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And now, news from a parallel universe where COVID-19 blew over in a couple of weeks...

LEV PRAGUE BACK IN KHL; WILL IT STICK AROUND THIS TIME?
July 1st, 2020

While the 2020/21 season of the Kontinental Hockey League is still more than a hundred days away, it is already shaping up to be a year full of surprises. The premier Eastern European hockey competition will once again expand its reach into Central Europe, as HC LEV Prague was approved as a last-minute expansion team by its board of directors.

In case you have forgotten, the Lev organization was a part of the league during for three seasons in the early 2010s. It was originally based in the Slovakian city of Poprad, before relocating to Prague before the start of the 2012/13 campaign. One season later, it reached the Gagarin Cup finals, where it lost to Magnitogorsk. Game seven of the series would later turn out to be its last, with the club ceasing operations later during the summer due to financial concerns.

Six years later, now owned by successful Czech entrepreneur Petr Kellner, the club returns the rough Prague borough of Holešovice and is looking to once again make its presence known in the league. The road ahead, however, looks difficult. The westernmost KHL team, which will share a division with CSKA, Minsk, Dynamo Moscow, Yaroslavl and Riga, will have to form its roster from scratch within the next few months, with only a very small expansion draft to aid their chances.

In two days, Lev will be able to pick one goalie, two defensemen and three forwards from the remaining clubs, with players aged 22 and younger being automatically protected. Each team can also lose only one player. In short, Prague will have to mostly rely on sourcing talent from free agency and the Tipsport Extraliga, Czech Republic's premier hockey competition. However, with a budget reaching almost $17 million, we can definitely expect it to make some noise on the market.

Calling the shots from the GM seat will be 39-year old Adam Hájek, an unknown figure in the hockey world. We can only wait and see what the inexperienced manager will do...