The NHL has new competition for the title of number one hockey league. This time the defunct Russian Super League is reforming as the Continental Hockey League. While the KHL might have an advantage because of a complete lack of a transfer deal between the hockey organization and Russia, the league still has some hurdles to jump over before being a serious contender.

The first is the fact that the NHL has the best players in the world. By this I mean that the best international players still cross over the Atlantic Ocean to play hockey on the biggest stage, no the Baltic Sea. The league has apparently already tried to offer large contracts to players like Evgeni Malkin of the Penguins. By large I mean a rumored 12.5 million dollars a season.

While the Russian born player has reportedly turned down the offer, he could take another look at it next year after his contract is up next year. Some players have expressed interest though. Chris Simon and John Grahame are two non-Russian NHL free agents who have not ruled out playing in the Russian landscape.

The NHL have almost made their own bed here as the non-existent transfer deal with the nation leads many general mangers to avoid picking Russian players in the draft for fear that they will never come over. This year only nine Russian players were chosen. This is just of few years from a time when 30 or more players would be taken a year.

The next big hurdle for the new league is the nation itself. While Super is a great name to have in your league name, Russian is not. Russian players may relate to it, but not so much in the rest of the world. A simple name change does not hide the fact that the CHL is in Russia- the country whose president/dictator is coming under question for his political actions.

Also when given the choice between playing in New York for an incredible sum of money or Irkutsk in the paradise known as Siberia, where would you choose? Paul Shirley wrote about playing basketball in one of the larger Russian cities and his recollections of it were not to pleasant. The inflated salaries might be a draw for a place like Moscow, but for few other places.

The National Hockey League is safe with a question right now, but if they do not stop tripping themselves up they could become an archaic league and fade away unceremoniously like boxing at Madison Square Garden. The days of the New York Rangers could be far behind. Of course, that is a drastic, apocalyptic look into the future. The realty is that hockey still has a steady fan base willing to deal with the league as it rebuilds itself and watch games on Spike TV.