nashville on Monday, March 2, for 1 p.m. CT so that it aired on TV in the evening in Europe. Daly said that game was a "pilot" for the idea, and early indications are that it went well.

"It is difficult to build a fan audience when your games are on at 3:00 in the morning, and we certainly recognize that," Daly said. "For the last five or seven years, we've put together a European primetime package on weekends, where our clubs have been good enough to help us with scheduling weekend afternoon games.

"Obviously, we have other sports competition [in Europe] in those time slots, particularly on weekends. So we think an opportunity would be to create some primetime matchups in Europe — which are matinee matchups here — on weekdays."

The Predators still announced a sellout despite the inconvenient time. More teams will likely have to figure out how to sell tickets for weekday matinees moving forward.

"I do expect that we'll do more of those games next year, if not a full slate of those games," Daly said.