Yakushev72
Registered User
- Dec 27, 2010
- 4,550
- 372
Investments in what? No one is really doubting the existence of money flows in Russian hockey. The real question though is about how this money is being used, and whether faith in privatized funding - and its inevitable bottom line of profit-earning - is justified.
I really do not see much overlap in interests between the KHL as a business and player development. It's like apples and oranges. The KHL will make money with clubs signing guys like Steve Moses to contracts. But with prospects you need patience and a belief in something outside of that bottom line.
Take a prospect like Andrei Svechnikov. If he becomes a great NHLer this would be great news for Russian player development. But it will in no way benefit businessmen who make their money off the KHL. So I don't get why we're looking to them to be sensitive to the matters of player development.
Maybe I am missing something, so please explain it to me. And while you are at it, explain to me what incentives are in place to bring back the U18 team in the MHL and what incentives are in place to improve the lives and playing conditions of young players in general?
If they are waiting for private investment money to be available for investment in hockey outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, they are going to waiting for 40 or 50 years, or maybe never. Maybe a few oil cities, but not nearly enough to bridge the huge gap enjoyed by Canada, the US, Sweden and Finland. It has to be the government or nothing. Maybe in the US or Canada the local population pays enough tax money to fund building rinks and paying coaches, but not in Russia. It has to come out of Moscow, or not at all.