Germany's third NHL Global Series leaves Slovakia still waiting
Edmonton will play two regular-season games in Cologne and Boston two in Munich during the 2027-28 season, the NHL and NHLPA announced on Thursday. Germany gets its third straight year of games that count, after Dusseldorf hosts Chicago and Ottawa this December.
Nobody needs the mechanics of that explained. Twenty outlets carried the same release within a day, all built around Leon Draisaitl going home to Cologne and JJ Peterka going home to Munich. Deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Germany was "one of Europe's most dynamic hockey markets." None of them mentioned Slovakia.
Prague and player counts
Czechia has hosted nine NHL regular-season games, all at Prague's O2 Arena, the second-highest total outside North America behind Sweden. Czechia will also co-host the 2028 World Cup of Hockey alongside Canada, announced this year by the NHL itself. Slovakia has hosted none. Slovan Bratislava has played NHL opposition twice, both exhibitions that did not count in any standings: Tampa Bay in 2008 and the New York Rangers in 2011. As of this week, Slovakia has nine active NHL players. Germany has eight. Juraj Slafkovsky, Erik Cernak, Martin Fehervary, Martin Pospisil, Simon Nemec, Dalibor Dvorsky, Pavol Regenda, Adam Sykora and Samuel Honzek make up the Slovak list. Draisaitl, Tim Stutzle, Moritz Seider, Peterka, Nico Sturm, Lukas Reichel, Philipp Grubauer and Joshua Samanski make up the German one. Both lists come from the same source on the same day. Slovakia's population is around 5.4 million. Germany's is around 84 million. A country roughly fifteen times smaller currently sends more players to the NHL, and has never had one play a game that counted at home.
The business case
None of this is a complaint about Draisaitl or Peterka, who earned their homecoming the hard way. Draisaitl has 1,053 NHL points, more than double the next-highest German scorer in league history. NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh put the logic plainly when the games were announced. "The NHL Global Series games in 2027 bring two of the NHL's best players in Leon Draisaitl and JJ Peterka back to play in front of their hometown fans," Walsh said.
That logic runs on box office, not on where the talent is deepest. Germany has 84 million people who might buy a ticket. Slovakia has a fraction of that market. FC Bayern Munich, a Bundesliga football club, has just signed a multiyear partnership with the NHL to help sell the sport there. Nobody is signing an equivalent deal in Bratislava, because there is no equivalent television market to unlock. Slafkovsky was the first overall pick in 2022 and has 184 points in 282 games for Montreal. Nemec went sixth that same year to New Jersey. Černak has played 502 NHL games. None of it has produced a single regular-season minute on home ice, and under the league's current international strategy, none of it looks likely to.
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