Pavel Bure is trying to create a brand new hockey league. No, it will not compete with the NHL, KHL, or even the SHL. It will be its own unique entity and will involve players that are currently not playing professional hockey.
This is from EuroHockey.com:
World Legends Hockey League, WLHL, is a new competition for the veteran national team. The countries that will participate are Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Czech Republic and Germany.
This is a league for players 45 and older. You will notice that the United States and Canada are omitted but there is a plan to get some of North America's former stars involved as well.
The formation of WLHL will be celebrated with an All Star Team Match where one team includes Russian stars and the other team is made up of stars from the participating countries as well as Canada and the United States. The game will be played in Moscow in the first week of October 2015, the date is not set. The game will be played in the newly built VTB Ice Palace Arena, Moscow Legends Park, where also the 2016 World Championship will be played.
This new league has the backing of Rene Fassel who is the IIHF President.
It will be cool to find out what former players will decide to lace them back up. I have to imagine people would love to see Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov, Alexander Mogilny, Mats Sundin, Petr Bondra, Dominik Hasek and Teemu Selanne.
If the league is successful you could see players like Daniel Alfresson, Milan Hejduk, Alexei Kovalev, Ziggy Palffy, Markus Naslund, and that Jaromir Jagr guy if he ever retires.
Will the Canadian team convince players like Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Ray Bourque to play?
Will the United States have Mike Modano, Pat LaFontaine, Brian Leetch, Phil Housley, and Chris Chelios?
I hope the league finds success and gives a nice platform for these former great players to showcase their abilities even if Father Time has impacted their effectiveness.
Thanks for reading!
Follow me on twitter Follow @GunnerStaal