KHL Expansion part II
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They're throwing money away aimlessly into Zvezda. It's comparing apples and oranges though. Most zvezda clubs are comprised of domestic folk ya know.
It's hard to imagine that in Zagreb too. But Minsk has done that kind of stuff ya know.
Attendance levels have slowly risen in Russia though. Give it time, nothing happens over night, the KHL is still in its very early years.
Riga is owned by russians and pro-russian latvians if I am not mistaken? I don't know for sure though, I don't follow them. On the other hand, Riga is a rather developed hockey country, unlike Croatia. Hence all those factors add in. The Latvians can produce domestic talent.
Other point - even though the 1990s are long gone, the politics and ideology has not died away. It did not die away during the communist era, and it certainly is not gone now. It is alive and rumbling. The croat people finally kicked out that crazy party, but they can't undo what they did for some 20 years.
Nonetheless, Medvescak plays a very important role right now, in my opinion... it sets and example like Poprad did.
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it doesn't really matter who play for the team ,the thing that matter is who is waching it. and medveščak is by far the most wached pro team in croata (totals and averages).
medveščak actually already did it even in lesser league:
http://www.monitor.hr/vijesti/na-sedam-utakmica-medvescaka-u-areni-105-000-navijaca/190281/
dinamo minsk is only one out of 28 teams.
the key word is slowly and zagreb already has it.
and medveščak is own by some bunch of anti russian guys? medveščak's president damir gojanović lived in russia during 90's, and he basically put the ice rink in arena pula in the mid summer just to give khl president an opportunity to play hockey in 2000 year old roman amphitheatre.
producing domestic talent doesn't have anything with professional sports. i mean it's not like that vladivostok produced many great players so they deserved khl franchise.
actually, the party has started here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdU6ngDhrAA
there are some significant differences between zagreb and poprad. zagreb is about 20times bigger, has 15200 seat arena (which looks nice on the khl wiki site) it is capital of 4.5m country and it is pretty much hockey mad (by european standards).
of course, it doesn't guarantee that medveščak will be in the khl five or ten years from now, but i don't think it is just a stopgap like poprad was. of course, if fans interest drop significantly there will be no khl in zagreb anymore, but so far, i don't see many signs of that happening.
vorky
@vorkywh24
- Jan 23, 2010
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agree. I would add one more important point. NOW KHL can choose what euro clubs wants and what not. It was not like that in Poprad case.
Latgale_fan
Registered User
???
By that you probably mean Lestene cemetary for Latvian legionnaires in Waffen SS uniform... Wouldn't call cemetary a ''monument''....
Peter25
Registered User
He meant this: http://en.ria.ru/world/20120917/176013398.html???
By that you probably mean Lestene cemetary for Latvian legionnaires in Waffen SS uniform... Wouldn't call cemetary a ''monument''....
About a year ago there was a monument unveiled in honor/memory of Latvian soldiers who fought in the Latvian Waffen SS legion during the WWII.
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exactly. and iirc, there were also some nazi monument issues before latvia joined eu.
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Pominville Knows
Registered User
One thing that is interesting about Zagreb is that it's in a country that is probably not all that seduced by the NHL as say Sweden and Finland mainly are, but also the Czech Republic and Slovakia to some extent. Having fans really believing that the KHL is both the beginning and the end of club hockey in Europe sends me thinking about the spectator numbers in Germany and Switzerland, that even though those leagues are hardly top notch even in Europe people come in mass to follow them.
jaco
Registered User
- Oct 21, 2011
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I disagree. NLA certainly is top notch in Europe. At least as far as hockey is concerned. I'd rate them as n°2 in Europe, and the gap between KHL and NLA isn't all that big.
NLA is almost as strong as KHL and far surperior to SHL while DEL is more or less at the same playing level as SHL. And both NLA and DEL have better attendance than KHL and SHL.
Almost as strong as KHL, that's why Avto and Kuznya crushed everyone there during this preseason. And it's not the results I'm talking about. I was left very underwhelmed by NLA teams performances. NLA is overrated, and all because of Zurich's success a long time ago. Sure, it's a good league, one of the top 5 for sure. But I don't know on what basis you're saying that they're far superior to Swedes...
Jussi
Registered User
Don't mix a couple of good teams(Zürich and Bern) as representing the whole quality of the league. SHL has the edge in overall depth. Same goes for 1üga.
jaco
Registered User
- Oct 21, 2011
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Wow. Close results against middle-class NLA teams?
And Swedish league is completely watered down with all good players going to NA.
But the Finnish league is really getting weaker every year with players leaving for Russia at first chance. They even reached DEL level or worse by now.
Wow. Close results against middle-class NLA teams?
And Swedish league is completely watered down with all good players going to NA.
Exactly. Middle-class. There are more top-class KHL teams than there are teams in total in NLA. I can name 12 who won't have any problems with any of the NLA teams. And then there is a level above, like Dynamo or SKA.
@ Billy, to address a few things...
- Yes, Minsk is such an example, but the reason why is because they have such an arena. Their previous arena was quite small. Hockey infrastructure in the former USSR is nowhere near its potential, so we will see more of that. We take for example SKA attendance in 2000 er so, and today... it used to be almost empty, now it's all full. There are such trends, but it takes a) time, and b) more time to build infrastructure.
- True, zagreb has that, but I do not see that being a unique thing to them in the future. That is why I said that I feel that their presence at this moment is a good thing. But, in the future I do not see their presence as good.
- I think that domestic talent does have some effect. I see that as a main reason why there aren't (and won't be) teams in the KHL from Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc...
- Very nice that you pulled up that speech from 1989, too bad you didn't actually listen to it. Look into it, http://www.hirhome.com/yugo/bbc_milosevic.htm , do a search for the paragraph that starts out with, "Serbia has never had only Serbs living in it.", and see the following paragraph too. It's miles away from the xenophobia that was transmitted by others.
Well we will see. i will bet you one virtual beer on this, that within five years they will be gone. )
Keep in mind, people like to see their home team win, not lose.
- Yes, Minsk is such an example, but the reason why is because they have such an arena. Their previous arena was quite small. Hockey infrastructure in the former USSR is nowhere near its potential, so we will see more of that. We take for example SKA attendance in 2000 er so, and today... it used to be almost empty, now it's all full. There are such trends, but it takes a) time, and b) more time to build infrastructure.
- True, zagreb has that, but I do not see that being a unique thing to them in the future. That is why I said that I feel that their presence at this moment is a good thing. But, in the future I do not see their presence as good.
- I think that domestic talent does have some effect. I see that as a main reason why there aren't (and won't be) teams in the KHL from Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc...
- Very nice that you pulled up that speech from 1989, too bad you didn't actually listen to it. Look into it, http://www.hirhome.com/yugo/bbc_milosevic.htm , do a search for the paragraph that starts out with, "Serbia has never had only Serbs living in it.", and see the following paragraph too. It's miles away from the xenophobia that was transmitted by others.
Well we will see. i will bet you one virtual beer on this, that within five years they will be gone. )
Keep in mind, people like to see their home team win, not lose.
Jussi
Registered User
Pominville Knows
Registered User
Yeah i think it's great you guys keep believing so, that as a matter of fact was what i was talking about. Even though most of your star players are north american leftovers and others are Linus Omark's and Calle Ridderwall's that tears the leagues to shreads. Keep packing those arenas for the greatest sport on earth!
Sokil
Ukraine Specialitsky
Guntis Ulmanis, Aigars Kalvītis, Juris Savickis
owned by no russians.
Ulmanis is anti-Russian (family was exiled by Soviets, his policy kicked Russian troops out when he became president),
Kalvitis is also not pro-Russian by any show of his political alignment (pro-Latvian)
Reads the text on this twitter.
https://twitter.com/Hockeynytt1/statuses/382848167857115136
And on their facebook they say pretty much the same.
https://www.facebook.com/Hockeynytt/posts/712284362132727
Anyone heard something more of this? In Russian media perhaps?
Pominville Knows
Registered User
I like the idea if true. If this happens, it will be interesting to follow swedish hockey federation. Having KHL team in Finland/Norway is not the best scenario for Sweden. On the other hand, if true, Sweden will have what they want.
Sounds great! For me it would be just as close to travel to Oslo as Stockholm.
So, as I understand from their facebook post they want to create a new club in Norway that will join KHL in 14/15 ?!
vorky
@vorkywh24
- Jan 23, 2010
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