Ok folks, it's time to play connect the dots. Let's start with our friend in Edmonton, Colby Cosh, as he identifies a subtle connection between Russian professional soccer and ice hockey that should have some folks here in North America thinking a little harder than usual:
Russia has already joined Spain and Italy among the pro basketball centres of Europe. Kazan's hockey club, backed by Tatarstan oil giant Tatneft, played this year with a budget estimated at between $50 million and $65 million. This enabled the club to sign five NHL All-Stars and six other NHLers in the lockout-driven buyer's market for labour. And Abramovich himself, whose net worth in dollars is measured at over $10 billion, owns the Avangard team in Omsk (emphasis mine, EMc).This means that the NHL is no longer operating in a vacuum. There's competition in eastern Europe now--competition with the cash to take back east European superstars, and even to steal our own young talents from under our noses. The short-sighted, crabby NHL fans who want the players put in their "place" by the owners had better just hope that place doesn't end up being Moscow.
That's right, Roman Abramovich, the man who bought the English Premier League title for London's Chelsea has a hockey team, and plenty of money to burn. The same Chelsea that had so much talent, it could afford to loan players like Juan Sebastian Veron and Hernan Crespo to either side of the Milan Derby.
Washington Capitals draft pick Alexander Ovechkin is suddenly a man with some options:
Saturday July the 2nd, offered up some more light on the Ovechkin-saga and even gave it a new twist.Dynamo Moskva needed just 30 hours to find the money to match the offer made to the 19-year old forward by Avangard Omsk (emphasis mine, EMc). The figures are still not officially known and probably won
Kazan spent the money because of player availability and the concept that it was a one-time shot at putting a together a team like that. Billionaire or not, no one wants to throw away millions a year (because Kazan does not bring in the money to support that team).
Could the NHL lose out on a few talented overseas players being paid high salaries by local teams? Of course – but is it a major cause of concern right now for the NHL? Not really, I think the permanent exodus of some players has been smaller than expected and reality has hit most of those teams paying huge sums of money for star players (that they can’t afford it long-term unless the owners simply feel like tossing it away).
The more xenophobic fans might also see competition from the Abramoviches of the world as a good thing, because it would keep “them” “over there”, and thus open up more roster slots for homeboys — who, presumably, are easier to identify with (a fantasy if there ever was one).
The other side of this is that the NHL will be under pressure to expand revenues to be able to compete with another viable league. This is a good thing. Competitive pressure is needed to continually improve the quality of one’s product, and everyone knows the NHL needs to do exactly that.
If you don’t think Bettman et. al. understand this, you are sadly mistaken.
Ta,