Last Saturday, KHL president Alexander Medvedev was asked about the possibility of Russian superstars like Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin returning to their homeland to play hockey.
“Next season there may be pleasant surprises,” he told the Sport-Express reporter, according to translation work done by Russian Machine Never Breaks' Igor Kleyner. “Let's wait.”
It's an ambiguous—one might even use the standby Russian cliche and call it enigmatic—answer, and one that makes logical sense from Medvedev’s perspective. After all, such an answer does two things that work in the KHL’s favour.
First, it suggests that the KHL and NHL are true competitors for talent on relatively equal footing, and it reminds the powers that be in the NHL that the primarily Russian league has options other than renewing the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that prevents cross-league poaching.
These comments may represent simple political posturing by Medvedev, but there may also be some substance to them. If there is, the KHL would look beyond renewing its MOU with the NHL when the deal ...
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
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September 3rd, 2014 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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