From Stu Hackel of the NY Times:
The IIHF was severely criticized by NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly after the federation’s statement on Saturday. Daly told Ken Campbell of The Hockey News in an e-mail message that the IIHF “lacked the courage and conviction to do what’s right,” in not insisting that Alexander Radulov return to the Predators to fulfill the final year of his contract, that the federation “pulled the chute and took the easy way out. Very, very disappointing. It seems that the KHL is making decisions for the IIHF these days.”
The IIHF decided to refer this matter to an appropriate court or allow the parties to select binding arbitration, and the latter path appears to be the way things are headed.
Fasel, not surprisingly, thinks differently from Daly, and he did not duck the issue. “I have no reasons not to speak about the actions of Radulov in public,” he said. “The player is not right. He has broken his contract, and if we start considering such behavior as normal we will end up with chaos and mess. That is why the first thing that the NHL, KHL and IIHF should do is to come to a mutual agreement. So that the players know that breaking the contract they will face certain problems.”
Read the entire entry from Slap Shot here.
Hackel has done a tremendous job of keeping readers up to date on the KHL-NHL saga. Unfortunately for fans, he has to keep reporting on issues and reasons for no agremeent between the two sides; as opposed to a working agreement that serves both sides and fans well.
