Why North Americans

[fishman]

Panther last season and this season in the CHL Clan & Steelers demolished by teams that only have a very small number of NA players not sure why Panthers don't have more Euro players and with visa issues being another problem could be the way to go!!!

[BigLad]

Because our game is more pushed towards the North American style of play.

Plus there's the language.

Caps tried it with Euros and didn't do great. Most will stay in their own leagues due to better pay.

You can't look at the CHL as a comparison to our league simply down to the budgets involved.

[Yotes]

We do tend to go almost entirely North American though, BigLad. Seems to be Neilson's preference, been a noticeable trait. I agree we shouldn't go fully down the EU road and pack the team out with them, but we almost seem to be the opposite at times.

At the stage we're at now, if he can find a Nikolov willing to come over I'd be happy with it.

[kezypanther]

People seem hung up on the fact that they are Euro players so we don't want them mentality. Euro players can play the tough NA style too. Like Yotes said you don't have to pack the team with Euro players but it could easily be split 50/50 and have a great squad.

[Higgy]

I think the issue is quite a lot of fans see European players and European hockey as dull and not as physical, as mentioned above until that mentality changes we will never see that many European players in our league.

Just look at how poorly attended the CHL and Continental Cup games were attended, a lot of UK hockey fans just aren't interested if it involves Europeans.

[texpef]

Think its more a case of signing what you know.. our coaches come from the import playing staff mainly and as these are north American then they sign players who they know, who mostly are north American... pretty simple really...

If we had a scandanavian coach then am sure they would recruit scandanavians, look how many steelers coach has brought with him this season...

[nate24]

A lot of NHL teams are signing euros to give their rosters depth this past few seasons. Almost replacing the slots reserved for enforcers in a way.

[DonClaneone]

The Clan have had a few European players. Suomalainen in the 2011/12 season, Benysek, Hartmanis and Tuma in 2012/13 and Götz and Hartmann this season.

[wannabe2]

Newcastle filled there rosters with Euros once, and got the same results as Capitals, think it was when they were the Riverkings, it was dire.

[fishman]

Just 1 paragraph The [NHL] has changed, from a more physical, aggressive, go-to-the-net philosophy to a more skilled, stickhandling and skating game that suits Euro players better," Boustedt said. "The rules have changed, which also benefits Europeans. We are also developing a tougher mentality than before."

you can read the rest here www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=729533

[iginla]

I think that list of Euro's from DonClaneone shows just why you wouldn't want a team with too many Euro's.

They were either not very good or spent more time injured than they did on the ice !

[tootootrain]

Yeah Euros eh? You wouldn't catch NHL teams signing loads of them... Oh wait, yes, many of them do. I know of at least one NHL team close to my heart that has built it's current longest post-season run in NA sports on the back of signing Euros, much to Don Cherry's disgust.

I can understand why teams in the EIHL stick with mainly NA players though. For one its likely that, as already mentioned, EIHL coaches are generally NA or used to only working with NA players so will sign what they know. It could be also though that, given the comparitively low wages of this hockey backwater and easy come/easy go nature of players and their contracts it's better to invest in something that will work (of sorts) straight out of the box then sign a potentially good Euro but allow them time to adapt to the EIHL's NA-style (but atrociously officiated) game.

[DonClaneone]

Newcastle Vipers had a class European import in Jaroslaw Rzeszutko, 64 points from 47 games, he's one player I wished the Clan could have signed for Season 2.