On June 29, 1993, the Pittsburgh Penguins did something that no NHL team had ever done: They took out an ownership stake in a major Russian hockey team, buying part of CSKA Moscow, better known to this side of the Atlantic as Central Red Army.
The fall of communism in Eastern Europe changed the world, and those changes also reverberated in hockey. Many of the best players from the other side of the Iron Curtain flocked to North America to play hockey in the NHL. Pittsburgh’s decision, spearheaded by owner Howard Baldwin, showed that American capital could flow to Russia even as Russian players traveled in the other direction.
Red Army needed not only American capital but also a fresh approach to the business of hockey. The one-time dynasty had not handled the political changes of the era well; as Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant noted at the time, the club was drawing crowds of 600 people and having trouble paying the few players it could convince to play for it.
Baldwin told Jacobs that he would turn the team around by running them the same way the Penguins were run, including major league marketing and merchandi ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Jonathan Willis
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