Kirk Muller said:
I understand the moral side of wanting to compensate the clubs for their development efforts. All I'm saying is that it's not an obligation, and that these clubs do not indefinitely hold the rights over the future of their players. If they invest time and money, that's their choice. Any other club would have grabbed them up once they showed promise. And ultimately, hockey players have the right to emigrate and to work where they want. Clubs don't hold the right to force to play for them.
They don't, and they probably won't. First rule is that when a player is unhappy, he is not to his fullest to help his club. However, the NHL today is almost exactly the same organization - a player without a contract does not have a right to play for any other team until he is 27. Draconian rules? Probably not (age 31 wasn't either a few years ago). It's meant to help the poorer markets (which Russia is, compared to NA). You're forgetting that the NHL understands these positions like no one else, and yet barely gives its young players any freedom of choice of playing where they want to play. That starts in Major Junior, btw, this "tradition." Isn't THAT ironic? You're advocating for Malkin to "do whatever he wants", i.e. "play for Pittsburgh", when it might not even be the team he wants to play for. Does he have a say in it? No...
Yeah, I know what you wanna say.. "It' not same." Well, it's not. There's a degree of similarity, though.
I'm not against transfer fees. I'm simply saying that the Russian clubs don't inherently have the right to decide the players' futures just because they invested resources into their development.
NHL teams have the right to decide the futures of players they
draft. Why can't Russian clubs decide futures of players they
develop? It's not in NA tradition to thank the academy that brought a player into the world. But let me explain again - Malkin wouldn't have become a player if he played on the streets of Magnitogorsk. No scout from Omsk or Yaroslavl would bother coming to Magnitogorsk (or, as in my example, Vladivostok) to watch kids play unless there really IS some real talent that is so over-the-heads better than other talent out there (and even THAT would be a stretch, sadly). There are no colleges that covet players for college hockey. It's only clubs. They scout the countryside oftentimes, yes, but mostly the second-tier hockey schools, like Chelyabinsk, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Minsk, etc. That's what the majority of Russian hockey players have to give thanks to - the system. There are not enough rinks and junior leagues to go around, believe, and there's barely any high-school hockey (well, maybe it's better now, but 5-10 years ago, cost of equipment and lack of normal indoor hockey rinks was a good deterrent).
What I find comical is that the hardliners are the old club owners, which is entirely normal, and young expatriates who now have the priviledge of living in the wealthiest societies in the world, yet who would prevent other Russians from doing so if they wanted to as well.
I don't understand this comment at all. Malkin isn't coming to America because it's the wealthiest society in the world. He's coming here because NHL is the best league in the world. He'd get more money next year (and year after that, probably) playing for Magnitogorsk. It certainly looks like that personally, living in America I would be happy to get a fourth of what he's getting in Russia. What is so comical? I want to deny him the privilege that he already has over me to begin with? Even if true, then it would only be logical, not ironic
. And it's not true. I want him to come over - because, eventually, he should. But I also understand that if Metallurg wants a decent compensation, he should get it. Again, as I said, a few millions of dollars. Something sizable, but not Shevchenko-like money. It would only make sense.
I saw a CBC report about the Ovechkin case. They interviewed current Dynamo players like Sushinski and Kharitonov and they were all laughing off the lawsuit, saying Dynamo should leave Ovechkin alone and let him play where he wants.
Dynamo situation was different. There was a talk of whether the kid signed a contract or not. I was actually on his side purely because the case was too murky for me to care. But it's straight-to-the-point, relatively, in Malkin's case. He had a club that raised him from when he was very young. He wouldn't have become the player he is now if it weren't for Metallurg - not like anyone else would come along and snatch him and develop him and whatnot. Why doesn't Metallurg deserve a sizable compensation? Yes, in business terms, more money than it is being offered. There's a lot you can do with that money.
So yes, it's very comical that those who want the Malkins and Ovechkins of the world to be submitted to the wills of Russian hockey clubs are the hockey club managers (which is normal) and the nationalist youths who enjoy the relative freedom and wealth of the West but don't want it for Malkin and Ovechkin.
First, I don't enjoy as much freedom and wealth as Malkin and Ovechkin both enjoyed in Russia. Firstly, I frankly don't have as much money as they do, even though I'm about the same age they are. Secondly, stemming from the money issue, I have a lot less room to maneuver. I'm not gonna be going to Russia every year for 2-3 months after the season is over and party. And you really have a fetish for saying "nationalist youth", don't ya?
Your years in the West have really softened you up if you actually believe that you have a 'right' to be entertained, and that this right trumps the right of Malkin to emigrate to and work wherever he wants, whether it be Moscow, Vladivostok or Pittsburgh.
There's no right. I never said anything about any rights. From the moral side, though, there's a reason why many Russians in Russia feel awkward toward Russian NHLers. They're entertaining "the other crowd." I think oftentimes it stems into exaggeration, since most of the NHLers are really nice guys who've done what anyone else would've done, almost. But there's a reason. Good job embellishing what I said.
Oh please. No need to go dramatic about something as insignificant as transfer money (because that's what it is, it's insignificant. total transfer payments are maybe 20M$ a year, which is an insignificant amount). Don't give me some "help my motherland get back on its feet" crap. If you want to help your home country, then actually go help it.
Doing best I can. It's not very easy without completed education. I'm not a superstar hockey player or anything.
Don't dictate that Malkin's future should rest in the hands of Metallurg.
Dictating Malkin's future is what Pittsburgh and North American fans are going to be doing in the next seven or eight years. "He's a free man," yes, but then he can't even change his NHL team upon entrance to the freakin league. And he's not yet obliged to any contract. But Pittsburgh sucked for too long, eh? They deserve to provide Evgeni with a couple of years of abysmal performances.
The kid signed a contract, and if it's deemed legitimate by the American courts, Pittsburgh just should buy it out. It seems reasonable to me. If there'd be no contract, then sure, Malkin can just leave for free. Ovechkin did the same, it just worked fine. In a perfect world it'd be nice to reimburse their hockey schools to some extent, but I'm not staunch about it or anything.