KHL - Continental Hockey League

[Simeunov]

Taken from an article on eurohockey.net with some minor changes, and personal addition of information. What is the KHL? With the start of the new hockey season, the Russians will introduce a new hockey league, the KHL (Continental hockey league). The new KHL will count twenty-four teams, the current Superleague clubs + teams from former USSR: Barys Astana from Kazakhstan, Dynamo Minsk (Belarus) and Dynamo Riga (Latvia). The teams have been split in four division with six teams each. The divisions names are as follows: Bobrov , Kharlamov, Tarasov and Chernyshev, representing former superstars and legends of Russian (Soviet) hockey. The following represents a tabular display of current divisions, and the teams that compete in the KHL: Bobrov Division-Salavat Yulaev Ufa, Dynamo Minsk, Spartak Moscow, Metallurg Novokuznetsk, Severstal Cherepovets, Atlant Mytischi Tarasov Division-Metallurg Magnitogorsk, Khimik Voskresensk*, Traktor Chelyabinsk, HC MVD Balashikha, SKA St-Petersburg, CSKA Moscow Kharlamov Division-Avangard Omsk, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, Lada Togliatti, Sibir Novosibirsk, Amur Khabarovsk, Dinamo Riga Chernyshev Division-AkBars Kazan, Barys Astana, Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod, Vityaz Chekhov, Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk, Dynamo Moscow *- Note that Avtomobilist Ekaterinburg was previously selected to participate in the league, however, due to serious financial problems, the leagues officials have determined that it will not compete in the KHL, since it doesn’t fulfill its standards. The team will be replaced by Khimik Voskresensk. Regular season and playoffs system During the regular season, the teams will play four games against their division’s rivals, and two games against other division’s clubs, for a total of fifty-six games. After the regular season the first sixteen will fight in the playoffs stage, with the first four seeds being the winner of each division, just like in the NHL. Playoffs’ first round will be a best-of-five series, while the latter rounds will be made up of best-of-seven battles, and the final winner will be awarded with the Gagarin Cup, in glory of their national hero and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. The final match of the playoffs is supposed to be played in April 12th, the anniversary of Gagarin’s trip in the space. Salary cap and contracts The new league will also set rules for contracts. Like the past two years the league will have a salary cap system, but in the next season it will be somewhat different. Every team will have to spend a maximum of 562.500.000 rubles (roughly $23.5 mln), split in this way: 400.000.000 ($16.7 mln) for twenty-one players, 162.500.000 ($6.8 mln) for four “star” players. The teams must register for not more than twenty-five players, and among these twenty-five every club has the right to register four “star” players. Three can be chosen freely by the club, plus another one who satisfies these requirements: - has played not less than 40 matches (20 matches for goalkeepers) in the last NHL season - is a junior player of Canadian or American nationality, but younger than 20 and selected in the first three rounds of the NHL entry draft - is a player coming from European leagues that has played in the last World Championships or in the last Olympic tournament. KHL will also use a new contract system, and three different types will be used: - Standard “First team” contract – one-way - Contract “First team plus farm team” – two-way - Junior contract (agreement for studying in sport school) Standard contracts can be signed by any player older than seventeen, but such young players must sign a four-year deal. Players locked by their team for the draft (another league’s innovation that will be described later on in the post) can sign the first contract at sixteen. Players at first contract will earn 500.000 rubles if locked for the draft, 300.000 if selected in the first round. This sum will grow of the 20% in the second season, 30% in the third season and 50% for the fourth. The farm teams will play in a league organized by the FHR. KHL “Entry” Draft and “Waivers” Draft The first KHL draft will be held in Moscow in July 2009, so it will start only from the second season of the new league. It will be held yearly and the teams will acquire the rights on European and North American players. Every team can lock up to three players from their junior team. The draft system plans compensations for the teams who pick a player from the school of another team in the process, 3.000.000 rubles for a first rounder, 2.000.000 for a second, and so on. Additionally, before of the start of every season, a “waivers” draft will be conducted, in the fashion of the old waivers draft in the NHL. Every team will declare twenty players (two goalkeepers and eighteen skaters), the ones that aren’t declared can be chosen by other teams. Note that players with two-way contracts can’t be claimed. The order of this draft will be standings-reversed, meaning that the last placed team can select first, and so on. The draft is introduced to give an opportunity as for domestic, so for foreign players, and based on the new rules, its quite similar to NHL draft system. Transfer market and imports rules The transfer market will not be done with money and cheques, but with exchanges, like in the National Hockey League. After every player-exchange the players will keep their contract conditions. The players-exchange deadline is set for January 15th. Also free agents rules have been changed, now “restricted” free agents movement will seek fix compensation between teams, matching half of the contract-offer. The rosters must be not bigger than twenty-five players, with a maximum of five foreigners. In any match the teams can declare not more than four imports. The no-foreign-goalkeepers rule seems to be gone. TV rights, sponsorship, marketing Right now, the most demanding task is setting up the league's "central command" in the areas of promotion, merchandising, and global broadcasting rights. Most of the teams are owned by wealthy Russian businessmen, which are more and more interested in this sport, and are regularly investing their funds into the teams, and besides them there are also oil& steel companies around the country that have their shares in the teams. But being fairly new to this most of the teams will have to acquire aid from professional sports agencies that are handling all off-ice corporate sponsorship and on-ground production of the league, which include main sponsorship rights package for founder, partner level sponsorship, government relations, licensee, liaising with individual ownership groups of different teams etc. A special satellite TV-channel "НТВ+ Наш хоккей" (NTV+ Our Hockey) will be created prior the start of the season. Some of the games will be broadcasted by RTR-Sport and other federal and regional channels. Latvian TV3 is one of four candidates (together with LNT, LTV7 and Russian PBK). The biggest investment plan, which most of the teams are targeting at the moment, is marketing. Promotion and introduction of the new league& its rules is essential for its growth, expansion and success, so a number of teams will host promotional pre-season games in European countries, mostly in Scandinavian region. The second big impact that the marketing should have is to lure European teams to the league, since the KHL officials have stated that they would like to invite several teams from the Europe to the league, creating a similar competition like EHL in 1996. According to the media, the organizers of KHL have also stated that two Swedish, and one Finnish, one German and one Austrian team has expressed interest in playing in the KHL in the 2009/10 season. They are looking to add EC Red Bull Salzburg from the Austrian Hockey League, Eisbaren Berlin from DEL, Färjestads BK from Swedish Elitserin, Karpat Oulu and are under negotiations with Jokerit Helsinki from SM-Liiga. Personal view It will definitely be interesting to see how this project moves forward. If it works out and additional European teams are added, it is very possible that more players from the NHL and farms move to Europe (a tendency which has already taken place - ©ashin, Mason, Morozov, Jagr, …) The league itself is formed to basically re-unite former USSR teams, but it is aiming towards creating a European-based competition, where as the top teams from European elite leagues like Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic will compete. The idea is quite good, but the outcome and the realization will be most difficult for sure. Besides the fact that some of the teams that have actually been invited have shown interest in KHL, most of the community agrees that the teams should stay in their domestic leagues, as the marketing and the games themselves would be tough to arrange, for instance, imagine Torpedo from Nizhny Novgorod or Traktor Chelyabinsk coming to Finland to play against Karpat. Its quite a long trip to go, and it would be hard to draw the fans since of the marketing issues. I mean sure, everyone would be interested to see the teams in the start, but eventually they might dislike it badly, and it could come to that the league just falls apart, and the community outraged by the fact that their teams aren’t competing where they should, in their elite leagues. Or take for example Salzburg, they have a good income in their own league, and if they would leave it they would certainly lose some of the income, and to be quite honest their sponsors would probably leave them, not just because of fear of failure, but they just don’t see Russia as a potential “money ground”. Apart from that, some of the teams have already shown signs of financial problems. Since of new rules, every team must have a farm club (this is exactly what could happen with the Latvian powerhouse team Riga 2000 - it will become a farm club to Riga Dynamo and continue to pay in the Baltic Samsungliga (or the Belarus league). The same could work with the Austrian Salzburg). And I seriously doubt that German fans would have any kind of interest in such a league. They care about the rivalry with other German teams, not some Russian teams they probably never have heard of. Then there’s the fact that the German league is owned by the teams which play in it, it is anything but easy to get out of that deal. That leaves only cities without a current DEL-team in contention, and only one of those is capable of being a mid-level DEL team money wise. That's still far away from $10 million or more. The hockey version of Champions League isn't even working, and it's just a few games. It will take a marketing effort that is not of this world to make this concept work, if they want European teams in that is. There is some sort of arena requirement as well, every team must have access to an arena of some minimum player seats (this is a bit problematic for Riga Dynamo. It has access to the Arena Riga which satisfies the requirement (it was built for the World Hockey Championship in 2006) but it is also used for a lot of other stuff - all major concerts, basketball, etc. The new owners have stated that they will build a new arena for the team, but then again its still an issue, and there is about a month till the league starts. But still, there will be a couple of teams that will aim for the title, some of which are: Slavat Ufa (they have quite a good school of players and they were most impressive in the last season) Dinamo (they have quite a good team, with the addition of new players they will surely be able to qualify for the play-offs) Metallurg Magnitogorsk ( mighty sponsor, superb overall roster, quality experience, indestructible @ home, you name it, they have it, they just need the trophy to wrap it up) Lokomotiv Yaroslavl (quite a good side over the past years, they have shown to be a tough challenge even for the top teams, and with their roster boosted they will certainly manage to show as challenging rivals) Avangard Omsk ( with the newest addition of NHL all-star Jaromir Jagr, the team’s morale will certainly fly high throughout the season. They have been quite good so far, lets hope that they continue it this year aswell) SKA St. Petersburg ( they haven’t shown much in the start of the previous season, but as the year passed away they simply started to nail every opponent, they even had 5 or 6 victories in a row, constantly boosted by hot streaks they managed to finish with good overall result. With the addition of their coach Barry Smith, who has won 5 Stanley Cup trophies ( 3 with Red wings, 2 with Penguins), the experience will definitely be on their side, they have a great opportunity of taking the trophy in their halls). Not quite sure about the former USSR teams, but Dynamo Minsk could show as a challenge for everyone, they have quite a interesting rooster with couple of local and Russian players, and some former NHL players like Chiodo, Ulanov and Rycroft. It will be a difficult challenge to put off, and it certainly won’t be easy for the teams either. This league has a lot of question marks around it, and don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have European teams that are competing with NHL, but the main aim for the new league should be to make it profitable. Not compete against NHL but have profits, since a hockey team isn't an expensive toy, it should be a business project. That’s how the teams in the NHL are working, and that is certainly how they should be planning their future if they want for this idea to survive.