Soviets renew ice threats
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from August 1990.
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But federation president Leonid Kravchenko left intact plans by the Montreal Canadiens and Minnesota North Stars of the NHL to hold training camps in the Soviet Union and to play eight exhibition games Sept. 12-19 in several Soviet cities.
The official news agency Tass reported Wednesday that the federation's executive committee decided Tuesday night to reconsider calling off the North American tour. Earlier Tuesday, two top officials said the Soviet Union cannot simply open its borders and allow players to leave because most of its stars would be gone in a flash. Tass quoted Kravchenko as saying the executive committee wants immediate talks with the NHL to resolve the controversy over Fedorov and to ensure that no more Soviet players are signed without the federation's consent. "The executive told me and first vice-president Yuri Korolev to immediately begin talks with NHL representatives and continue them at the September congress of the International Ice Hockey Federation in Italy," said Kravchenko, who is also the general director of Tass.
"At the talks, we will submit several Soviet legal documents that were intentionally or nonintentionally ignored by the other side and demand that it (the NHL) take into account our laws and guarantee it will comply with them in the future," he said.
Last week, the federation's executive committee decided to proceed with all 29 scheduled games. But the amended decision puts the trip by the Central Red Army, Moscow Dynamo and Khimik teams back in doubt.
NHL Players Association head Alan Eagleson estimated that the Soviets would lose about 1 million dollars if the visit by the three teams does not take place. "The final decision about the 21-game Super Series in winter will be decided only after the talks in Italy and will depend on the outcome of the talks," Kravchenko said.
