I'll be very surprised if Russia doesn't consistently make the finals of both the World Champs and the Olympics, all the way up to the 2014 Winter Olympics. The way they're playing now, and the crop of yonug players they've got, I have to say it looks like Russia will be a strong favorite to take Olympic gold in Vancouver.
I admit I'd personally love that, because the Canadians already lost their home World Champs to Russia. Having them lose the Olympics at home would just be too good.
Sweden and Finland, on the other hand, were disappointing, and the Czech team was something of a non-entity. The Czechs and Slovaks will slip to second-rate hockey countries over the next five years or so unless something dramatic happens. Similarly, Bengt-Åke Gustafsson's Sweden ain't looking so hot.
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Representing Team Russia in the tournament was Alexander Radulov, who made headlines by signing with a Russian league team in the off-season although he was under contract with the Nashville Predators. Radulov scored twice against Finland on Saturday, and was chosen as a tournament all-star.
For the Hockey News, especially Ken campbell has been very holier-than-thou about Radulov, and the IIHF's failure to ban him from international play. He also recently described KHL president Alexander Medvedev as "a man who has no respect for the sanctity of a contract".
Campbell isn't the only one to get on a high horse in North America on the "sanctity of contracts". The KHL has been panned as an unprincipled bush league compared to the supposedly high morals of the NHL.
Oh, really? From a European perspective, no-one in North America has any business moralizing on the "sanctity of contracts".
Take a recent example. This September, the Los Angeles Kings signed two players they had drafted from the KHL. The KHL protested, saying that the players were under contract to KHL teams. This is the NHL's reply:
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly disputed the KHL's claims in an e-mail sent to The Associated Press. Daly said the league approved both contracts "on the basis of evidence that the two players were free of contractual obligations elsewhere.
"The NHL is not in violation of any agreement with the KHL, nor are we in violation of our long-standing policy to respect the contracts of other leagues."
Basically, they replied by claiming the players are not under contract. I don't know what the exact legal situation is, but it's the last part there that is ludicrous.
What, exactly, is the NHL's "respect" for the contracts of other leagues? Whenever the NHL negotiates a transfer agreement with the European leagues, they insist on all manner of loopholes and exemptions that make this "respect" a complete joke. Among the stipulations of the old transfer agreement was that any player who has ever played even a single game in the NHL in their career are exempt from any and all restrictions on transfers.
Under this exemption, goaltender Tim Thomas left Jokerit one day before the season opener, completely ignoring any contractual obligations to Jokerit. In general, the transfer agreements are negotiated so that almost any even vaguely NHL-eligible players include a release clause in their contracts saying that they are free to sign with NHL teams. If European leagues dare to protest these exemptions, the NHL has always been prepared to go completely without a transfer agreement and just sign whoever they want. In practice, the transfer agreements let them do exactly that.
As a side note, imagine a condition like this in, say, soccer. Say the English Premier League could sign anyone they wanted, from any other league, with a pittance for a transfer fee and no-one giving a damn for the players' previous contracts. That would never be tolerated. In hockey, however, things are a little different.
When this is how the NHL "respects" other leagues' contracts, pundits like Campbell moralizing on "the sanctity of the contract" is not only ridiculous, it's offensive. The NHL and its Canadian fanboys continue to regard their league as the only real hockey league in the world and walk all over every other ice hockey organization. When people like Campbell lambast the IIHF for not having balls, many of us in Europe agree. However, our problem is that the IIHF doesn't have the balls to stand up to the NHL.
As for Campbell's insistence that Radulov be banned from international competition, he's again showing a typical disregard for the facts. The IIHF did ban Radulov; his own Hockey News told us they did. The NHLPA protested, and the ban was revoked.
"Yesterday's announcement by the IIHF that they have suspended certain players from international competition has no basis in fact or law, and constitutes a violation of the rights of these players," NHLPA executive director Paul Kelly said Saturday.
Campbell's moralizing over Radulov is such complete bullshit that I find it hard to take his writings seriously. He's wearing the typical Canadian blinkers where the NHL poaching players from every league in the world is perfectly all right, but the instant an NHL team loses a player, it's an infamous crime against "the sanctity of contracts".
Remember a guy called Evgeni Malkin? Who walked out on his contract to a Russian team to sign with the Penguins? Remember how the NHL respected the "sanctity of his contract" and refused ot sign him, and Ken Campbell and other Canadian hockey pundits roundly condemned Malkin for breaking contract? Funny, I only remember the first two parts. I hope you don't remember the latter two, because they never happened. Maybe some contracts are more sacred than others?
This Canadian attitude, which I've referred to several times here, is a very real impediment to the popularity and spread of the sport. As long as one continent, one league and effectively one nation continue to regard the game as theirs and have absolutely zero respect for anyone else, it's hurting the game. Of course, they don't give a shit about the game of hockey; not Ken Campbell, not Don Cherry, not one Canadian hockey patriot. They care about their Canadian conception of hockey, where the sport is subordinate to their bigoted idea of national superiority.
The truth is, the sport doesn't belong to anyone. If the NHL ever recognized that, and treated other leagues as anything like equals instead of despicable bush leagues, the sport would benefit immensely. Unfortunately, it's a vain hope.
4 comments:
Wow, maybe you should get your facts straight about Evgeni Malkin. Maybe you would find out that he was forced to sign his Metallurg contract under duress, with the team officials staying at his house and refusing to leave until he signed, yelling at his parents etc, unlike Radulov who left for more money. Malkin was offered more money in Russia,he wanted to come to the NHL anyways. Malkin always let it be known that he wanted to come to the NHL to play, and was told "next year" by his RUssian team. Also, he was condemned in Russian after he left. Get your facts straight. Malkin and RAdulov are nothing alike.
The only fact that counts here is that the NHL didn't give a flying fuck about the "sanctity of contract" when Malkin signed with Pittsburgh. That's my only issue. He was clearly under contract, as clearly as Radulov was, and no-one cared.
They had both signed contracts, yes, but how they signed them was totally different. Not the same at all. Why should the NHL honor a contract when someone is forced to sign?
Hence the hypocrisy. Some contracts are obviously more sacred than others. If the NHL has no problem with Malkin walking out on his contract, I don't see where Ken Campbell gets off accusing the KHL of not respecting the "sanctity of contracts".
Also, by the way, why do you seem to unconditionally believe Malkin's story? We only have his word for any of that stuff. He's making a fair deal more money in Pittsburgh than he did in Magnitogorsk. Why do you presume Radulov is only after money, but Malkin is escaping oppression?
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