The draft of the new calendar went to the FHR in May
On the hockey side, Friday, June 17 turned out to be very hot. Around noon, KHL President Alexei Morozov told RBC that the league could not agree with the FHR on what the KHL regular season schedule should be for the 2022/23 season.
The Russian Ice Hockey Federation delegates the right to the KHL to organize the Open National Championship. Consequently, the Continental Hockey League is obliged to coordinate its steps with the FHR.
The draft new calendar was sent to the federation in May. It provided for each KHL team to play 68 games. There would be 166 matchdays, including a break for the national team tournament in December. The qualifiers would take place at the usual time – from March 1 to April 29.
Nevertheless, in June, the FHR gave a response with a proposal to divide the teams according to sports ranking into “strong” and “weak”. There would be an elite group of 12 teams and a weaker group of 10 teams. Each club would play 70 matches. Three windows for pre-made teams would be recorded in the calendar – November, December, February.
Morozov responded with a quote that the KHL press service made available to : “We believe that it is impossible to propose such reforms a few weeks before the start of the championship without detailed study and without taking into account the opinions of all the clubs. The distribution of participants in the conferences before the start of the championship on the basis of the sporting results of the past season alone would violate the sporting principle. Ignoring the location of clubs will increase the cost of air travel as the number of clubs increases.
To have a comfortable, regular and rhythmic schedule of 70 matches for each team, you must have at least 170-175 matchdays, otherwise you will have to play a large number of double and double matches, and long series of matches on each other. the other days.
KHL clubs have denied inside information that they were the initiators of the reform
I have spoken with representatives of the FHR and have read this information. The federation was very surprised that Morozov decided to bring this topic to the public.
On the part of the federation, it was only a proposal – as a reason to start a discussion. In addition, a number of top clubs have themselves taken the initiative to increase the number of ranking matches. gave a list of such teams: CSKA, SKA, Dynamo Moscow, Metallurg, Salavat Yulaev, Ak Bars, Tractor.
CSKA, Salavat Yulaev and Metallurg immediately received denials that they had not proposed such a reform. However, as they explained to me, the clubs simply do not want to shine in the public space, just to avoid falling out with the leaders of the KHL. But such ideas also came from them, and the federation supported such an initiative.
You just need to create a smart calendar
What will happen next? We have seen similar clashes between the FHR and the KHL before. More recently there has been talk of how many foreign players each club in the league can have. The Federation has long said that it would be expedient to reduce them to three, and now a convenient excuse has arisen in connection with the international situation. Alexei Morozov directly stated that there should still be five legionnaires.
As a result, FHR board chairman Arkady Rotenberg said that a decision has been made – in the 2022/23 season there will be five foreign players, and in the 2023/24 season their number will be reduced to three per club.
Apparently something similar will come with the calendar. The 2022/23 season is unlikely to be radically reformed, and the federation will not prevent the KHL from continuing to consist of the Western and Eastern conferences, in which 11 clubs will play.
But the 2023/24 season is likely to see major changes aimed at increasing the number of top-flight matches. However, how will this be?
From my point of view, the KHL cannot be divided into “strong” and “weak”. Why then are new modern hockey palaces being built in Nizhny Novgorod and Novosibirsk? In order to organize matches with “Admiral” or “Amur” level teams? How will these arenas be filled and partially refunded?
And how to determine who is strong, where there is stable funding? Yesterday was Dynamo Moscow – a top club. And today, salaries are paid there at the wrong time, and Vadim Shipachyov and Vyacheslav Voinov were given to Ak Bars for a thousand rubles, deciding to rely on a low-budget team. How will the current Dynamo be better than Avtomobilist, where there is a solid budget, and where they are also building a new palace?
On the other hand, it will be very difficult for the same SKA to fill its new arena of 23,000 people in matches against Neftekhimik or Kunlun.
What to do? And the output is simple. Keep the league structure but increase the number of high-level matches. Let Avangard play five or six times with Ak Bars or Salavat Yulaev, but twice with Sibir and Vityaz.
After all, there is such a thing in the NHL – Washington can come to San Jose once every three years, but play Pittsburgh six times in each championship. Because the league benefits from such a poster.
Yes, and the stratification between “rich” and “poor” in the KHL will be less. The same Kunlun will collect more points in six games with Vityaz, and the Ak Bars, having become a monster, will score fewer points, playing not four, but eight times against Salavat Yulaev in the green derby.
They can object to me – 14 teams play in the Swedish league and 15 in the Finnish league, but you can compare the country scale. Russia is 38 times larger than Sweden in area and we have 14 times the population. Finland is 50 times smaller and the population there is almost 30 times smaller.
Do you want to cut the Far East from the KHL? Playing without Novosibirsk? Kill teams from small towns like Nizhnekamsk or Balashikha?
But you can skip all that. Simply create a smart schedule where top clubs play each other more often. And do without dismemberment.
Source : MatchTV
I am Sandra Jackson, a journalist and content creator with extensive experience in the news industry. I have been working in the news media for over five years. During this time, I have worked as an author and editor at various outlets producing high-quality content that attracts readers from different demographics.
