If the NHL wants to move into Europe, it will likely have to run over Rene Fasel with a Zamboni first.

The normally diplomatic Fasel, head of the International Ice Hockey Federation, used the stage on the on-going World Hockey Summit to take a few verbal jabs at anyone who believes Europe might be fertile ground for NHL expansion.

Fasel, essentially, dared the NHL to try it.

“This is our territory and I will fight like hell and not allow anybody to come from abroad. I think in Europe, we are strong enough to do something on our own and then have a competition between Europe and North America,” said Fasel during an afternoon question and answer session.

Talk during the second day at the Summit centred largely on the shinny relationship between North American and Europe, with one Czech hockey executive making an impassioned plea for junior hockey teams here to stop raiding from his talent pool.

And it was Fasel — the Swiss dentist who typically strains so hard for compromise in his public statements that his utterances become complicated webs of backtracking — who surprised with an emphatic rejection of the notion that the NHL might invade his turf.

There has long been conjecture that the NHL might one day expand overseas though such speculation has existed so long, it now strains credulity. The league seems quite content tapping in to revenue sources overseas with occasional team training camps, exhibition tilts and now some regular season games.

But that didn’t stop Fasel’s headline making.

“I don’t think an NHL division in Europe would fly,” he said. “If they have a lot of money to invest, they could try but as long as I’m sitting on my chair, I would never allow that.”

Bill Daly, the NHL’s second in command, showed little concern about the IIHF boss’s line in the sand.

“I understand Rene’s point of view and the reasons he would say that, but ultimately, we will do what is in the best interests of the National Hockey League, our clubs, our players and the game,” Daly wrote in an email. “If that means expanding our league to the European continent, we certainly won’t hesitate in doing that.

“Having said that, there are no current plans to take that step.”

Fasel wants the NHL players at the Sochi Olympics, would welcome a resurrection of the World Cup, favours more smaller, NHL-sized ice rinks in Europe, and wouldn’t turn his nose up at more development money from the best league in the world.

Just as long as long as the NHL knows its place — and that’s on the other side of the Atlantic.

Fasel said he’d rather see Russia’s KHL and league’s from other countries such as Sweden, Finland and Germany work towards a European club champion. Then have that champ play the Stanley Cup champion.

“That would be for the hockey fan. That would be music,” he said.

As for Sochi, when asked about the NHL’s participation, Fasel returned to the mediator role he plays best. He said whatever problems the NHL has with the Olympics and whatever role the league would like to play in staging the games, an attempt will be made to work things out to everyone’s satisfaction.

“We will find a solution,” he said.

Meanwhile, long-time Czech coach Slovomir Lener noted during one Summit session that the development system in his country and neighbouring Slovakia are getting weaker every year, with the number of players drafted to the NHL falling each year over the last decade. It’s a situation he attributed to the number of teenagers that leave to play junior hockey in Canada.

But, he said, that route often doesn’t work for the player either with many get lost along the way. Of 527 players who have come to the Canadian Hockey League, only 22 have gone on to play 400 or more games in the NHL. Lener believes many of them would have developed better at home.

“I’m not saying we would ban the players from coming over here. We have to create an environment for them to stay there (in Europe) as long as possible and come over here as ready players,” said Lener.

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As a side note, Fasel, surprisingly, came out in favour of playing hockey on a smaller ice surface as opposed to the wider rinks that are the norm in Europe. He said watching the 2010 Olympics convinced him of that.

“After Vancouver, I will tell you honestly I like the small rink very much,” he said. “I was skeptical but what I saw in Vancouver, the intensity of the games . . . unbelievable. It was really great. We have to find a solution.”

Fasel said part of the difficulty in making the larger ice surfaces smaller is that figure skaters and short-track speed skaters also use the same rinks and they require the larger surface.