Russian hockey players are given jobs

Starting next season, the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) will have a new limit on legionnaires. Instead of five foreigners in a match, clubs will be able to use only three. However, the outwardly too serious tightening of the limit actually rather simply fixes the realities that developed back in the spring against the backdrop of the departure from Russia after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine of a whole group of foreign hockey players. Today, most KHL clubs already comply with the modest format approved by the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation.

Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation approved new limit format for legionnaires in the Kontinental Hockey League. It will come into force from August 2023, that is, next season. The changed format allows Russian KHL clubs to include three foreigners in the application for the match instead of the five provided for by the previous one.

The adjustment was initiated not by the league itself, but by the Russian Hockey Federation (FHR). It was she who sent a letter to the Ministry of Sports justifying its expediency. FHR President Vladislav Tretyak, explaining it, pointed to the shortage of “quality legionnaires” that arose in the championship, as well as the need to “create more favorable conditions for the development of Russian players”, including by providing them with more “jobs” and more playing time. In his opinion, the limit is an effective tool for the implementation of such a task.

It may seem that this is a serious tightening that creates problems for club managers. However, this is not quite true.

The new limit rather only fixes the realities that have developed in the spring of this year.

Soon after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, the KHL left not only two foreign clubs – the Finnish Jokerit and the Latvian Dynamo, but also a solid group of foreign players from Russian clubs, primarily those representing European countries – Finland, the Czech Republic and Sweden . And the position of the national federations of these countries, which exclude players playing in Russia from the teams, did not contribute to their interest in continuing their careers in the KHL. Quite predictably, the number of legionnaires in its championship has declined sharply. If last season there were almost a hundred of them in 19 Russian clubs (Kazakhstan’s Barys, Belarusian Dynamo and Chinese Kunlun) were almost a hundred, now, according to the official website of the KHL, only 74 foreigners are in the teams’ applications, and 25 represent Belarus and Kazakhstan.

The overwhelming majority of domestic participants in the league championship even fit into the new limit, and some, including the giants, with a margin.

For example, the St. Petersburg SKA does not use a single full-fledged legionnaire. In the Western Conference, there are no clubs at all that will have to get rid of foreigners before next season.

There are such clubs in the Eastern Conference. But there are only five of them – the leader is Avtomobilist, Metallurg, Admiral, Avangard and Amur. And only two of them made the most of the outdated format. Metallurg and Admiral each have five foreign players with legionnaire status.

Alexey Dospekhov