Ruble's collapse hits Canadian KHLers

'Unlucky timing' for ex-NHLers

The Kontinental Hockey League's Canadian players always dreamt of winning the Cup. Just not the Gagarin Cup.

Unlike Russian star wingers Ilya Kovalchuk and Alexander Radulov, the KHL's 41 Canadians find little comfort in Cyrillic script, homemade borscht and an all-forgiving fan base when it comes to puck hogging and missing curfews.

They came to Russia's oilrich professional league, in the most part, for its rubles.

Like their Stanley Cup dreams, the ruble crashed. Russia's currency has lost almost half of its value against the dollar this year and last week took its steepest sameday drop since the financial crisis of 1998. The devalued ruble, in concert with low oil prices and Western sanctions against Russia, has led some KHL team sponsors to withdraw their support.

"I came here on a very good contract, 31 million rubles for one year, taxfree," said Edmonton native Gilbert Brule, the former NHLer who now plays for Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg. "When I convert it to Canadian dollars, I see that it has gone down quite a bit."

When Brule signed with the club on May 12, his 31 million rubles represented nearly $960,000. As of Monday, this contract was worth $648,000.

Of course, even with his $312,000 Canadian haircut, Brule earns roughly 1,000 times more than the average Russian. The average monthly income in Russia is 30,000 rubles, $591 with the current exchange rate.

While declining to reveal his KHL salary, former Vancouver Canucks goaltender Curtis Sanford, who plans to retire after the season, said that his contract with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl represented "a lot more" than what he could earn an NHL backup. Sanford made $600,000 US playing behind Roberto Luongo with the Canucks in the 2007-08 season.

"I spent a good amount of time in the NHL, but I didn't make my mark as a starting goalie," Sanford said. "My choice was between trying something new (the KHL) or trying free agency again.

The KHL is a strong league in terms of talent; it's the second-best league in the world."

But the league that has presented itself as rival to the NHL - attracting NHLers during lockouts with million-ruble contracts and serving as a profitable option for players repeatedly scratched from NHL lineups - is in shambles.

Handfuls of players and coaching staffers have complained that their salaries have been withheld, both among the league's 22 Russian clubs and the six teams based abroad.

Players based outside Russia are paid in the country's local currency, but payment remains an issue. On Friday, Dinamo Riga announced it was parting ways "by mutual agreement" with four of its top players, including former Montreal Canadiens forward Marcel Hossa and former Ottawa Senators forward Petr Schastlivy, who were put on waivers earlier last week to relieve financial pressures on the team. According to a European source with ties to the International Ice Hockey Federation, Hossa had been receiving only meal money from Dinamo Riga.

Another disgruntled KHLer is Finnish forward Ilari Melart, who complained his club, Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk, had not paid him in three months. He told Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat he hadn't come to Siberia for "charity purposes."

Former Montreal Canadien Ben Maxwell is a teammate of Melart's. He declined to say whether his own salary had been withheld. "I didn't know what to expect when I came to Russia," said the North Vancouver native, who signed a oneyear deal with Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk in May. "I don't think I was 100 per cent prepared for all this stuff (the economic situation). I see this as unlucky timing."

At least three clubs, Atlant Moscow Oblast, Dinamo Riga and Slovan Bratislava, are thought to be nearly bankrupt. Two teams, including Gagarin Cup finalist Lev Praha, dropped out of the league after last season because of financial troubles.

Following an emergency meeting last week, new KHL president Dmitry Chernyshenko, who headed the Sochi 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee, denied the league was in turmoil. He said teams were "fulfilling their obligations toward their players" and the KHL's finances could be deemed "stable."

"The KHL presents itself as a well-developed product," he said. "We are not in a situation where we need to save something."

Chernyshenko added teams' salary caps would likely be decreased and the league would work to support the Russian national team, suggesting Canadian and other foreign players could be left out of the equation.

The league will also "take a hard look" at teams at odds with KHL's financial criteria, he said.

The league's likely contraction and financial instability surrounding playing in the KHL will likely cause some foreigners to drift back home, according to Hakan Andersson, the Detroit Red Wings' chief European scout.

But the league still remains attractive to some players, especially Russians and foreigners optimistic the ruble will regain strength.

"I wouldn't advise against playing in the KHL because there are personal considerations involved (mostly for Russian players): Family, friends and love for one's country. I can't speak to those issues," said NHL player agent Don Meehan. "But one would have to be cautious about the economic issues in terms of the currency and assess whether playing in the league is a sound, secure and viable option."

Brulé said he hopes to remain with Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg for the next few years, that his club has given him lots of ice time and trusted him in a variety of situations. He also believes the KHL, even with the plummeting ruble and growing uncertainties, can still offer him a better deal than many other leagues.

Goaltender Jeff Glass, the Calgary native who has played in the KHL since 2009, has been the first Canadian to suffer the consequences of speaking openly about the league's current predicament. The star of Canada's gold-winning 2005 world junior team, who started the season with Lada Togliatti, told The Hockey News last week things were "falling apart" in the KHL and "players were getting hosed." Glass later apologized for his comment but repentance wasn't enough. He was put on waivers the next day, a move interpreted as a way to mitigate financial strains and punish dissent.

In a patriotic outburst last week, Kovalchuk lambasted Glass and other players critical of the league and Russia's economic situation.

"Let them run if they want," he told reporters. "When there is a war going on in Ukraine and the country (Russia) is in such a situation, it's improper to think about the exchange rate."

Players have weighed their words since the Glass incident. Teams are also increasingly aware they are treading on thin ice with the league.

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl said Sanford would not answer questions about "politics, money or the exchange rate." When contacted by telephone in Yaroslavl, Sanford spoke openly, but cautiously, about his take on the situation.

"It's a lot different here, in terms of what you can say. This is such a sensitive situation," Sanford said. "It's been a difficult time, but we aren't struggling to put food on the table. This doesn't just affect hockey players. It affects the whole country."

Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber is a Canadian journalist living in Russia and working for The Moscow Times.