Big

Yeah that's nice! Oil money is paying off! jpv is a doubter and he lives in Russia!

ODH

If that were true the best Russians would be staying home instead of going to the NHL to get the best paychecks.

jpv

Doubter? I simply said that if were a betting man I would've put my money on Canada. Top to bottom Canada is the more "stacked" team.
However, I'm not surprised Russia won. They had a ton of firepower, and Nabokov is much better, day-in and day-out, than Ward, who's streaky.
Big, I can't believe you think Nabokov is not good. He's one of the top 4 goalies in the world, currently.

I'm pumped that Russia won! Now bring on Euro '08 (football). I surmise you'll be watching, Evgeni?

Big

ODH,

The trend is getting reversed. More Russian players are coming back to motherland. That is why they won. Russia is starting to pay them well.

Big

jpv,

I just commented on Canada scoring 3 goals when arm-spin made his post. I was hoping Russia would allow fewer goals scored on it.

Soccer I don't know about. Russia always had all the talent but tends to come apart when it matters.

jpv

I think you're mixed up. More Russians are leaving to play in the NHL. The Russian Premier league, like the Scandinavian leagues, are basically feeder programs for the NHL. You are right in saying that the quality of play is rising; however, when (if) those players get good enough they leave for North America. I haven't researched it, but I recognized a number of Russian players from NHL squads.
One thing that is starting to happen, and it's great for Russian pro hockey: Many former NHLers are returning to play here. The highest profile one being Alexei Yashin, who actually plays for Lokomotiv now. You can see by his success here that the level of play is noticeably lower than the NHL, apart from some of the stars.
It's great. I hope hockey gets better and better here...I watch at least two games a week (although I'm royally pissed that Vladivostok doesn't have a team)!

jpv

I should state that more are returning after their stints in the NHL. Yashin, for example, is probably mid-30s and isn't an impact player in the NHL anymore. Those are the guys coming back. Don't expect Ovechkin or Nabokov to be returning any time soon...

Big

Oddly, despite the influence of players such as Jagr -- the first European to win an NHL scoring title -- and Ovechkin and Malkin, the first Russian 1-2 finishers in NHL scoring -- the international sphere of influence on the NHL is shrinking. Particularly, exports to the West from talent-rich Russia are slumping.

In other words: The Russians aren't coming.

At least not in the droves they did in the decade and a half between the fall of communist Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union around 1990 and the end of the NHL's lockout in 2005.

Foreign exchange

Nearly twice as many Czechs such as Jagr populated league rosters when this season started, 51 to 27 Russians. That latter figure represents a 115-percent drop in the number of Russian NHL players from six seasons ago, when there were some 58. Even the Entry Draft has seen a decline, from the 19 Russians selected in 2004 -- when Ovechkin and Malkin went Nos. 1 and 2 -- to nine last June.

Part of the reason, Gonchar said, is that officials in the Russian Super League have more (read: oil-stained) payroll and less inclination to part with young prospects whom "they develop over there and invest a lot of money on." Also, Gonchar added, Russians who would be minor-leaguers or lower-line NHL players in North America -- such as former Penguins winger Aleksey Morozov -- "decide to stay at home, where they don't have to adjust to anything" -- and, of course, earn far more rubles than ever before.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08132...pid=sports.xml

Big

jpv,

NHL is a league that has players from all over the world whereas the Russian league consists of mostly Russian players. That is why NHL has more talent.

What I am saying is that Russian players are willing to come train in Russia for the Worlds because Russia can pay them well to do so.

arm-spin

Big, that may be true of some players, but the top Russians in this year's WC- Ovechkin, Semin, Federov, Nabokov and so on joined the WC team at the last minute because their NHL clubs lost in the playoffs. No time, as far as I know, to go home to Russia to train.