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Originally Posted by Vulcan
Let us know what the fan and media reactions are.
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Well, here's a roundup of bits from here and there.
While people recognize that the KHL is a superior league, it will be hard to imagine a life without the local matchups against HIFK. This is the single biggest issue brought up. (I expect plans to arrange matchups outside of both leagues schedules are already been drawed.)
While people recognize it's a superior league, most people don't know anything about it, and fear that the atmosphere will never be the same. The head of the Jokerit fan club said that (surprisingly to me at least) older fans seem to have more of a neutral or even a positive reaction, emphasizing quality of hockey, while younger fans were clearly more negative, talking more about the need to know your opponent to get into the games emotionally.
Also, formerly Jokerit had regular roadtrips to the away games, which was a big thing for the local fan club. Now the away games will be too expensive (and too far away) to be a a regular thing.
The biggest fear seems to be that the team will be completely sold to new Russian owners and the team colours, name and logo will be changed. That would propably kill a lot of interest for the local fans.
The teams arena is already being sold to Russian owners, as well as part of the team. The main Russian partners seems to be two youngish Russians with strong Finnish ties. One is Gennady Timchenko, a Russian oil billionaire with a Finnish passport, who has been trying to buy other Finnish teams since at least 2008. (He has among other things also sponsored the Finnish national tennis team at Davis Cup.) The other public partner is Roman Rotenberg has lived and played junior hockey in Finland. He can also speak Finnish and was there at the press conference. (The Rotenberg family is heavily involved in the KHL already, partially owning Dynamo Moscow and being on the board of ZSKA St. Petersburg.)
I find the ownership thing interesting from a cultural point of view. The new owners seem to have genuinely strong cultural ties to Finland, which might soften the blow for many local fans; Many Finns have a instinctive distrust and dislike of anything Russian.
Media reactions seem to be mostly that of great interest, which is not surprising. Media loves new things.
League reactions are careful, but Jokerit has been a big draw, and losing them will obviously be a blow. (They have given permission for Jokerit to move however.)
The current owner Harry Harkimo has stated that the team already has plans to triple it's budget to be competitive in the KHL.
He also stated that since other plans to create various European leagues have failed before (he's been personally heavily involved in those), this is the natural step forward. (So basically he's pretty open about the fact that this is in effect a continuation of his personal ambitions.)