KHL having troubles

[Thorin]

The KHL is a hockey league centered in Russia (21 Russian teams, 3 foreign teams) that is considered second-best in the world (NHL is still the top dog).  The KHL started in 2008, same time as when Katz bought the Oilers and the Oil Kings.

Well, players in the KHL are paid in rubles, and a lot of the contracts are quite big.  With the rubles recent spectacular fall, though, some coaches and players are now reporting that they haven't been paid yet this year, and most are complaining that even if they do get paid, it's only worth half as much as what they were originally expecting because the ruble has lost 50% of its value against the US dollar.

There is now talk about players refusing to play until they get paid, and there's the real possibility that the KHL shrinks in number of teams or even folds completely.  This, of course, means that there is a large market of potentially available players that NHL teams could tap.  I wonder if the Oilers have a plan for this yet.

[Melbosa]

Interesting times eh?

[Mr. Analog]

Because of the crash of the Ruble, Steam is going to start Region Locking:

http://www.techspot.com/news/59185-steam-region-locking-pc-games-stop-people-exploiting-currency.html

[Thorin]

fother muckers

Region locking sucks.

I wonder how hard it'll be to circumvent using existing region-circumvention companies...

[Mr. Analog]

The theory goes that people in Russia could buy a bunch of stuff for dirt with their collapsed currency and then "gift" it to other regions at a discount. So what they're trying to do is make it so you can only gift to and from certain regions.

The problem with this is that Steam adjusts prices based on the region you are in, which is stupid anyway and creates this problem in the first place.

On the plus side if you travel to Russia you will still be able to play stuff you bought in Canada, so it's not stupidly locked out like other companies do (COUGH Nintendo COUGH), but still it's bad

[Darren Dirt]

...I wonder if the Oilers have a plan for this yet.

Those two words in the same sentence. I do not understand. (At least, no real evidence shown to the public that presently those two words belong together...)