Totally different situations but if a muslim NHL player wanted to leave NHL after War on Terror it would be OK in my mind. There are also other factors in here. Sanctions and Russia changing laws to curb dissent etc. that make Russia not safe for foreigners.
Can the KHL survive now
- Thread starter EstesSquare
- Start date
Totally different situations but if a muslim NHL player wanted to leave NHL after War on Terror it would be OK in my mind. There are also other factors in here. Sanctions and Russia changing laws to curb dissent etc. that make Russia not safe for foreigners.
Of course. Though it seems the Russian teams feel the situation, in Russia, is as normal, so there would be no reason to flee. I say this simply because if the report is true that the teams have asked for money back.
ozo
Registered User
- Feb 24, 2010
- 4,341
- 438
This doesn't even boil down to politics as such. Russia is turning into North Korea, players are not able to use basic social media to connect with their loved ones and fans, not able to buy basic things from abroad, not able to travel freely etc. No amount of salary compensates that.
Jussi
Registered User
Jussi
Registered User
Szymon Szemberg, who even vorky promoted often, with a thread on why the KHL won't live on as it is:
Become a Russian league, let the Finns play at home or the AHL. Based on playoffs on now, with many imports gone, the play has been better than before.
Win, win, Russia development is improved and the AHL gets stronger.
eal
Registered User
- Sep 5, 2014
- 89
- 35
Of course what will Russia be developing more? The national teams aren't going to be playing much hockey for the foreseeable future.
There was also a breakdown on how much money players are losing because Russian banks are not in SWIFT anymore and they have to pay 20-30% fees to get money transferred. Also Russian currency has lost so much value against Euro that that is another 20-30% loss. The salary is less now in Russia than in Finland.
Depends how good the Iraqi player is. If he's a vital contributer to team success in no parallel universe is an NHL team letting him out of a contract. No way. He'd be given a leave of absence.
The NHL is far, far more cut-throat with contracts than any league in Europe.
But Avangard is like this too. They've always been very stringent with business/contracts.
But every other KHL team appears to be granting mutual termination. Times are bad. Few people want war. People are people, and are understanding in times like these.
Here's a cool video of Sateri and Jokipakka addressing Sibir teammates before receiving full support of the club.
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Rufus T Firefly
Registered User
- Jul 8, 2020
- 290
- 569
If the KHL was designed as a soft power tool into Europe and to penetrate further into the European hockey market than it it definitely dead in the water. But like others have said, I'm sure it will morph into a mainly Russian league. Riga and Jokerit are leaving, and I wouldn't be surprised if Kunlun leaves too now that the Olympics are over. Then it is down to 21 teams (most likely). Then you have the teams out east and Sochi which have always been bottom feeders and not prime destinations for players, which don't add all that much to the league.
On top of that the exodus of European and NA players is going to drop the quality. 4/top 10 point leaders are Euro/NA, and 12/top 20. There is only one player coming from Jokerit on that list, so there is going to be a big loss of top-end talent in the league as a whole.
It looks like despite the shrinking in size, the loss of talent is going to be much greater and the league quality is going to get much worse and take many years to recover. Even though it might open up more spots to Russian players, I'm not sure the decline in quality is going to make up for that. I wouldn't be surprised if the Champions League can eclipse the KHL in terms of international level of competition quite soon and then in the future there will be no opportunity for a new KHL in many years' time.
And all for what?
1. Gruner would not be the team from Oslo. They're a tiny team that plays in a tiny stadium and just got promoted up. The Oslo team would be Vålerenga that is much more Oslo's team and plays in a brand new arena that sits 5,000.
2. Bergen wouldn't have a team. I know it might make sense to have the second biggest city have a team, but there is no hockey culture there, just rain. Storhamar would be the team, which even though it is much smaller than Bergen, it has a long and proud hockey tradition and has one of the highest (if not the highest) attendance rates in the Norwegian League.
On top of that the exodus of European and NA players is going to drop the quality. 4/top 10 point leaders are Euro/NA, and 12/top 20. There is only one player coming from Jokerit on that list, so there is going to be a big loss of top-end talent in the league as a whole.
It looks like despite the shrinking in size, the loss of talent is going to be much greater and the league quality is going to get much worse and take many years to recover. Even though it might open up more spots to Russian players, I'm not sure the decline in quality is going to make up for that. I wouldn't be surprised if the Champions League can eclipse the KHL in terms of international level of competition quite soon and then in the future there will be no opportunity for a new KHL in many years' time.
And all for what?
I know this is more of a thought experiment than anything else, but just a couple of notes on the Norwegian teams:
1. Gruner would not be the team from Oslo. They're a tiny team that plays in a tiny stadium and just got promoted up. The Oslo team would be Vålerenga that is much more Oslo's team and plays in a brand new arena that sits 5,000.
2. Bergen wouldn't have a team. I know it might make sense to have the second biggest city have a team, but there is no hockey culture there, just rain. Storhamar would be the team, which even though it is much smaller than Bergen, it has a long and proud hockey tradition and has one of the highest (if not the highest) attendance rates in the Norwegian League.
I know this is more of a thought experiment than anything else, but just a couple of notes on the Norwegian teams:
1. Gruner would not be the team from Oslo. They're a tiny team that plays in a tiny stadium and just got promoted up. The Oslo team would be Vålerenga that is much more Oslo's team and plays in a brand new arena that sits 5,000.
2. Bergen wouldn't have a team. I know it might make sense to have the second biggest city have a team, but there is no hockey culture there, just rain. Storhamar would be the team, which even though it is much smaller than Bergen, it has a long and proud hockey tradition and has one of the highest (if not the highest) attendance rates in the Norwegian League.[/QUOTE]
I agree with you on Oslo. I picked Gruner because I saw that there is possibly a new 12,000 seat arena Drammen (close to Oslo) and I made the assumption they would move there because of their current arena situation. It would at the very least start with Valerenga in the 5,000 seat arena.
For kinda the same reason I picked Bergen. Looks like a new 8,320 arena will be built and i would imagine putting a team in Bergen would grow the game more in the long term. Love the Storhamar name but I feel it would be better to avoid such a small town.
1. Gruner would not be the team from Oslo. They're a tiny team that plays in a tiny stadium and just got promoted up. The Oslo team would be Vålerenga that is much more Oslo's team and plays in a brand new arena that sits 5,000.
2. Bergen wouldn't have a team. I know it might make sense to have the second biggest city have a team, but there is no hockey culture there, just rain. Storhamar would be the team, which even though it is much smaller than Bergen, it has a long and proud hockey tradition and has one of the highest (if not the highest) attendance rates in the Norwegian League.[/QUOTE]
I agree with you on Oslo. I picked Gruner because I saw that there is possibly a new 12,000 seat arena Drammen (close to Oslo) and I made the assumption they would move there because of their current arena situation. It would at the very least start with Valerenga in the 5,000 seat arena.
For kinda the same reason I picked Bergen. Looks like a new 8,320 arena will be built and i would imagine putting a team in Bergen would grow the game more in the long term. Love the Storhamar name but I feel it would be better to avoid such a small town.
I'm not sure about all of this. I heard Malmö in Sweden would be interested in joining, AIK too. Can Vorky comment on it?
¨
Fun idea but the small town in Sweden have greater hockey interest than Stockholm have unfortunatly. There´s a reason AIK is a mediocer team in allsvenskan and Djurgården can barely sell out Hovet(8000). Its because hockey is not popular anymore in Stockholm and the two rivals have to share arena (hovet) even though AIK is not even technically based in Stockholm since they belong to Solna. So if Djurgården can´t even sell out their arena when Oskarshamn comes to the city, then there is less incitement for fans to show up when a random team from Ilves which no Stockholmer have ever heard about comes. Ideal for Stockholm and SHL is to have Djurgården, AIK and Hammarby back in the big league.
Jussi
Registered User
I heard the same from Paris, Milan and a Swiss team. And Leipzig.
WeAre
Registered User
- Sep 20, 2014
- 233
- 39
Sweden will never join KHL.
Read this carefully what an lie khl is
1. Following thewhich showed the connections between the KHL and the Kremlin, Putin and his cronies, this one will explain how the KHL became a tool for Putin’s expansionist plans in the soft-power area of hockey.
Szymon Szemberg
@Sz1909_Szemberg
·
Mar 6
Replying to
@Sz1909_Szemberg
2. The KHL had just started in 2008 when Zurich crushed KHL’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk 5-0 in the 2009 Champions Hockey League final. In the VIP-section, KHL-boss Alexander Medvedev ripped off his Metallurg jersey in disgust after the Swiss’ 3-0 goal.
3. A couple of days later, Medvedev informed that Russian energy giant Gazprom (where Medvedev was VP) would leave as CHL sponsor and that KHL clubs would no longer play in Europe. The CHL folded.
4. The KHL saw the CHL as a threat. Not only did it show that European teams could beat KHL clubs, but a strong Euro club tournament was in conflict with the KHL’s own vision of being a “major international league”. The KHL wanted the KHL champion to also be the European champ.
5. Such a positioning would be impossible in any other team sport in Europe, but it was possible in hockey as the IIHF’s then president René Fasel was so close to Putin, and he sided more with Putin’s KHL than with the IIHF’s own CHL.
6. At the same time, KHL’s Salavat signed Alexander Radulov who was under contract with Nashville. Fasel could have stopped this transfer, but again he sided with the KHL. This severed the relations between the NHL and the IIHF and killed the NHL vs IIHF Victoria Cup.
7. At an IIHF club forum in Barcelona 2012, Alex Medvedev painted his vision for a pan-European league; 32 KHL-clubs and 32 clubs from western Europe would form a 64-team league, Europe’s version of the NHL.
8. The Gazprom VP was dreaming in all colors of the rainbow. The top European clubs would never leave their national leagues, and in effect destroy them, to join an unrealistic colossus league run by Gazprom from Moscow
Szymon Szemberg
@Sz1909_Szemberg
·
Mar 6
9. But this meeting set the tone. Financed by oil and gas money, the KHL would be the “major international league”. If the Euro clubs didn’t want to join, the KHL would recruit them.
10. Also, by not letting their Russian teams compete in Europe, the KHL could claim European superiority as they didn’t risk losing. Genius.
11. In the years that followed, KHL managed to either entice some existing clubs to swap leagues, or it created “clubs” specifically designed for KHL play. Either way, a club that joined the KHL knew only one thing for sure – that it would lose money. Huge money
12. The big catch was Finnish Jokerit Helsinki in 2014. Jokerit owner Hjallis Harkimo ran such a bad hockey business that he was relieved to sell the team and the Hartwall arena to Russian billionaires and Putin cronies, Timchenko and Rotenberg.
13. Since 2014, Jokerit has been losing €13-15m annually, occasionally €2m per month. The Russian owners paid all bills and debts as the Helsinki club was really the lone “franchise” that justified the KHL being a “major international league”.
14. During these years, Jokerit has lost more than €100m in total. All the other European clubs that joined the KHL had the same kind of “business model”. All of them were basically insolvent all the time, but often saved by influx of energy money.
15. How ludicrous was Jokerit’s KHL idea? It’s 3km between Jokerit’s arena and IFK Helsinki’s rink. These great rivals could no longer meet in heated derby-games as Jokerit needed to fly 6500km to Khabarovsk or 6300km to China to play games with zero history
16. The attempts to attract western clubs to the KHL was a monumental failure. The only western, non-Russian owned club which made the jump was Slovan Bratislava, 2012. Once it pulled out in 2019, the club was penniless with debts through the roof, saved by new ownership.
17. In 2014, Putin decided that Medvedev was done and he handed the KHL top job to Dmitry Chernyshenko (L) who was the president of Sochi 2014, the most corrupt games in Olympic history, where dirty urine samples were swapped through a hole in the wall in the middle of the night
18. Chernyshenko was later removed from a IOC Commission for Beijing 2022 by the IOC due to his involvement in the Sochi doping scandal, but that was never a problem for the KHL.
19. Chernyshenko also failed to lure any European club to KHL’s casino economy, so his biggest catch was Chinese Kunlun Red Star, a political move overseen by both Putin and Xi Jinping, as a pretext to create a competitive “Chinese” team for Beijing 2022.
20. Aside from misusing the IIHF’s eligibility regulations leading up to the Olympics, the Kunlun team was a fiasco, sportively as well as financially
21. During these crazy years, several Russian hockey people asked why the league invests billions in foreign clubs instead of investing in Russian hockey and their clubs. But these voices were hardly heard.
22. Although hockey today is irrelevant, a result of this senseless war could be that the KHL stops this expansion madness, the burning of money, and gives Russian hockey back to the hockey people. /end
Read this carefully what an lie khl is
1. Following thewhich showed the connections between the KHL and the Kremlin, Putin and his cronies, this one will explain how the KHL became a tool for Putin’s expansionist plans in the soft-power area of hockey.
Szymon Szemberg
@Sz1909_Szemberg
·
Mar 6
Replying to
@Sz1909_Szemberg
2. The KHL had just started in 2008 when Zurich crushed KHL’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk 5-0 in the 2009 Champions Hockey League final. In the VIP-section, KHL-boss Alexander Medvedev ripped off his Metallurg jersey in disgust after the Swiss’ 3-0 goal.
3. A couple of days later, Medvedev informed that Russian energy giant Gazprom (where Medvedev was VP) would leave as CHL sponsor and that KHL clubs would no longer play in Europe. The CHL folded.
4. The KHL saw the CHL as a threat. Not only did it show that European teams could beat KHL clubs, but a strong Euro club tournament was in conflict with the KHL’s own vision of being a “major international league”. The KHL wanted the KHL champion to also be the European champ.
5. Such a positioning would be impossible in any other team sport in Europe, but it was possible in hockey as the IIHF’s then president René Fasel was so close to Putin, and he sided more with Putin’s KHL than with the IIHF’s own CHL.
6. At the same time, KHL’s Salavat signed Alexander Radulov who was under contract with Nashville. Fasel could have stopped this transfer, but again he sided with the KHL. This severed the relations between the NHL and the IIHF and killed the NHL vs IIHF Victoria Cup.
7. At an IIHF club forum in Barcelona 2012, Alex Medvedev painted his vision for a pan-European league; 32 KHL-clubs and 32 clubs from western Europe would form a 64-team league, Europe’s version of the NHL.
8. The Gazprom VP was dreaming in all colors of the rainbow. The top European clubs would never leave their national leagues, and in effect destroy them, to join an unrealistic colossus league run by Gazprom from Moscow
Szymon Szemberg
@Sz1909_Szemberg
·
Mar 6
9. But this meeting set the tone. Financed by oil and gas money, the KHL would be the “major international league”. If the Euro clubs didn’t want to join, the KHL would recruit them.
10. Also, by not letting their Russian teams compete in Europe, the KHL could claim European superiority as they didn’t risk losing. Genius.
11. In the years that followed, KHL managed to either entice some existing clubs to swap leagues, or it created “clubs” specifically designed for KHL play. Either way, a club that joined the KHL knew only one thing for sure – that it would lose money. Huge money
12. The big catch was Finnish Jokerit Helsinki in 2014. Jokerit owner Hjallis Harkimo ran such a bad hockey business that he was relieved to sell the team and the Hartwall arena to Russian billionaires and Putin cronies, Timchenko and Rotenberg.
13. Since 2014, Jokerit has been losing €13-15m annually, occasionally €2m per month. The Russian owners paid all bills and debts as the Helsinki club was really the lone “franchise” that justified the KHL being a “major international league”.
14. During these years, Jokerit has lost more than €100m in total. All the other European clubs that joined the KHL had the same kind of “business model”. All of them were basically insolvent all the time, but often saved by influx of energy money.
15. How ludicrous was Jokerit’s KHL idea? It’s 3km between Jokerit’s arena and IFK Helsinki’s rink. These great rivals could no longer meet in heated derby-games as Jokerit needed to fly 6500km to Khabarovsk or 6300km to China to play games with zero history
16. The attempts to attract western clubs to the KHL was a monumental failure. The only western, non-Russian owned club which made the jump was Slovan Bratislava, 2012. Once it pulled out in 2019, the club was penniless with debts through the roof, saved by new ownership.
17. In 2014, Putin decided that Medvedev was done and he handed the KHL top job to Dmitry Chernyshenko (L) who was the president of Sochi 2014, the most corrupt games in Olympic history, where dirty urine samples were swapped through a hole in the wall in the middle of the night
18. Chernyshenko was later removed from a IOC Commission for Beijing 2022 by the IOC due to his involvement in the Sochi doping scandal, but that was never a problem for the KHL.
19. Chernyshenko also failed to lure any European club to KHL’s casino economy, so his biggest catch was Chinese Kunlun Red Star, a political move overseen by both Putin and Xi Jinping, as a pretext to create a competitive “Chinese” team for Beijing 2022.
20. Aside from misusing the IIHF’s eligibility regulations leading up to the Olympics, the Kunlun team was a fiasco, sportively as well as financially
21. During these crazy years, several Russian hockey people asked why the league invests billions in foreign clubs instead of investing in Russian hockey and their clubs. But these voices were hardly heard.
22. Although hockey today is irrelevant, a result of this senseless war could be that the KHL stops this expansion madness, the burning of money, and gives Russian hockey back to the hockey people. /end
That's nonsense and a propagandistic fairy-tale, of course.
If the other items in that rigmarole are as "precise" as the item discussing Slovan, just throw the whole thing into trash.
Slovan pulled out of the KHL, because it could no longer afford it. That's it.
If you stop eating in a luxury restaurant, that doesn't mean you're bankrupt. It means you can no longer afford luxury and must be modest at least for the foreseeable future, which for Slovan meant the return to the inferior Slovak league.
There was never any hint of bankruptcy regarding Slovan, as far as I'm aware. Constant and rising debts due to mismanagement, yes. Bankruptcy, no.
Also, it wasn't strictly necessary for the previous (oligarch) owner to sell the club. He decided to sell it anyway, and thank heavens he did. But it wasn't a forced move by any means.
Most of all, debating the merits and demerits of the KHL is useless now. The KHL is dead. Nothing to discuss anymore. (I'm really surprised this forum section still exists on HFBoards.)
I do remember the Soviet Union. The Soviet Top League, which had no foreign players or teams, was very good. The top teams (especially CSKA Moscow) were on par with the NHL teams.
But... no Soviet players played in the NHL. Very few played abroad, only selected veterans like Shalimov (Austria) or Balderis (Japan).
Now, take the Soviet Top League and subtract several dozen players. Not any random players. The best ones.
That's basically 5-6 teams, if not more. And there will be more.
So, more like 11-12 teams. Basically, the whole Soviet Top League.
Thus, KHL will be more like the Soviet First Division, the Tier 2 league.
Will it survive? Yes. Will people still watch it? Yes.
But the level will be on par with that Soviet First Division.
But... no Soviet players played in the NHL. Very few played abroad, only selected veterans like Shalimov (Austria) or Balderis (Japan).
Now, take the Soviet Top League and subtract several dozen players. Not any random players. The best ones.
That's basically 5-6 teams, if not more. And there will be more.
So, more like 11-12 teams. Basically, the whole Soviet Top League.
Thus, KHL will be more like the Soviet First Division, the Tier 2 league.
Will it survive? Yes. Will people still watch it? Yes.
But the level will be on par with that Soviet First Division.
Since they're going full-throttle mode into the past (at least 50 to 70 years into the past), they might as well, just like in the good ol' days, make it illegal for players to play anywhere but in the domestic league, because anything else would constitute a betrayal of the motherland.
I for one wouldn't mind if they did that, and I sure hope Wayne will keep his record.
I for one wouldn't mind if they did that, and I sure hope Wayne will keep his record.
Fjorden
Registered User
In the worlds best league NHL they've two teams in sunny Los Angeles, USA's second city and a team in the middle of dessert in Las Vegas. Not much snow and ice there. They've have developed their league emerging into new cities and markets since they started with their "original six" teams in cold areas.
I think if you want develop hockey in Norway you can't be som damn conservative and old fashioned as you are.
Certainly some kind of Russian hockey league will survive, but it will drop far from #2. Hopefully young Russian players aren't forcibly stuck there earning Rubles.
What ever happened to the London-based and Gulf States KHL Team hype? "London Emperors" lol talk about propaganda!
What ever happened to the London-based and Gulf States KHL Team hype? "London Emperors" lol talk about propaganda!
