In 1997, after a 15-month senate investigation of more than 100 players, owners, and officials were interviewed about possible extortion between the Russian mafia and Russian NHL players living in the United States. The investigation concluded that there has been a direct influence on NHL players by the Russian mafia for some level of extortion (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hockey/nhl/news/1997/06/10/news. rus

Two players Pavel Bure and Slava Fetisov in particular were involved in an interview with PBS’s Frontline called “Mafia Power Play” in 1999.

After and extensive search the FBI shut down a New York based extortion and money laundering stake that was run by Russian gangster Vyacheslav Ivankov (http://organizedcrime.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fwgbh%2Fpages%2Ffrontline%2Fshows%2Fhockey%2Fetc%2Fsynopsis.html).

Fetisov was shown to have direct connections and involvement in the illegal operations, and denies any involvement in illegal activity. Fetisov was never tried.

The Penguins endeavor only lasted two seasons until the mafia more or less booted Warsaw out of a job. Some say the lack of cooperation given by the Russian elite killed any future of hockey in Russia (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hockey/interviews/warshaw.html).

mafia.html). The report said it was estimated that nearly 50 players were, or have been, extorted in some way. Senate investigator Michael Bopp reported that one third of these players even had direct involvement in the wrong doings (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hockey/nhl/news/1997/06/10/news.rusmafia.html). Most of the players were reluctant to speak about their involvements but after doing so said that it was a relief to be able to get it off their chest. One unnamed player followed a similar statement with, “I’m not going to tell you again so don’t ask me. And I’m not going to testify, but I’ll tell you about being extorted (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hockey/nhl/news/1997/06/10/news.rusmafia.html).” According to the reports the unnamed player named threats to his family, requests of six-figure payments, threats to blow up his car and actual acts of damaging his property and threats against people he lived with as some of the things that were acted upon him (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hockey/nhl/news/1997/06/10/news.rusmafia.html).

The mafia began to infiltrate the players also and if you didn’t comply then you were killed. In a six-month period, a player, Alexander Osache; an assistant coach, Vladamir Bouvich; and a team photographer, Felix Oliviov, were all killed for not cooperating with the mafia (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hockey/interviews/warshaw.html).

If anything the threat of the Russian Mafia has directly and indirectly killed any money that would have been brought into t

Some topics in this essay:
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