Vladimir Shalayev: KHL Championship Participants Must Be Approved By June 16

Kontinental Hockey League Hockey Operations Vice-President Vladimir Shalayev told to the official site of the League about KHL management and clubs representatives Meeting and Rules novations which are yet to be approved on the KHL Board of Directors Meeting on June 16.

- On June 9 all clubs' representatives with no exclusion attended the Meeting. Serious topics were discussed and there were many. As you know, the KHL Board of Directors Meeting will be held on June 16, and we tried to develop a common view on the innovations proposed for they could be submitted as our collaborative position.

Clubs' representatives have been briefed on the results of Budget Committee work. We have provided them with the information on clubs facing financial and organizational problems, clubs with wages debts and arenas not ready for the tournament and so on. After examining all the materials submitted by Budget Committee the Board of Directors will define the final number of KHL Championship participants in 2009/2010 season.

Based on earlier decision that The League divisions will be formed on geographical basis we developed the championship structure. The teams will be divided into two conferences - East and West - and each conference will have two divisions. Each team will play four games against their divisional opponents and two game against non-divisional opponents, 56 games to be played in total. The first three rounds of the playoffs will be held inside the conferences and then the winners will play in the Gagarin Cup finals. We are sure the fans will enjoy this approach. To increase the relevance of the regular tournament we will offer to define the Open Championship of Russia winner by the results of the regulations. Foreign clubs will also have the opportunity to win the Russian Championship.

 ***

- We received several proposals from Officials Department as well. All the clubs supported the double head refereeing in every game. Officials Department informed they have enough qualifyed head referees for such a system could be applied. In addition, there is a proposal to change the goal crease configuration, to cut the corners in North American way for better identification of scater position in the goal crease.

Next season in each hockey arena special rooms for videogoal referee will be eqiupped. In case of uncertainty of the goal scored he will be empowered to take the final decision. We also propose to play overtime in the playoff games in "5 on 5" format instead of "4 on 4" due to the shootout cancellation in the playoffs.

 ***

All the clubs support previous decisions regarding ceiling of wages, but we also planning a new measure for its exceeding - 200 % of the excess sum fine.

Along with Players Trade Union we propose to set the minimum player wage: 300 thousands rubles for major team player, 80 thousands for junior or higher league team player. Besides that we hope to distribute distinctly the bonus and anti-crisis funds and change the refusal draft placing system - only players with unilateral contracts sent to the farm-clubs run through the refusal draft.

We have carefully listened to the opinion of the specialists, such as Viktor Tikhonov, Boris Mayorov and Igor Tuzik, and decided to include two juniors in the game roster of each team in addition to regulated twenty players(18 scaters and two goalies).