Watch Out NHL! Here Comes A Pro Hockey League in Europe

This is from Howard Bloom's Sports Business News site. It obviously curtails any international expansion plans the NHL may have.

Revolution in Hockey? European NHL Set To Emerge in 2006
Monday, November 14 2005

A counterweight to the NHL could emerge in Eastern Europe next year. Director of the State Sports Agency of Russia Vyacheslav Fetisov, an Olympic champion, NHL Hall of Famer and a two time Stanley Cup winner, decided to make the difference in the hockey world and came up with a new project that could materialize into a new hockey league that would unite the best teams of the post-Soviet countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Kazakhstan. It looks like a huge gamble to many, but Vyacheslav Fetisov is sure it’ll work out and take Russian hockey to the next level. Russian Hockey Digest is offering a review of what’s been happening and how the project has been developing ever since it was mentioned in the media for the first time.

This spectacular event came into being on September 16th 2005 when Soviet Sport published Fetisov’s interview in which he spoke about his intentions to establish a new hockey league which would build relations with the NHL on the basis of equality. In this interview Fetisov also said that a group of experts had been working on the legal matters of this issue for one and a half years and the preparations had reached a high stage of development. According to Fetisov, this project was approved by the Presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia. Fetisov also said he took a trip to Riga and got an approval from Latvian officials, too. Soviet Sport also mentioned that according to their information Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich who is also the owner of the Chelsea English Premier League football club also favored this idea.

President of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation Alexander Steblin was approached by Soviet Sport and asked for comments. Steblin sounded quite skeptical saying that ‘this project’s nothing but populism’. ‘We tried to establish a hockey league with teams from the former Soviet Union countries in the early 90s…Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan left due to economical reasons…there’s much more to it than has been said, how are Superleague teams going to get to Ust-Kamenogorsk? Planes fly to Alma-Ata but not to Ust-Kamenogorsk…we’ve managed to keep Soviet hockey, teams from Ukraine and Belarus participate in Russian championship…if we want to establish a united league we have to set equal requirements for every team, can you be sure that teams from the post-Soviet countries will fit into these requirements? In order to establish such a league we have to prepare all the legal documents, assign a task force, promulgate the regulations…that’s some serious work,’ – he said.