Post by icing101 on Jun 23, 2004 10:51:41 GMT -5
More pressure on Russian Hockey Federation:
Daniil Markov (Danny), one of the best Russian born defenseman in NHL gave an interview to Sovetsky Sport where he confronted the management of Russian Hockey Federation (RHF) and Russian national team as unprofessional. He officially announced through journalist Natalia Bragilevskaia that he will not play for the team at the World Cup.
The interesting fact is that regardless of what Daniil Markov said he likely would not have been able to play for Russia because he went through a surgery on his shoulder on June 3 and started rehabilitation process. Considering the World Cup starts in 10 weeks there is very little chance Danny could play at the World Cup. Daniil was never a vocal leader among Russian hockey players in Russian media and this kind of statement from him and one earlier from Nikolai Khabibulin makes me believe in two things: situation is absolutely the worst in Russian hockey and verbal war started by Russian NHL players against Mr. Steblin and Co. is turning into very well organized campaign.
It is very hard to evaluate the work Russian Hockey Federation has done in the last decade. The most criticism Mr. Steblin receives is for unprofessional approach to everything that comes to National team, which was evident in poor results and a lack of the strategy on improving the National team. On the other side, there was constant improvement in Russian Hockey internally - the leagues are functioning much better than a while ago, there were many positive changes in Russian hockey which cold be credited to RHF to a degree.
With all this together one has to take into account the fact that the Federation received the legacy of old Soviet hockey system, very inflexible and often pathetic when it comes to dealing with human resources - hockey players and coaching staff. This is the problem of whole Russia, not just Russian hockey. It will take years and decades of democracy to change this situation for better.
In this particular case it is well known that the players who has lots of experience in NHL under their belt can not get used back to the way the things are done in Russia. Some do accept this as inevitable fact, some just do not care to bother (Mogilny, Zubov) and some try to change this by expressing themselves in media. But never before there had been such an organized vocal pressure on Russian Hockey Federation by Russian players who play abroad.
There is one more side which might be interested in putting this pressure on RHF. It is NHL. NHL tries to renew the agreement with IIHF similar to the one that just expired. Mr. Bettman, the commissioner of the NHL said:
"We've made clear to both the IIHF and the Russians, that the Russians need to be a party to this agreement and that we're not going to negotiate with the Russians separately. So either we're going to have a framework that has, and provides for the orderly transfer of players between Europe and North America or we won't. And as I've suggested to Rene Fasel and to the Russians, it would be better for the money we spend to go to pay development fees than to pay lawyers to litigate over who was under contract or not.
The agreement has been very effective; has worked very well and I anticipate that when our new world order is in place, that will be part of it."
Of course Mr. Bettman is not fully correct about the agreement being very effective. At least one side, which is Russian clubs are not happy with it. For example Magnitogorsk Metallurg, which has a contract with Evgeny Malkin for three more years would lose him to NHL club for $100.000 according to the expired agreement. Let's say if there was 15 Russian players who were signed by NHL clubs and their affiliates all the clubs would receive a total of $1.5 mil which equals to what reportedly Oleg Tverdovsky makes a year playing for Avangard of Omsk. This does not make sense for Russian clubs losing all the potential young stars for that kind of money.
Mr. Steblin was very firm on his position where he unlikely will be a part of the agreement which NHL offers to IIHF. This would be a very unpleasant situation for NHL as there might be a possibility of tens of court cases between NHL and Russian clubs if there is no agreement at all. Perhaps NHL is trying to put the pressure on Steblin this summer so he would soften on his position or even better if he was replaced by someone else with someone like Larionov who has close roots with NHL and resides in US.
In any case most of the Russian media and fans do have understanding of the position of players like Khabibulin and Markov. But what they do not understand is that these players ignore the fact that they do not play for federations, they play for fans......
Daniil Markov (Danny), one of the best Russian born defenseman in NHL gave an interview to Sovetsky Sport where he confronted the management of Russian Hockey Federation (RHF) and Russian national team as unprofessional. He officially announced through journalist Natalia Bragilevskaia that he will not play for the team at the World Cup.
The interesting fact is that regardless of what Daniil Markov said he likely would not have been able to play for Russia because he went through a surgery on his shoulder on June 3 and started rehabilitation process. Considering the World Cup starts in 10 weeks there is very little chance Danny could play at the World Cup. Daniil was never a vocal leader among Russian hockey players in Russian media and this kind of statement from him and one earlier from Nikolai Khabibulin makes me believe in two things: situation is absolutely the worst in Russian hockey and verbal war started by Russian NHL players against Mr. Steblin and Co. is turning into very well organized campaign.
It is very hard to evaluate the work Russian Hockey Federation has done in the last decade. The most criticism Mr. Steblin receives is for unprofessional approach to everything that comes to National team, which was evident in poor results and a lack of the strategy on improving the National team. On the other side, there was constant improvement in Russian Hockey internally - the leagues are functioning much better than a while ago, there were many positive changes in Russian hockey which cold be credited to RHF to a degree.
With all this together one has to take into account the fact that the Federation received the legacy of old Soviet hockey system, very inflexible and often pathetic when it comes to dealing with human resources - hockey players and coaching staff. This is the problem of whole Russia, not just Russian hockey. It will take years and decades of democracy to change this situation for better.
In this particular case it is well known that the players who has lots of experience in NHL under their belt can not get used back to the way the things are done in Russia. Some do accept this as inevitable fact, some just do not care to bother (Mogilny, Zubov) and some try to change this by expressing themselves in media. But never before there had been such an organized vocal pressure on Russian Hockey Federation by Russian players who play abroad.
There is one more side which might be interested in putting this pressure on RHF. It is NHL. NHL tries to renew the agreement with IIHF similar to the one that just expired. Mr. Bettman, the commissioner of the NHL said:
"We've made clear to both the IIHF and the Russians, that the Russians need to be a party to this agreement and that we're not going to negotiate with the Russians separately. So either we're going to have a framework that has, and provides for the orderly transfer of players between Europe and North America or we won't. And as I've suggested to Rene Fasel and to the Russians, it would be better for the money we spend to go to pay development fees than to pay lawyers to litigate over who was under contract or not.
The agreement has been very effective; has worked very well and I anticipate that when our new world order is in place, that will be part of it."
Of course Mr. Bettman is not fully correct about the agreement being very effective. At least one side, which is Russian clubs are not happy with it. For example Magnitogorsk Metallurg, which has a contract with Evgeny Malkin for three more years would lose him to NHL club for $100.000 according to the expired agreement. Let's say if there was 15 Russian players who were signed by NHL clubs and their affiliates all the clubs would receive a total of $1.5 mil which equals to what reportedly Oleg Tverdovsky makes a year playing for Avangard of Omsk. This does not make sense for Russian clubs losing all the potential young stars for that kind of money.
Mr. Steblin was very firm on his position where he unlikely will be a part of the agreement which NHL offers to IIHF. This would be a very unpleasant situation for NHL as there might be a possibility of tens of court cases between NHL and Russian clubs if there is no agreement at all. Perhaps NHL is trying to put the pressure on Steblin this summer so he would soften on his position or even better if he was replaced by someone else with someone like Larionov who has close roots with NHL and resides in US.
In any case most of the Russian media and fans do have understanding of the position of players like Khabibulin and Markov. But what they do not understand is that these players ignore the fact that they do not play for federations, they play for fans......