There was a lot of “Where in the world is Evgeni Malkin” being played last week[espn], but the fallout from the whole ordeal has the Russians pretty ticked off.
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has declared an all-out war on the National Hockey League (NHL), accusing the North Americans of stealing its best players.
Russian hockey officials were up in arms after several top players, including teenage prodigy Evgeni Malkin, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ number one pick in 2004, walked out on their contracts with Russian clubs to pursue a career in the NHL.
The Malkin case has been front-page news on both sides of the Atlantic since the young Russian secretly left his club Metallurg Magnitogorsk at Helsinki airport earlier this month.
Malkin, considered the best player in the world outside the NHL, vanished for several days before resurfacing in the United States last week and declaring his wish to play for Pittsburgh. [reuters]
The article continues to show how upset the Russians are, demanding that there will be legal action that will go after “a lot more” money than they wanted for a transfer deal on Malkin[wiki] prior to his dissappearance.
It’s a situation that echoes times long gone, and the fallout might be worse as time goes on in terms of relations between the two leagues. Malkin was more the able to leave the Russian league, but the Pittsburgh Penguins would have had to pay a few million dollars for him, much more compared to the $200,000 that gets dished out to other European nations who already have an agreement for such transfers.
As pissed off as Russia is now, I’m not sure we’ll see them come to an agreement anytime soon. For the longest time, their league has been considered second place to the NHL in terms of the players of their respective leagues. It makes you want to say, can’t we all just get along?