I wouldn't be as excited if the Canucks were playing the Coquitlam Express on the regular
That’s pretty funny, admittedly. I wasn’t excited about Linköping, Växjö and Örebro first joining the SHL, but here we are, and I still am not.
Hey, look… The vast majority of Swedish fans really don’t want “pro licenses”, closed leagues and are completely fine with promotion/relegation, even if that means having to watch Växjö win championships while multiple classic teams and rivalries that people actually care about are in the HA fighting for a single spot in the SHL. Teams from small towns in the backwaters of hockey can make a splash, if they’re good enough. And Vimmerby won the games necessary to earn promotion.
The other thing, though… Hockeyallsvenskan is already bush league, it’s part of its charm that recent SHL teams with star power, competently constructed rosters and well-structured team strategies will have to face off against teams from Haparanda or Nybro playing “gladhockey”. It’s also part of the charm that those little guys are often finding ways to beat teams way above their weight class.
I would have thought it fun if a team or two from Norrbotten were playing in Hockeyallsvenskan, and all of Piteå, Boden and Kiruna have historically fostered great talent. But they have to play better and earn it, like Vimmerby did.