BOULDER, Colorado -- SKA-Zabaikalets-Energia Chita announced December 26th that they would no longer be competing in the Russian Bandy League due to financial difficulties, the website Bandynet.ru reported.
Before the season began Zabaikalets was facing money troubles, as they were forced to fire their coaching staff and still had player salaries in arrears from last season. The team was also plagued by problems with its stadium and lost its lease at SKA SibVO due to its inability to pay rent.
Zabaikalets played their last game December 24th in Kemerovo, a 10-2 loss to Kuzbass. The Chita side made the trip with a skeleton crew of players, and just two days later announced they were folding.
After the announcement, Chita's coach Viktor Zakharov was beside himself. "I have [players] here who came to games hungry - they didn't get paid, they were thrown out of their stadium. There's no one here; clearly, nobody needs hockey," he said.
In other troubling news, AMNGR-Murman Murmansk canceled their road trip to Pervouralsk and Ulyanovsk for matches scheduled January 6th and 9th. The team said the cancellation was due to money shortages.
The Murmansk hockey association has issued a request to the Russian Bandy Federation to reschedule to games against Uralsky Trubnik and Volga for later in the season. But could this be a sign that the West Division will also be cut to 10 teams if AMNGR cannot get the resources together to continue their season?
Thursday, January 10, 2008
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