KHL season finish on May 31 (beginning 24-25): impact on IIHF Worlds

[vorky]

The KHL announced they will prolong their season, playoff stage, until May 31 since the 2024-2025 seaons onwards. It is during IIHF Worlds timing. Now we have NHL & KHL with the same status, only players whose teams are out from playoff can join their NTs at IIHF Worlds.

The KHL wanted to achieve this moment with prolonging a season since 2008. Thanks to European hockey amateurs they achieved this now.

I do not care about IIHF banning policy. They will finish this approach one day ... if they survive as organisation, of course.

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[xyzed]

this literally doesn't change anything. Typical salty language that propagandists use

 

[WarriorofTime]

As long as Russia/Belarus are not allowed and the governments of Sweden, Finland and Czechia refuse to allow players to work in Russia or else face bans from the national team, then impact is minimal. Long-term will be a different question, but perhaps the IIHFs will try and push back their start date a week. Historically, I am not sure how many players would go from playing in Gagarin Cup Finals straight into the IIHF Worlds, as you'd think going so deep you'd want a break. The issue is running into some soccer conflicts. The IIHF Worlds ends May 26th, the UEFA Euros begins June 14th. They would never want something like that to ever potentially overlap because the IIHF will get shellacked in terms of interest. 14/16 top IHF members are European typically, and the tournament is always held in Europe and garners little interest in North America (due to the NHL playoffs).

 

[vorky]

As long as Russia/Belarus are not allowed and the governments of Sweden, Finland and Czechia refuse to allow players to work in Russia or else face bans from the national team, then impact is minimal. Long-term will be a different question, but perhaps the IIHFs will try and push back their start date a week. Historically, I am not sure how many players would go from playing in Gagarin Cup Finals straight into the IIHF Worlds, as you'd think going so deep you'd want a break. The issue is running into some soccer conflicts. The IIHF Worlds ends May 26th, the UEFA Euros begins June 14th. They would never want something like that to ever potentially overlap because the IIHF will get shellacked in terms of interest. 14/16 top IHF members are European typically, and the tournament is always held in Europe and garners little interest in North America (due to the NHL playoffs).

It will be interesting to follow what is going on.

I would not be surprised if IIHF Worlds is moved to February - there is a tentative agreement NHL-KHL on this issue. Btw, it was proposed in 2012 already.

 

[Albatros]

The World Championships will not be moved, European leagues do not want to prolong their seasons for a number of reasons and lower level World Championship tournaments preferentially take place before the main event. The NHL would have to release their players annually for free to even consider that.

 

[ozo]

Impact on IIHF Worlds? Zero. Pretty much every single player from KHL is banned from their respective NT anyways and there is no hypothetical World Championship fan that will tune in for KHL playoffs instead of their national team (well maybe besides the unbiased author of this thread ).

 

[JackSlater]

It will be interesting to follow what is going on.

I would not be surprised if IIHF Worlds is moved to February - there is a tentative agreement NHL-KHL on this issue. Btw, it was proposed in 2012 already.

There is no chance that the NHL would shut its season down temporarily just to accommodate the IIHF. As far the the KHL prolonging its season, it makes sense but for now there is obviously no impact on the IIHF's world championship.

 

[GKJ]

The IIHF won’t do it anyways because the Olympics are in February.

 

[Caser]

Impact on IIHF Worlds? Zero. Pretty much every single player from KHL is banned from their respective NT anyways and there is no hypothetical World Championship fan that will tune in for KHL playoffs instead of their national team (well maybe besides the unbiased author of this thread ).

There is still Kazakhstan, they might be impacted notably.

 

[Albatros]

There is still Kazakhstan, they might be impacted notably.

Or withdraw from the KHL in favor of their own league at some point.

 

[Czechboy]

Devastating news to the Czech team ...

 

[Caser]

Or withdraw from the KHL in favor of their own league at some point.

It's not only about Barys, as notable amount of Kazakhstan's players is playing on other KHL teams too.

 

[Zine]

After the Fedotov situation this was inevitable. KHL has had it with the IIHF as much as the NHL has.
That said, when Russia is reinstated, I could image a big tug-of-war occurring between the FHR and KHL over this.

 

[Albatros]

It's not only about Barys, as notable amount of Kazakhstan's players is playing on other KHL teams too.

Sure, but now that they also withdrew from the VHL they could just as well put also the rest of the money into Nomad and sign domestic players instead of third-rate Canadians. Naturalizing players of any quality through the KHL is mostly dead anyway and having a Kazakh-centered Central Asian pro league would probably be diplomatically as valuable if not more than a Kazakh team in the KHL.

 

[Caser]

Sure, but now that they also withdrew from the VHL they could just as well put also the rest of the money into Nomad and sign domestic players instead of third-rate Canadians. Naturalizing players of any quality through the KHL is mostly dead anyway and having a Kazakh-centered Central Asian pro league would probably be diplomatically as valuable if not more than a Kazakh team in the KHL.

There's no way the paycheck would stay the same though in this case, which would mean Barys players' exodus (as Kazakhstan players aren't counted as the foreigners in the KHL).

 

[FiLe]

The short term impact to the Worlds is, as has been already stated, zero.

And the long term impact... well, we'll see how the rescheduling lasts once Russia is allowed back in (whenever that happens), and it starts hurting their own NT the most. As unlike in North America, this tournament kinda is a big deal in Russia. In fact, the likeliest reason they're doing this in the first place is to provide their own populace a distraction from them being banned from the Worlds.

 

[Zine]

There's no way the paycheck would stay the same though in this case, which would mean Barys players' exodus (as Kazakhstan players aren't counted as the foreigners in the KHL).

That's exactly what happened to Dynamo Riga. They left the KHL, good players left the team, they now exist in obscurity. Now there are no good Latvians playing in Latvia.
That would be devastating for Kazakhstan as the game is still very much growing there.

 

[Albatros]

There's no way the paycheck would stay the same though in this case, which would mean Barys players' exodus (as Kazakhstan players aren't counted as the foreigners in the KHL).

That's really a political decision. Nowadays that their sovereign wealth fund is pouring money into sports directly, it's a matter of whether they prefer to focus more on hockey or soccer or basketball or cycling. The strength of hockey would be in relatively better level of competition and ability to expand to elsewhere in Central Asia like they already did with Humo Tashkent.

 

[Caser]

That's really a political decision. Nowadays that their sovereign wealth fund is pouring money into sports directly, it's a matter of whether they prefer to focus more on hockey or soccer or basketball or cycling. The strength of hockey would be in relatively better level of competition and ability to expand to elsewhere in Central Asia like they already did with Humo Tashkent.

Salaries in the Kazakhstan league are about the same as in the VHL while the level is a bit lower, it's very hard for me to imagine that a simple political "magic wand" decision can instantly fix that to make KHL-level players want to stay there.

 

[Caser]

That's exactly what happened to Dynamo Riga. They left the KHL, good players left the team, they now exist in obscurity. Now there are no good Latvians playing in Latvia.
That would be devastating for Kazakhstan as the game is still very much growing there.

Kazakhstan at least has a more or less decent local league though if we compare it to Latvian situation.

 

[SoundAndFury]

That's exactly what happened to Dynamo Riga. They left the KHL, good players left the team, they now exist in obscurity. Now there are no good Latvians playing in Latvia.

Everyone in Latvia is happy with Dynamo being gone and it's seen as a positive for their NT though. Secondly, Latvia has never (really) had a professional hockey league which is completely different in Kazakhstan.

Honestly, Barys is pretty much following the Dynamo arc. Quality of imports getting worse and worse, team rolling deeper and deeper into the league's basement. It's not that far out of the question they consider pulling out.

 

[vorky]

After the Fedotov situation this was inevitable. KHL has had it with the IIHF as much as the NHL has.
That said, when Russia is reinstated, I could image a big tug-of-war occurring between the FHR and KHL over this.

It's fascinating how European hockey officials are helping the KHL and Russian hockey. Either they are stupid or Russian agents. The KHL has not been successful to do this move since 2008-2009. Now, they did it with a huge help from European partners.

You need to understand what is happening now. That is not so easy as it seems to be. Even Tardif just said: "No comment." Finally he got it. Sadly for him, it is too late.

 

[Caser]

Everyone in Latvia is happy with Dynamo being gone and it's seen as a positive for their NT though. Secondly, Latvia has never (really) had a professional hockey league which is completely different in Kazakhstan.

Honestly, Barys is pretty much following the Dynamo arc. Quality of imports getting worse and worse, team rolling deeper and deeper into the league's basement. It's not that far out of the question they consider pulling out.

I object here, 20 years ago the Latvian league with Metalurgs, Riga and ASK was actually not too bad, at least it was able to develop players for the NT.

 

[Kshahdoo]

There is still Kazakhstan, they might be impacted notably.

Barys will finish its season 1.5 months before WHC starts not 2.5 months, that's the only impact. As to other players, I doubt a lot of them will get to Gagarin Cup finals.

 

[Fantomas]

The Worlds were irrelevant in North America, now they're becoming irrelevant in Russia. Good job!