The Hockey Stop

Could the rivalry between North America's National Hockey League and Russia's Kontinental Hockey League escalate into hockey's new cold war?

That remains to be seen. For now, to many observers the KHL is the equivalent of Major League Soccer -- a growing organization able to nab a star player once in a while such as the L.A. Galaxy's David Beckham but no legitimate threat to the powerhouse leagues in Europe who have the money, history and fanbase to attract the world's top players.

Still, with the report today that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told local sports newspaper Sovietsky Sport that he hopes the KHL expands into central and western Europe, the budding league is certainly giving notice to the executives at NHL headquarters in New York City.

After all, the league is only two years old and seems to have no shortage of rubles to snatch big-name talent from the NHL. With the Kremlin behind the league and Gazprom -- the world's largest extractor of natural gas in the world and the largest Russian company -- as its biggest benefactor, the KHL has already nabbed Jaromir Jagr and is making a play for another Czech -- Jiri Hudler.

However, the fate of Hudler is still up in the air because the NHL is arguing that even though he signed with Moscow Dynamo of the KHL, his election to file for salary arbitration obligates him to play for the Detroit Red Wings. A hearing is set for July 30 in Toronto. Also, the KHL experienced a tragic setback last year when New York Rangers' first-round draft pick Alexei Cherepanov died after an Avangard Omsk game.

But back to Putin's comments. He said the KHL should expand beyond the Former Soviet Union (currently teams are in Russia, Belarus, Latvia and Kazakhstan) and "become a pan-European league" with clubs in Sweden, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Switzerland possibly joining.

If this expansion takes place, the KHL could become a formidable foe to the NHL in terms of the top talent, particularly from Russia and the rest of Europe. Perhaps that is one reason why the NHL is taking a stand in the Hudler case. It is one thing when veteran players like Jagr and Sergei Federov defect to the KHL, but a player in his prime such as Hudler?

For hockey fans such as myself who have enjoyed the renaissance the NHL has enjoyed of late thanks to the many skilled players from Russia, Sweden, the Czech Republic and other European and Former Soviet Union countries, I hope the NHL does everything in its power to retain these players who favor finesse over fighting.

Otherwise, no offense to Don Cherry, but without Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin and Henrik Zetterberg and players of their ilk the NHL will regress back to the boring North American style of the past.

A new cold war on ice? Not yet. But the Kontinental Hockey League has proven it is here to stay.