Journey home. And back?

Lockout in the NHL: the holiday in Russia will be bright, but hardly long

The lockout in the overseas National Hockey League, about the inevitability of which only the lazy did not speak, has become a given since yesterday. The probability that the parties will agree a few hours before the official announcement, as of yesterday morning, was one thousandth, no more. Everyone already knew: the agreement between the league and the NHL players' union has not been extended, training camps do not open, there is no calendar, the season will definitely not open in a month.

The United States sighed bitterly, Canada completely hung its head, Europe, and above all Russia, opened its arms to overseas stars. The best league in the world (no one argues with this in relation to the NHL) for the third time in the last 17 years sent its hockey players to free swimming. Not everyone understands that an unexpected gift can turn out to be a Trojan horse. And what is there to understand when you need to urgently use the moment!

Evgeni Malkin, today the best forward in the world, as well as one of the most experienced NHL defenders Sergey Gonchar, had already trained with Metallurg Magnitogorsk a day before the official notice of the suspension of the process. But these are only the first signs. Not all players have decided yet, not all top clubs have decided who should be offered a contract.

The risk is not only financial. Everything is not as simple as it seems at first glance. Even for Magnitogorsk, which has already made a bet on Zhenya Malkin. Even for SKA, which has already agreed with Ilya Kovalchuk. Although eight years have passed since the last lockout, everyone remembers the lessons of the 2004/2005 season very well.

Yes, the situation is different now.

As it was before

The first overseas lockout, which somehow affected Russian hockey, happened in the fall of 1994. Club owners and the players' union rested their foreheads, the season did not start on time, and in order to make good use of their free time, our stars organized tours around cities and towns under the ringing slogan "Russian NHL Stars for Children."

And they really were stars: Vyacheslav Fetisov, Igor Larionov, Vladimir Krutov, Sergey Makarov, Pavel Bure, Sergey Fedorov, Alexander Mogilny ... This was their first mass appearance in Russia after the mass departure in the early 90s. But the three-month lockout quickly came to an end.

Ten years later, things got much worse. On February 16, the all-powerful NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced that there would still be no season, even in a truncated form, but the stars had long been cut on the European ice fields. Moreover, if some took advantage of the lockout to repay their small homeland or just their native club (the most striking example is the outstanding Swedish striker Peter Forsberg almost paid for his stay in his native Ørnskjoldsvik himself, and even built a new palace for the MODO club), then others simply got settled earn. Where they pay.

Kazan paid the most, which ended for the same Ak Bars and the “world team” assembled under its flag (15 star names, including Ilya Kovalchuk, Nikolai Khabibulin, Alexei Kovalev, Dany Heatley, Vincent Lecavalier and others) with a complete collapse . And the Moscow Dynamo won the championship, which, along with the Togliatti Lada, did not chase the number of stars, and the hockey players did not chase money. This was the main lesson of "Lockout-2": you need to take only those who are really needed, who will not break the team "chemistry", will not "star", but play to their fullest.

What are they arguing about

They argue across the ocean because they earn. Gary Bettman said so in his penultimate speech: “The lockout for the players will be more losing than the conditions that we offer. Hockey players make too much money." Note: "earn", not "receive". Everyone works hard and productively, gathers full halls, brings in a decent income (last season it was $ 3.3 billion), but the league believes that 57 percent going to the salaries of hockey players is a little too much (this is compared to 51 percent in the basketball NBA and with 48 percent in the baseball league - really a lot). The league's proposal to lower the percentage to 43 was rejected without consideration, concessions (49 percent followed by a decrease) were taken by the union as an insult.

On the part of the trade union, Donald Fehr, experienced in the battles for justice, is negotiating (it was he who defended, and not without success, the rights of baseball players). At the last training camp in New York, he was personally supported by 300 NHL players who still do not want to give up an inch. Well, maybe three percent.

We do not argue because the clubs do not earn, but only spend. And not their own, and quite a lot of money. We are not talking about income, so there is, in fact, nothing to share. You can beat out a more serious personal contract and discuss it, but you can’t set conditions for the entire league - the financial well-being of its constituent clubs is already based on the interest (sincere or not) of corporations or regional administrations. Everyone understands that one must be quiet in a glass house.

And our club owners need millionaire players abandoned by overseas bosses to the mercy of fate. Not least because if people go to hockey, it's not like even a year ago. Attendance has decreased even in the most "hockey" cities - such as Ufa, Omsk, Magnitogorsk. I’m not talking about Moscow - here CSKA can’t gather a full house even with the best Russian hockey player of recent seasons, Alexander Radulov. Why the audience does not go is a mystery. The fact that there will be more of them if Evgeni Malkin, Alexander Ovechkin, Pavel Datsyuk and Ilya Kovalchuk catch up is beyond doubt.

PR and prestige are important things. Maybe the most important ones. Full stands in front of the owner can be justified even with poor results.

You should not forget about the sports component either. But if the lockout is completed before the New Year (the probability of such an outcome is close to 80 percent), then the viewer, who was beckoned by starfall, will feel deceived.

And yet, I still want to look at the “best in the world”, to be honest.

As it will be

And here's how: there are no more than three NHL players per club, of which no more than one legionnaire, and only an elite legionnaire (or more or less elite - there are a number of requirements, the simplest of which is 150 matches played in the NHL over the past three seasons) . The new special provision developed in the KHL really applies only to a dozen clubs - Metallurg Novokuznetsk or the same Avtomobilist from Yekaterinburg definitely does not need it. Pavel Datsyuk is not Peter Forsberg, he will not play for free for the former Sverdlovsk. Like Ilya Kovalchuk, about whom Spartak timidly stuttered.

Dynamo Moscow does not intend to spend crazy money on "native" Alexander Ovechkin. Reasonable - yes, "the issue can be considered" (which the new owner of the club, Arkady Rotenberg, said, correcting his own previous statement). Ovechkin, as well as the highest paid goalkeeper in the world, Ilya Bryzgalov, in the meantime may end up in CSKA - Rosneft has a lot of money.

Foreign stars are a different story. Most often, the name Sidney Crosby sounds, and there’s no one else to name, the fingers of one hand are enough: Shea Weber, Steven Stamkos, Niklas Kronwall ... There is now a starless period across the ocean, and no one needs famous and expensive hockey players of pre-retirement age - we don’t know our own where to attach.

Expectations are high, the benefits are still speculative. Of course, the head coach of the Russian national team Zinetula Bilyaletdinov will have a unique opportunity to look through the entire line of candidates for the national (but most importantly, the Olympic) team, the journalists will have someone to write about, the audience - who to look at. The main time bomb is in the possible short stay of overseas hockey players on Russian ice. Why play with muscles now, when the main strengthening of the top clubs will be required at the end of winter, before the start of the playoffs?

So far, the wisest position is occupied by those NHL players who are in no hurry to Europe. They are ready to find a job in Europe only when it becomes clear that there will definitely not be big hockey overseas this season.

And we need everything at once. Wouldn't choke.