- Bill Daly opened the door to an NHL outdoor game in Europe at the league’s media tour in Munich
- Bayern Munich’s 75,000-seat Allianz Arena is in the conversation after Thursday’s NHL partnership
- Read below for Daly’s timeline and what Draisaitl and Peterka said about an outdoor game in Germany
An NHL outdoor game in Europe is coming, and Bill Daly does not sound like a man hedging.
The deputy commissioner was at the European Player Media Tour in Munich on Friday when Tom Gulitti of NHL.com asked him whether the league would ever take a regular-season game outside overseas.
“I think it’s going to happen, for sure. When it’s going to happen, I couldn’t tell you, but I would say relatively near future would be a good guess.”
Then Daly went a step further. Asked if Germany belonged among the top contenders to host one, he answered, “Yeah, I think that’s fair.”
That lands a day after the NHL announced a multiyear partnership with FC Bayern, unveiled at the club’s Sabener Strasse training facility with Leon Draisaitl, JJ Peterka and Bayern star Alphonso Davies on hand:
Allianz Arena is the venue everyone is squinting at. Bayern’s home holds 75,000 for soccer, and Daly floated it as a possible outdoor site when the partnership went public Thursday.
Europe is already stacked on the league calendar. Carolina and Seattle play the 2026 Global Series Finland in Helsinki on Nov. 12 and 14, then Ottawa and Chicago head to Dusseldorf on Dec. 18 and 20.
Germany gets four more the following season. Boston and Peterka draw Munich’s SAP Garden, while Edmonton and Draisaitl go to Cologne for a pair at Lanxess Arena:
Both German stars were asked what an outdoor game at home would mean to them, and neither needed a second to think about it.
“That would be incredible,” Draisaitl said. “That would be an absolute highlight for anyone.”
Peterka kept it to one line: “I just hope I’ll be part of it.”
Daly touched on a few other items in Munich. Invitations to the eight countries picked for the 2028 World Cup of Hockey should go out at some point this season, and whether Russia is one of them has not been sorted out.
He also repeated that the league’s 33rd franchise in Houston or Austin could be playing by 2029-30, with the NHL set to check back in with the Friedkin Group next month.
