hansomreiste
Registered User
With its good and bad sides, I loved KHL overall. A lot. Since its inception. For the first time, though, I feel like this may be the end of the road for at least a couple of years when it comes to "Who will win the Gagarin cup?" hype. As if the fact that they're ridiculously superior already was not enough, they keep snatching players here and there, last target being my (and of course, jaco's!) lovely Amur and Artyom Zub.
What are your thoughts on this subject? Football fans will know what I am afraid of. Take Ludogorets, BATE Borisov, Olympiakos or Dynamo Zagreb. Is this how SKA will look in 5 years? Doesn't matter how competitive the league is, there is only one champion all the time with following teams lagging behind?
While I'm a big fan of hockey, I have to admit that I know very little about how transfer system works in this specific sport - so I am not the person to judge KHL's salary cap or general transaction policy but I feel like something stinks about this. Am I being too dramatic & paranoid or is this really getting out of control? Yeah, last year was a nice surprise by MMG but it won't last forever. If clubs are free to spend as much as they want, no team from Urals & Siberia will be able to keep up and teams like MMG, Traktor, Avangard etc. will suffer heavily and eventually run out of gas. It's not only about money. Not many players would choose living in Omsk when they can pick Helsinki, St. Petersburg or Moscow. Unless there are minimum/maximum limits as to how clubs can behave, I afraid this league will turn into a real bush league which serves as a punching bag for SKA and just maybe CSKA. Places like Yekaterinburg or Omsk can never compete with Western Russia when it comes to an open-ended race, let's face it. From economy to demographics, many factors favour the west. And I am a person who values Siberia probably even more than Siberians; not someone "AHA, SIBERIA? SO THE PLACE WITH POLAR BEARS AND FORESTS AND SOME WEIRD ALIEN STUFF?" so I know how huge the potential in Siberia is. However, it's still not enough if we're to speak of competing with the likes of St. Petersburg or Moscow. No.
As I said, I'm not familiar with financial side of the story so I don't want to go like, "We are all doomed!" and therefore I am willing to hear what other people who are presumably more well-informed than me on this matter have to say before going crazy over the issue.
What are your thoughts on this subject? Football fans will know what I am afraid of. Take Ludogorets, BATE Borisov, Olympiakos or Dynamo Zagreb. Is this how SKA will look in 5 years? Doesn't matter how competitive the league is, there is only one champion all the time with following teams lagging behind?
While I'm a big fan of hockey, I have to admit that I know very little about how transfer system works in this specific sport - so I am not the person to judge KHL's salary cap or general transaction policy but I feel like something stinks about this. Am I being too dramatic & paranoid or is this really getting out of control? Yeah, last year was a nice surprise by MMG but it won't last forever. If clubs are free to spend as much as they want, no team from Urals & Siberia will be able to keep up and teams like MMG, Traktor, Avangard etc. will suffer heavily and eventually run out of gas. It's not only about money. Not many players would choose living in Omsk when they can pick Helsinki, St. Petersburg or Moscow. Unless there are minimum/maximum limits as to how clubs can behave, I afraid this league will turn into a real bush league which serves as a punching bag for SKA and just maybe CSKA. Places like Yekaterinburg or Omsk can never compete with Western Russia when it comes to an open-ended race, let's face it. From economy to demographics, many factors favour the west. And I am a person who values Siberia probably even more than Siberians; not someone "AHA, SIBERIA? SO THE PLACE WITH POLAR BEARS AND FORESTS AND SOME WEIRD ALIEN STUFF?" so I know how huge the potential in Siberia is. However, it's still not enough if we're to speak of competing with the likes of St. Petersburg or Moscow. No.
As I said, I'm not familiar with financial side of the story so I don't want to go like, "We are all doomed!" and therefore I am willing to hear what other people who are presumably more well-informed than me on this matter have to say before going crazy over the issue.
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