Valery Kamensky: “If you make the KHL an independent league, then the IIHF itself will come to us and ask us to play at the world championships”

I managed to chat with Valery Kamensky about the charter that took us from Moscow to Norilsk. Kamensky travels there every year to take part in a charity game against Norilsk’s NHL team. In the sense that the NHL is a night hockey league that lives and thrives even in Taimyr. Kamensky scored his goal off a pass from Igor Larionov, taking us on waves of nostalgia for the Soviet past, when two legends played together for CSKA and the USSR national team. In total, the match ended with a score of 11:6, and the veterans once again showed their class.

But we were not talking about the past, but about the present.

From this interview with Kamensky, you will learn:

“Ilya Kovalchuk knows how to win”

— What can you say about Spartak in this Gagarin Cup? What to expect from the series with Magnitogorsk?

— Two fast and technical teams. I think it will be one of the best playoff series. Whoever has the most strength will win.

Spartak is preparing, the technical staff is doing an excellent job. Ilya Kovalchuk also helps. The guys are young and eager to move forward. The entire organization is determined to move forward. There are a lot of promising young guys. I think it will be very interesting.

— What is Kovalchuk’s role? He only played one out of five matches in the first round with Severstal.

— Ilya is a team guy. Professional – knows how to win. He has a ton of experience that he brings to the locker room. Kovalchuk gives advice to young people. He lives in a team and worries about results. This has always been the case everywhere. While Ilya is not playing. But I think the time will come and he will start at Spartak.

— How important is the speed factor? The series against Severstal was fast – maybe Kovalchuk was right in terms of speed?

— Ilya is an experienced striker, he reads the game. And instead of speed, he can offer something else. With his thoughts, he is one step ahead of the movement, the course of events. And that helps him playing with young, fast guys. He has extensive experience and skills.

“Dynamo’s game depends 20 percent on Nikita Gusev”

— What opinion do you have on the other three episodes? For example, “Dynamo” – “Tractor”.

— Yes, the first match went to Traktor (4:2). But I think it will be very difficult for Traktor against Dynamo. Experienced guys perform in Chelyabinsk. They are fast and have a lot of hockey experience. At the same time, there is a lot of talent. And it seems to me that the key factor in this series will be the play of the goalkeepers.

“Dynamo” will not be able to crush “Traktor”, let it pass, as happened with “Dynamo” Minsk. Here too, the series was hanging by a thread. A very interesting duel awaits us. However, Traktor plays more combinatorial, organized and tactically competent hockey.

But Dynamo has the first link, which decides the outcome of majority matches. If Traktor is not removed, it will be very difficult for Dynamo. At the same time, Dynamo has the power and strength with which it plays.

— To what extent is the Dynamo team dependent on Nikita Gusev, who is ill?

– Most of them depend on him, of course. We see during the matches that Dynamo’s play depends 20 percent on the presence or absence of Gusev in the lineup, and this is a significant percentage for the majority.

— What do you think of the series “Vanguard” – “Lokomotiv”? The first match went to overtime and Yaroslavl won (2:1 OT).

— “Lokomotiv” has already grown as a team, all the guys are proficient in hockey. They play the system and seem more defensive. At the same time, there are technical guys who can run away, score and decide the fate of the match. I really liked the same Daniil Booth. He doesn’t get a lot of playing time, but he is very efficient and can score. He already has 11 goals this season, even though he only has five to six minutes of play per game. The majority work there and the residents of Yaroslavl adhere to their system. We know the head coach Igor Nikitin. He looks more at defense.

—And Omsk?

— There is a link there, Vladimir Tkachev and Reed Boucher score a lot of points. The other three are workers who set the rhythm of the game. But the first line scores more goals. In fact, Boucher has already scored seven goals in the first series.

I think that four lines of Lokomotiv will be able to neutralize the first line of Avangard. Because throughout the season, I saw that Nikitin knows how to hide the opposing leaders so that they do not show up brilliantly. If the “rail workers” cannot do it, it will be very difficult for them.

— SKA can play the entire series against Avtomobilist without main defender Alexander Nikishin. What twist could there be here?

— “Avtomobilist” is an experienced and mature team. She will probably also play combined hockey. They like to play the puck there and put a lot of them in the goal.

The fact that Nikishin is not there – I think this will affect the majority of SKA. Although they have a balanced team, all four lines are identical. If they have enough strength, I think they will be able to beat the Avtomobilist technically and physically. But Yekaterinburg veterans know how to play, there are guys with winning experience. And now, after defeating Ak Bars in the first round, Avtomobilist hockey players felt that taste of the playoffs. After all, in recent years they have been eliminated very early and played unsuccessfully. I’m looking forward to a very interesting series.

“We sent the Europeans to hell with their Champions League”

— There is talk of the possibility of the KHL becoming independent, like the NHL. If this happens, how will such reform change our hockey?

— I believe we need to develop and make the league stronger. Then any IIHF (International Hockey Federation) will come to us and ask us to participate in all competitions. And we will offer it on our own terms, as we see it.

This was the case of the Hockey Champions League. They came to us and wanted to take our best clubs to participate in their tournament. And we offered them our conditions. In the end, we disagreed. And without us, this Champions League interests few people.

This is what we need to do here too. Now we have time to develop our youth, to make the KHL more powerful, to have more masters and to raise the level of hockey. It will be a big plus if we leave the IIHF.

At the same time, of course, the KHL must interact with the International Federation. But on mutually beneficial terms. Just like in North America, there are respected federations in Canada and the United States, they are members of the IIHF, participate in international competitions and form national teams. At the same time, the NHL is growing mightily as a business league. The KHL should therefore develop separately from the IIHF.

Several of our guys are ending their NHL contracts, they have good contacts in North America. They respect us there and we can organize games directly with NHL clubs without the IIHF. Maybe not even in Russia, but on neutral territory. For example, if Kunlun returns to China, the KHL could play with the NHL in Beijing. Or play in Dubai. You can find many options. But what I want to say is that everything should depend on us and we should not depend on anyone. And the KHL season could be extended for a considerable time. We need to play more matches. Only in the game the masters are determined and the guys reach the professional level. You can see how hockey players now prepare in the summer, before team training camps, how thoughtfully and competently they approach their work.

— It is possible to get out of a situation where the team was eliminated from the playoffs in early March, but do players have to practice until April 30 to finalize their contracts?

— This happens because there is the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. But if the KHL gets the status of an independent sports league that can introduce its own rules, this can be changed by making the KHL its own internal system and laws closer specifically to hockey.

— When the representatives of the Champions League came to the KHL, what did they offer and what did they want to get?

“They wanted to take back our best clubs, without giving anything back. But it doesn’t work like that. There is a product – and when you want to receive it, you have to give something back in financial and advertising terms. We were told that playing in the Champions League was a question of prestige. But we don’t think so. We presented our conditions – I will not cite specific details. But the Europeans didn’t agree and we sent them to hell. And you can see for yourself what happened to their Champions League. No one even knows who won it in recent years. They organize a few matches, but there is very little interest in them.

Watch live broadcasts of the Fonbet KHL Championship playoff matches on the channel, as well as on the matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru sites.