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OTTAWA —
Billed as a potential competitor to the NHL, Russia's new Continental Hockey League is set to ice 24 teams in September, league president Alexander Medvedev said yesterday.
But initially at least, the league will amount to a refurbished, refinanced and slightly expanded Russian Super League, with the same 20 teams, plus one elevated from a lower tier and one each from the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Belarus and Latvia.
Medvedev is the moving force behind the ambitious new league and is also the deputy chairman of Russian's most powerful corporation, energy giant OAO Gazprom, whose former chairman, Dmitry Medvedev, recently succeeded Vladimir Putin as the Russian president.
In an interview yesterday from Montreal, where he was elected to the International Ice Hockey Federation council, Medvedev said the league will adopt international rules and intends to hold a draft that could include NHL players.
"We are planning to draft players from around the world, including the NHL," he said.
The 24 teams will play for the Gagarin Cup, named for cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space. The top two teams will then compete in a Europe-wide championship.
The Continental Hockey League is clearly more than just an expression of Russia's sports ambitions, but reflects its increasing confidence on the world stage and financial clout from booming energy prices.
Asked about the paramountcy of the NHL, Medvedev said it is time to reconsider relations between Russia and the North American league, which are often at loggerheads over player transfers.
"A unipolar world is not good; we should have a multipolar world," he said, echoing Putin's common denunciation of U.S. dominance in world affairs.
Medvedev, whose company owns the St. Petersburg-based representative in the league, has been promoting expansion of the Continental Hockey League in countries such as Sweden and Finland, though he has met resistance from national associations.
He insisted yesterday the Russian-based league will work in tandem with international partners - and expects the NHL to eventually accept it as a European equal.
"For future, we agreed that expansion will be done in close co-ordination with the International Ice Hockey Federation, national federations and national professional leagues," he said. "But I believe that there are obvious advantages of developing a Continental Hockey League when European players will have opportunities to not only go to the NHL, but to demonstrate their skills in a well-organized league, with a very good level of hockey and good financial standing."
Nine Russian companies, including Gazprom, are financing the league in addition to sponsoring individual teams.
Medvedev was in Canada to attend the 2008 men's world hockey championship and to sign a natural-gas supply deal with a Canadian-based consortium that is building a plant near Quebec City.
During his visit, he met with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly, who said yesterday the two sides will meet again before Medvedev returns to Russia.
"The purpose of the meeting from our perspective is simply to discuss with Mr. Medvedev his plans for his various hockey-related initiatives and to explore whether there might be opportunities to work together to help grow the sport internationally," the NHL executive said.
Recently, a pair of NHL veterans indicated they'll join the new league.
Tough guy Chris Simon, who finished 2007-08 with the Minnesota Wild, has reportedly signed with struggling Vityaz Chekhov.
Backup netminder John Grahame is to backstop Omsk Avangard, a powerhouse known for pulling talent out of the NHL.
