Hasek is from the Czechoslovakia. How he started ice hockey:
They held a tryout for 5-year-old boys and my father took me there. I didn’t even have real skates. I had those blades that you screwed onto the soles of your shoes, but I was tall, and the 9-year-olds didn’t have a goalie, so they put me in with them and thats where I fell in love with the game of hockey.
On tv tonight, he tells the female reporter, with Schwarzeneggerish accent and marble in his mouth, that when he was drafted by NHL in 1983, he didn’t know until someone told him. He asked:
“What does that mean?”
He retired in 2012 and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2014. He played his last season for the KHL.
In the 1980s, the majority of NHL players were Canadians, 80% or even higher. Then the league started recruiting from Sweden, Finland, Germany and Russia.
..
Now Putin wants his own league to compete with the NHL. So he sets up KHL and begins to throw money at good players such as NJ Devils
Kovalchuk: he signed $77m over 12 years with Devils and was expected to be paid $15m a season with the SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL. Putin is from St. Petersburg.
Now, with the oil prices dropping, I’m wondering if the KHL can keep up it’s payroll.
