Holy Mary mother of God
Where the F*** you were prior to the EBEL ? Lowering the bar, are you f***** serious ? "Fans" like you deserves level of hockey like it was before EBEL than you wouldn't be writting BS's such as bolded.
u20 - not true, as you were debunked on HRHOKEJ. Age difference is irrelevant mostly, MAC and MDV had 0,20 years avg difference.
Also, Vanjito - people enjoyed EBEL. People loved and hated teams. People now don't care.
What amazing reasoning, first appeal to it's obvious when I just proved it's not, then appeal to what I've already spent time addressing. Evidently the higher level of hockey hadn't produced more fans, nor has it created more of an international following, so what is the benefit of playing a higher level other than emotional? Seeing a team with no croatians on it? And your example is just a downright terrible example because those are both selection based leagues not seasonal leagues. Better examples are in conference realignment in American football.
That's all great but that's nothing but sentimental value. Taking a step back, taking a step forward, that's not registered in what the quality of play is, that's registered here in butts in seats, club revenue, and eventually national interest in the sport and willingness to build based off of this excitement. You and I are looking from the outside in, and seeing oh well they're in a higher league now things should just defacto be better, but where is the proof for that? The feeling of "oh we're slightly closer to the top" evidently didn't turn into hockey infrastructure, or a successful and profitable balance sheet for the club, or a new wave of talented juniors, or a stronger and larger home fan base, or an international following, so please, give me something solid and tangible on why this "step forward" is really moving in the right direction. Really this conversation is all amiss they're not returning to the EBEL and potentially not staying in the KHL for too long either.
Because Medvescak is not their team. Imagine a Russian NHL team with no Russians. If that happened to a Russian team, Russians would call it a sham and an insult, but because it's Croatia not Russia you just expect them to be ok with it and embrace it. Owners want money, something they haven't been getting I will note, but that's why they choose the KHL. If you want to call croatians losers for wanting a croatian team, then I don't think anyone can change how you feel, I only know if the same were true for a Russian team that team would not have your full support.
Lol, again, being Russian you don't understand, this is the same for Austrians, as long as we play in a strong league we will have foreigners dominating our teams. However, the hope is the we or in this case they could have a few bottom 6 players or backup goalies who could play for our local team. In 2012-13 Medvescak had 6 Croatian players, in 2011-12 they had 10 but 3 of them were goalies who never played, in 2010-11 they had 7 and in their inaugural year they had 9. This past year they technically had 2 but Milicic and Jankovic only played one game each. Perhaps with some long long stretching you could call Zanoski a true Croatian too, hopefully he plays for the NT after next year. Last year they had 1 Croatian goalie play one game. You see the point, back when they were in the EBEL they could see a few of their own players play bottom-line minutes, something to hang their hats on, now it's a completely foreign team.
You're right, of course you don't understand, just like the post you quoted me saying you don't understand. The difference between having no natural players on your roster, and having a few bottom six players, it does mean something. Most likely they weren't getting 3 or 4 minutes a night they were likely getting 9 or 10 but weren't good enough to do anything with them and that didn't even matter because they're your players, and I'm sure this concept is lost on Russians or Canadians but it does mean a lot if your countries kids can aspire to be even a bottom 4 defenseman playing bottom 4 minutes.
Are there any news now? If I am not mistaken, the deadline for registration in KHL is April 1, though I am not sure if Medvescak has to re-join the league as they are already part of it. Let's keep your fingers crossed for the best. Who knows, maybe next few years will bring huge improvements to Zagreb and we'll see a competitive, CSKA-punching Medvescak soon.
, all we are saying are facts, and facts don't lie : EBEL were more attended league when it comes to Medvescak for several, already mentioned, reasons.
The general assumption is that because of it's higher salaries, the KHL is the highest league in the world. There are counter examples however, like Steven Siego going to the KHL and scoring at a higher clip than when he was in Liiga, or Peter Regin's stats ballooning from the AHL to the KHL are just a few examples. Overall the debate is not as clear cut as some would like to think. In my personal opinion a team like CSKA is better than teams that other leagues have to offer, but a team like Riga would probably fare even worse in another league say the AHL or Liiga.
people like EBEL because of rivalries (a lot of geopolitical history also) and having a core of players stick around. There is no MedveÅ¡čak player that is actually capable of playing in KHL that is there for more than a year and the worst is that players leave in the middle of a season. You really have to be a masochist to always learn new players name(s).
Linglet, Vesce, Cheechoo => gone.
Brust, Murray (my favourite) => gone.
Kinrade => gone. (just some good players)
Everyone capable of playing KHL-ish hockey => gone.
But yeah, Krošelj is still there
don't think that there is as much emotional connection with fans in KHL as it was in EBEL, and people like that. Not to say rivalries with other teams.
edit: reading this, think I need to clarify, I think that KHL is great thing for MedveÅ¡čak, just that team's management has to change certain things in the way team is managed to make sure people stay interested in a team. Attendance will continue to fall because there is too many matches over short period of time for people's budget.
I've seen the word alternative thrown around hfboards by a lot of people whose first languages weren't english. Depends one what you mean really by alternative. Alternative as in another options for fans? Sure, I guess, people in europe follow their local leagues more now, that would be a yes. Alternative to players? Yes, for those bordeline NHL/AHL players, or to players who were never close to NHL quality. Elite players playing in other leagues though? That's still rare. A few now, a few back in the day as well, maybe right now's few is slightly larger than back in the day's few, nothing too notable.
