COMMENTARY : NHL Buys Into Glasnost, but What Price Will It Pay?

At the highest level of professional sports, there is little room for sentiment, morality or an honest appraisal of what is right and what is wrong.

However, there is always room for an extra buck or two.

With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that the National Hockey League and National Basketball Association have taken glasnost into the sports arena this year. Money talks, sincerity walks.

Surely you have noticed the influx of Soviet players into the NHL this season. At least eight will grace arenas across North America, including two -- Viacheslav Fetisov and Sergei Starikov -- in the Meadowlands as members of the New Jersey Devils.

The NBA could be following suit. Several players from communist-bloc nations were taken in the last draft and might be in the NBA before the decade is out.

Perhaps I am in the minority, but I believe this all is pretty slimy. Here’s why:

For the privilege of showcasing these Soviet superstars, whose skill level is world class, the NHL is paying exorbitant transfer fees to the Soviet Hockey Federation.

According to a report in a recent edition of The Hockey News, the Quebec Nordiques paid $300,000 for goaltender Sergei Mylnikov. The Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks reportedly paid in excess of $750,000 apiece for forwards Sergei Makarov, Igor Larionov and Vladimir Krutov.

Of those Soviets playing in the NHL, seven are doing so with the blessing of their country. Only Alexandr Mogilny of Buffalo, a gifted youngster, had nerve enough to defect.

The Sabres did not have to pay anything to the Soviet federation for Mogilny; it’s doubtful his services could have been bought at any price. But the NHL might be paying for this moral blunder for quite some time.

The way I see it, NHL teams are channeling money overseas at a record pace in an effort to corner the market on players with superior skills. There is nothing wrong with this except when the money is sent to a country whose record on human rights would not have qualified for any humanitarian playoff.

If you polled North American hockey fans with roots in Czechoslavakia or Hungary, it’s doubtful they would applaud the NHL’s recent dealings with the Soviet Union. Neither would current NHL players who had resolve enough years ago to defect from their repressive countries.

Indeed, if I were Quebec’s general manager I would find it difficult to explain to Czech defector Peter Stastny that the door is now open for Iron Curtain hockey stars. Stastny left his family because he wanted to live and work in a free society.

Perhaps it is an idealist’s opinion, but at some point, the NHL and NBA have to be guided by a principle larger than the well-being of their respective leagues. We can talk at length about changes in the Soviet Union, about how Russian society is liberalizing, but until it allows those players who want to play in the NHL the chance to do so freely, it is morally misguided for the NHL to contribute to the Soviet Hockey Federation.

In time, perhaps the NHL will realize this. For the moment, it will continue to purchase Soviet talent at high prices, then pass the cost on to North American fans in the form of increased ticket prices.

Never mind where the money goes or what it is used for. If the team wins, the fans will pick up the tab because that is what they want to see. If the Soviet players can bring the fans closer to the Stanley Cup, who cares about politics anyway, right?

Wrong. Politics and sports have been interwoven for generations. Surely half the reason these players are here is so the Soviet Union can prove to the outside world how far glasnost has progressed.

But these veteran players are replaceable on the ice. Every one but Mogilny is here because he serves a better function as a public relations showman. The NHL is giving the Soviet Union the forum.

There is another issue here that does not involve provincial jingoism. If North American teams take it upon themselves to scour the world for talent, what is to become of the player in Flin Flon, Manitoba, whose dream it is to play professional hockey?

The exceptional player always will get noticed, but the importation of more foreign talent only will make it more difficult for the marginal left-winger to get a tryout. Same goes for the gifted, but not elite, defenseman from Boston College. The NHL could be killing the goose that laid the golden egg here. For years, the league enjoyed a fine relationship with the Canadian and American junior systems. It supported the systems with cash endowments and the league provided it with a steady stream of high-quality talent. Everyone seemed to benefit.

Now, the NHL is making hefty payments to the Soviet Union for players better suited for a public relations position than an on-ice one. The money will have to come from somewhere and it is not unrealistic to believe it will come out of the NHL’s junior league budget.

So for the sake of a few “name” players, the NHL is passing up the opportunity to make a sincere political statement. It is giving the Soviet Union another avenue by which to jump-start its propoganda machine.

The NHL also is jeopardizing the system that maintained it before the era of capacity crowds and cable television contracts. And that reeks of a sellout to me.