Here’s the real face of the victimsof the lack of a transfer agreement.  This feud is getting ridiculous.

Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 08/25/09 at 04:33 PM ET

Perhaps someone in Europe with this knowledge can chime in, but doesn’t this somehow violate EU trade and economic agreements, trying to mandate that all contracts disallow a player from leaving the league until age 28?

The idea of a transfer fee is completely fair. If a player wants to move between major professional leagues (such as the NHL, KHL, and SEL), and that player is still under a contract that he voluntarily signed for one of the teams in those leagues, the player should only be able to move if either he or the team he’s moving to can come up with an appropriate amount of cash to cover the transfer fee.

This is a common practice in world soccer.

As far as I can tell, the only reason this isn’t a no-brainer for the NHL is that:

1. The NHL has been spoiled by a nice, cheap pipeline of high-end hockey talent that’s been coming from northern and eastern Europe since the dying days of the Cold War. The talent level of the league has risen dramatically as a result, and it allowed the league to expand and for the owners to collect expansion cash. Fair enough to benefit on one end, but don’t be assholes when people wake up on the other end and realize their hard work in developing and training players is not paying off.

2. The NHL knows that this type of system, though fair, will continue to expose its clubs that reside in weak hockey markets or that have owners with poor financial footing. What would be more embarrassing than if half the teams in the league have to pass on drafting this kid in next year’s draft simply because they cannot afford to pay his transfer fee? Top talent would start falling in the draft from the worst teams on the ice to better and better teams on the ice, perpetuating a cycle where the good organizations get better, and the bad ones get worse.

Posted by Nathan from the scoresheet! on 08/25/09 at 04:38 PM ET

Kid’s got cojones to do that.

The K.H.L. better be very, very careful here—keep in mind that if they want to play ball this way, the NHL can as well.  And the end result would be that every single NHL player would sign contracts from now on with a “No Compete” KHL clause in them.  And then where is the KHL going to get any good players from?

I’ve said this all along—the NHL can quite frankly destroy the KHL any time they see fit to.  That the KHL doesn’t seem to grasp this fact seems to make it more and more inevitable every day…

If the KHL wants to try and combine the best of the best in the Euro leagues that’s fine and dandy.  But you can’t “compete” with the NHL for talent. and survive.  The WHA didn’t.  The IHL 1.0 didn’t.  The KHL won’t.

And Nathan, in point #2 you pretty much described why elite soccer never can or will take any meaningful hold here in America (forget the sport for a minute, I’m talking about the elite tiers and leagues).  We, as Americans, by and large look on that system and think “What a stupid way of doing business” and write it off as ridiculous…  there’s only one major sport in North America with no salary cap even (MLB), and it’s under almost daily pressure to implement one.  We do things differently here.  Just because soccer or any othe rsport or country doesn something another way doesn’t make it better or right.

Posted by Primis on 08/25/09 at 08:28 PM ET

One thing though, the KHL has money…lots of it. It can do anything it wants. The NHL, by contrast, doesn’t have the money as leverage.

I see the KHL getting stronger in this “world economy” and NHL getting weaker. Look at Hudler situation, that proves right there the KHL can get what it wants because they have the money.

Posted by Simian on 08/26/09 at 07:44 AM ET

I’ve said this all along—the NHL can quite frankly destroy the KHL any time they see fit to.  That the KHL doesn’t seem to grasp this fact seems to make it more and more inevitable every day…

If this is the case, why does the KHL still exist? Why would the NHL allow another, competing league, to continue to steal quality talent quietly every year, if you’re saying it doesn’t have to? The NHL has plenty of issues competing for the sports dollar in America. Methinks they’re too busy worrying about their own internal, NHL-specific issues to rise up and try to squash the KHL.

And Nathan, in point #2 you pretty much described why elite soccer never can or will take any meaningful hold here in America (forget the sport for a minute, I’m talking about the elite tiers and leagues).  We, as Americans, by and large look on that system and think ”What a stupid way of doing business” and write it off as ridiculous…

I find this funny, because you’re not the first person I’ve heard say this. And you could very well be right. But what I find funny about this is that the “system” that Americans are so averse to in this case is… capitalism. Instituting salary caps and revenue sharing like the NFL, NHL, and NBA do is essentially creating a communist economy within those organizations. For example—Jerry Jones’ team is responsible for almost 1/4 of the money the NFL makes for licensing fees for merchandising. And yet what’s Jerry Jones’ share? 1/32nd! Is that the American way?

It’s totally counter-intuitive to the way we live our lives in this country every day. I’ll never understand why we think this way. What is it about our sports that makes us hate capitalism in their context?

there’s only one major sport in North America with no salary cap even (MLB), and it’s under almost daily pressure to implement one. 

Is it really under daily pressure to implement a cap? I’m almost as big of a baseball fan as hockey fan, and I rarely hear that discussion. The talk about a cap in MLB usually comes up as part of hot stove discussion when baseball nerds have nothing else to talk about.

Baseball is doing very well right now. All the teams in big-time, big-spending markets (New York, Boston, Philly, LA, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Texas Rangers) are frequently filling their ballparks, and on the field, all the teams in those markets are currently competing for playoff positions.

Furthermore, many teams in small-markets, with less money in their coffers, are still managing to compete with those big-spending teams—the Rockies, Giants, Marlins, and Braves are all in the middle of an exciting wild card race that brings the fans out, and really all those teams still have an outside chance at their division crowns, even. That’s just in the NL. In the AL, the Rays, Twins, and Mariners are all still close enough to either their division crowns or the wild card spot that there’s plenty of reason for those fans to be excited about baseball.

Certainly, there have been a few sad stories in baseball, and instances where the lack of a cap has arguably done clubs in. The Expos/Nationals situation was tough, but much like hockey doesn’t belong in Arizona, perhaps the real lesson was that baseball just can’t grab hold in Montreal.

Anyway, I hate to devolve this hockey blog to a discussion about baseball, but I think the point is clear—the lack of a cap might be a constant discussion amongst a certain group of MLB owners, but to this point I think you are overplaying the amount of “pressure” there is to add a cap to the game, considering how popular and successful the sport has been since the McGwire/Sosa home run chase.

We do things differently here.  Just because soccer or any othe rsport or country doesn something another way doesn’t make it better or right.

I never said it was correct because someone did it that way. I’m saying a proper IIHF transfer agreement with transfer fees as a part of the process would ensure a level playing field for all the major professional hockey leagues. It would prevent all leagues, the NHL included, from watching players walk away from contracts they consensually signed to play in another league, without any compensation coming back. For instance, it would’ve protected the Preds in the Radulov situation, and would’ve protected Detroit in the Hudler situation. The time and money invested in those players wouldn’t just walk out the door indefinitely—the Preds and Wings would’ve at least been able to come to some agreement with the KHL clubs as to a fee that would compensate them for having spent years developing and training the players.

And frankly, I think that looking at how world soccer works is an important model/analogy for the NHL to look at since hockey has a strong international presence. The NFL, NBA, and MLB don’t have to consider these alternatives because there’s far less money playing in the CFL, far less money playing basketball in Italy, and far less money playing baseball in the Dominican or Venezuela than there is in the United States. It’s very cut and dry for those leagues—they don’t have to concede anything because they have all the money already. The NHL was once like this—perhaps the KHL is changing the landscape with it’s powerful, rich ownership base.

Posted by Nathan from the scoresheet! on 08/26/09 at 08:34 AM ET