It surprised me as well but there is a poster here by the name of DrJones who used to work as a producer for EA Sports on NHL and MVP (he had the purple name to prove it at the time) and he's the one who chimed into a debate we were having with a European poster to say that NHL actually sells more in Europe. I'll try to look up the post.
Edit: Got it:
http://www.operationsports.com/forum...ml#post3172019