As hockey's global influence continues to change the NHL as we know it, how long will it be before a European is named to run a club as head coach?

It's sad that it hasn't happened already, some say. Just a matter of time, others insist. Still others even suggest it's an inappropriate question.

``That's overplayed,'' New Jersey general manager Lou Lamoriello said of a coach's nationality. ``This is a global game now. I think it's important to look at the individual rather than where he's from.''

That's a wonderful theory, but as a practice it has a long way to go in a league that still generalizes about what we should expect from a player by virtue of his birth certificate. Same for North Americans going to Europe.

The participation of Canadian players may have slipped from nearly 100 percent to about 60 percent with the growing number of Americans and European imports, but Canadians still dominate the front offices of nearly each of the NHL's 27 teams.

And as long as that continues, Europeans - and even Americans - are going to find coaching jobs hard to come by in the NHL. It took Kevin Constantine, now with Pittsburgh, about a year and a half to get another job after he was fired in San Jose.

Former NHL coach Dave King is one of the few to acknowledge the league might be remiss in its hiring practices.

``I'd call it discrimination that we don't have a European head coach yet,'' said King, now a Montreal assistant who has coached hockey teams on three continents.

Of the league's 27 clubs, only three have European-born assistant coaches: Toronto's Alpo Suhonen, who held the same rank in Winnipeg and served as the head coach of the IHL Chicago Wolves; Florida's Slovomir Lener, the co-coach of the Czech Republic's gold-medal team at the Nagano Olympics; and New Jersey's Slava Fetisov, one of the world's most decorated players in a career that spanned three decades.

The differences between hockey as it's played in North American and Europe are not subtle.

``A lot of European coaches can't understand why we play some of our role players,'' King said. ``They don't understand that they may be a big hitter or a tough guy who can change the emotion in a game.''

One guy who understands the game on both sides of the pond is Fetisov. He dominated the European leagues and the NHL, and he may be the best candidate out there to break the barrier.

``He gets instant respect. His credentials speak for themselves,'' said Devils' defenseman Ken Daneyko, a teammate of Fetisov when he came to the NHL in 1989. ``He'll be a great head coach some day. He understands the game so well and he wants to win - bad.

``He's a good communicator and he has a caring element about him.''

Lamoriello agrees.

``I haven't come across many people in all of hockey who have the respect he has,'' Lamoriello said. ``And he can transmit that to the players. Slava has the kinds of things you can't teach any individual - feelings for people and great, great character.''

Meantime, coaches going the other way are finding an environment at least as hostile. Detroit assistant Barry Smith, an American, went to Sweden last year to coach in its top league and left in acrimony that resulted in a lawsuit.

Within the past few weeks, Canadian Randy Edmonds left his job in the same Swedish league, citing stress. Wayne Flemming, an assistant coach with the New York Islanders, faced similar problems as a head coach in Sweden.

``There was a negative tone toward me because I was Canadian,'' Edmonds said. ``The Swedes don't have a lot of respect for Canadian hockey. They feel Canada has lost its grip in the hockey world.''

Maybe so, but clearly neither Canada nor Sweden has the market cornered on bigotry.