A week ago, I wrote about the formation of Hockey Europe, a new organization that was essentially six European leagues banding together to help them compete against larger leagues like the NHL and KHL. In the wake of that post, I received a lot of great feedback from a few European hockey insiders, some of whom painted a rather ugly picture of the situation in leagues in Sweden, Finland and elsewhere.

One former European league player (who played briefly in the NHL) said the real concern is that the IIHF and all of its various tournaments — including the new Champions League — are taking far too much from the club teams.

"It’s not really competing with NHL or even KHL as much as surviving," the player wrote in an e-mail. "Only one SM-liiga team [in the top league in Finland] made money and many are losing money. TPS Turku (Finland’s version of the Montreal Canadiens) is in death spiral having lost 2.7 million euros in the last two seasons and another million is coming this season. Miikka Kiprusoff and the Koivu brothers bought some stock last season, but the team needs more.

"The Elitserien [in Sweden] is much healthier, but there are even some signs there of times turning bad. The IIHF is feeling terrific when others are suffering, and European leagues want to operate like the NHL by running their own show and letting [national] federations operate like they do in Canada and the U.S. Hockey Canada and USA Hockey take what the NHL leaves them, which is players for the world championships (if they’re not playing in the playoffs), and somehow they seem to be okay."

All of this has created a lot of disagreement between the professional teams and their country's federations, as well as the IIHF (which is on bad terms with a lot of groups at the moment).

"League organizations feel the IIHF and individual federations are suffocating their business," the former player said. "For example, the Finnish Ice Hockey Federation has a 14 million euro budget while the top team in the Finnish League has a budget of half that."

One of the most outspoken critics of the system has been former NHL great Hakan Loob, who is now the general manager of Farjestads in the Elitserien and who has unsuccessfully attempted to fight to keep his players rather than let them play for the national team during the season.

The former player thinks that, at some point — and especially in light of the creation of Hockey Europe as a decision-making entity — the Farjestads GM and his backers will stand firm.

"Having these midseason tournaments drives everybody nuts," he said. "And I believe that at some point in near future Loob and others will win this fight."

Unlike the NHL, the European leagues all place a huge emphasis on getting their seasons finished in time for the world championship in April every year, and the results see their seasons becoming more and more condensed as IIHF tournaments like the Euro Hockey Tour add games during the year.

The Champions League, which is just starting its first season, isn't going to be much of a success without all of the European leagues onside. So far, that marquee tournament hasn't become as contentious as the various small ones that the IIHF puts on during the season, but we could be headed in that direction.