Translated material
The Spartak principle
The decision regarding the fate of Spartak was simple and obvious. In the 2005-2006 season, the Moscow team took tenth place among 18 participants in the regular season and was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. That is, according to sporting principles, I had every right to start in the current championship. However, the financial collapse did not allow this to be done; Spartak refused to play in the second most important league and the three-time USSR champion was disbanded. They sold the club too late, and by the start of the current season, Spartak simply did not have time to enter the super league. In order to play in the next championship, Spartak had to secure the unanimous support of all clubs currently playing in the Super League. And, fortunately, they gave such consent.
Such consistency will be very useful to the management of Russian clubs when solving much more fateful problems than the return of Spartak. On the eve of the current championship, some clubs waged an information war with the leadership of the Hockey Federation and personally its boss Vladislav Tretyak because of the new championship regulations. For example, with enormous difficulty we managed to reach an agreement on the legionnaires. But the main issue on which the real strength of the Russian Super League and our entire hockey as a whole depends—relationships with the National Hockey League—remained unresolved. Moreover, although the management of Russian clubs continues to persist in their reluctance to enter into an agreement with the NHL, which is why the best players leave or simply flee overseas without compensation to our teams that raised them, even in the Russian championship itself, transfers are regulated extremely vaguely. Because of this, almost all of our clubs have become a passing yard, and some hockey players manage to change two or three teams during the season.
Again, if one team is fighting a legal fight for its player, who, in its opinion, illegally left overseas (remember the recent Malkin case and the obviously senseless attempts of the Magnitogorsk Metallurg to sue him from the NHL), other clubs do not seek to support their colleagues in this fight . Like, the competitor has weakened - what more could you want? Although many teams suffer from this problem.
The story of the restoration of Spartak Moscow should become a school of consensus in Russian club hockey and a precedent for the victory of common sense over the likes and dislikes of team leaders. Such a consensus would not interfere with the development of transparent rules for the transfer of hockey players in the domestic championship that do not leave room for broad interpretations. Moreover, rules that could exist for many years. For example, the introduction of a draft system that has proven itself well in the same National Hockey League - the right of clubs to select starting players or players who have become free agents, depending on their place in the last championship.
Finally, the ability to act together would help break the impasse in Russia's relations with the NHL. After all, if our clubs are not satisfied with the compensation for players that the NHL management imposes (namely, because of the small amount of compensation, Russia refuses to sign an agreement with the best hockey league in the world), we can, through joint efforts, try to organize negotiations on other, more substantial amounts.
In the meantime, the NHL (here we are not even comparing the business components of the two leagues) is a solid and well-functioning corporation, capable of overcoming crises and even lockouts. And the Russian Super League is still a collection of teams that are sometimes openly at odds with each other, whose leadership is unable to agree on joint actions even when their interests coincide objectively and unconditionally.
Club patriotism does not suffer at all from such cohesion. After all, the clearer the rules of life of the super league are, the more reasonable we reach an agreement with the NHL, the stronger the domestic championship will become. And the stronger the championship, the more reasons the most talented Russian players will have to stay in it.