Playing Hockey In Europe
League Quality
The level of quality that exists in Europe is actually quite high in the top level and quite low in the lower levels (as it is in the US and Canada). It gets very difficult to start to compare different levels from one country to another.
For example, saying this level in Germany is equal to that level in Sweden is virtually impossible because of the different styles and demands of the different clubs. I would say that a good way to do comparisons is to find a North American (NA) player in the players section on this site and look how he has performed in the different leagues. There seems to be quite a bit of rotation of NA players within Europe.
If you do this you will notice that most of the NA players that play in the top leagues in Europe (Russia, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland - the Czech and Slovak league barely have any imports) have either AHL or NHL experience so if you are just coming out of the OHL, College or some Junior program you better start to look at the lower leagues.
A good rule of thumb is that if you have not played professionally in the US (NHL, AHL, ECHL, UHL, CHL) it is very difficult to go directly to Europe without any pro experience. You are better to play a year, build your stats and then promote yourself after you have had a successful year in the US.
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