Difference between revisions of "Kontinental Hockey League"

Latest revision as of 15:06, 27 April 2025

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The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) (Template:Lang-ru) is an international professional ice hockey league founded in 2008. It comprises 29 member clubs based in Belarus, China, Croatia, Finland, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Russia, and Slovakia and it is planned to expand to more countries. It is widely considered to be the premier professional ice hockey league in Europe and Asia, and second in the world behind the NHL.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Gagarin Cup is awarded annually to the league playoff champion at the end of each season. The title of Champion of Russia is given to the highest ranked Russian team.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

History

Establishment

The league formed from the Russian Superleague (RSL) and the champion of the 2007–08 season of the second division, with 24 teams: 21 from Russia and one each from Belarus, Latvia, and Kazakhstan. The teams were divided into four divisions, based on the performance in previous seasons.Template:Citation needed

The start of the fourth season was overshadowed by the Yaroslavl air disaster on 7 September 2011 in which almost all members of the team Lokomotiv Yaroslavl lost their lives shortly after take-off for their flight to their season opening game in Minsk. The Opening Cup game in Ufa, which was already under way when news of the disaster arrived, was suspended. In memory of the disaster, 7 September remains a day of mourning on which no KHL regular season games are held.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Team changes

Template:Main In the 2009–10 season, Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg joined the KHL and Khimik Voskresensk was transferred to a lower league. Next season, HC Yugra joined the league.

After several attempts by teams from Central Europe and Scandinavia to join the KHL, expansion beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union was finally realized in 2011. Lev Poprad, a newly founded team based in Poprad, Slovakia was admitted to the league. But after only one season, Lev was replaced by a team of the same name, Lev Praha, from Prague, Czech Republic, while Slovan Bratislava from Slovakia and Ukraine's Donbass joined the KHL as expansion teams.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Lev and Slovan qualified for the playoffs in their first KHL season. Template:Citation needed

In 2013, Medveščak from Croatia and Russian Admiral Vladivostok joined the league, thus expanding the league even further.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The league comprised 28 teams during the 2013–14 season, of which 21 are based in Russia and 7 more are located in the other countries.

In 2014, Finnish team Jokerit from Helsinki, Lada Togliatti (which previously played in the league), and newly created team HC Sochi joined the league.<ref name="Welcome, Jokerit and Sochi; welcome back, Lada">Template:Cite web</ref> However, HC Donbass is not playing in the league this season, due to the political instability in Ukraine, but intends to rejoin later.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Two other teams, Lev Praha and Spartak Moscow, also withdrew from the 2014–2015 season due to financial problems.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=" ">Template:Cite news</ref>

Prior to the 2015–16 season, Atlant Moscow Oblast withdrew from the KHL, while Spartak Moscow returned.<ref>League confirms format for 2015–16 season</ref>

The Chinese club HC Kunlun Red Star were admitted for the 2016–17 season.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Season structure

Template:Multiple image Since 2009, the league has been divided into East and West conferences. In the current season, the Western Conference includes 14 teams divided into two divisions, 7 teams per division. The Eastern Conference has 15 teams, divided into divisions of 7 and 8 respectively. In this season, each team played every other team once at home and once on the road, giving a total of 56 games (28 at home, 28 on the road), plus 4 additional games (2 at home, 2 on the road) played by each team against rival clubs from its own conference. Thus, each team played a total of 60 games in the regular season.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The eight top-ranked teams in each conference receive playoff berths. Within each conference quarterfinals, semifinals and finals are played before the conference winners play against each other for the Gagarin Cup. The division winners are seeded first and second in their conference, based on their regular season record. All playoff rounds are played as best-of-seven series. In each round, the top seeded remaining team is paired with the lowest seeded team etc.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In the 2012–13 season, the Nadezhda Cup (Cup of Hope) was introduced, a consolation tournament for the teams who did not qualify for the playoffs. The winning team in the tournament wins the first overall pick in the KHL Junior Draft. The tournament is intended to extend the season and help maintain interest in hockey in the cities of these teams, and help players of national teams prepare for upcoming World Championship.<ref name=cupofhope>Template:Cite web</ref>

Teams

Template:KHL teams organization

Players

Though now not as restrictive in maintaining an exclusively Russian composition of players and teams, Russian teams are still not allowed to sign more than five foreign players, while non-Russian teams must have at least five players from their respective country. Foreign goaltenders on Russian teams have a limit regarding total seasonal ice time.<ref name="rules2012">Template:Cite web</ref>

Prior to the inaugural season, several KHL teams signed several players from the NHL.<ref name="tsn">Template:Cite web</ref> A dispute between the two leagues over some of these signings was supposed to have been resolved by an agreement signed on July 10, 2008, whereby each league would honor the contracts of the other, but the signing of Alexander Radulov was made public one day after the agreement (though it was actually signed two days prior to the agreement taking effect),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> leading to an investigation by the International Ice Hockey Federation.<ref>Predator inks debatable deal – iihf.com</ref> On 4 October 2010, the conflict between the leagues was settled when both signed a new agreement to honor one another's contracts.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The league set up rules for the NHL lockout which lasted from 16 September 2012 to 12 January 2013. According to the special regulations, each KHL team was allowed to add up to three NHL players to its roster, among them at most one foreign player.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> More than 40 NHL players, the majority of them Russians, played in the KHL during the lockout.

KHL players are represented by the Kontinental Hockey League Players' Trade Union.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Nationalities of players

During the current season, players representing 16 nations have played at least one game in the KHL.<ref name="Origin of players">Template:Cite web</ref> A player's nationality is for various reasons sometimes ambiguous. For the table presented below, the nationality "is determined based on the last country that the player represented in international competition. If a player has never played for a national team, usually the country of birth is chosen as the player nationality, unless there is strong evidence indicating otherwise".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> For players born in former Soviet republics, the situation is often more complex due to dual citizenship and naturalization. Therefore, a list of players born in Ukraine gives case-by-case details for some of those players. In some cases, players can change their nationality registration with the league on a year-by-year basis, and their nationality with the league may not match that of their International Ice Hockey Federation registration. Non-Russians represent about 40% of the KHL players, and are mostly Central European, Nordic, and North American. In 2015–16, more than 950 players played in the league (see table below).Template:Citation needed

• a – For further information, see: List of Latvians in the KHL
• b – For further information, see: List of Ukrainians in the KHL

Trophies and awards

The winner of the playoff is awarded the Gagarin Cup, the KHL Champion title and the Russian Champion title, regardless of the country the club represents. The team ranked first in the standings after the regular season, i.e. the winner of the regular season, is awarded the Continental Cup<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (Template:Lang-ru). The winners of the conference finals are awarded the Eastern Conference Champion Cup (Template:Lang-ru) and the Western Conference Champion Cup (Template:Lang-ru).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The KHL presents annual awards to its most successful players. The KHL also awards the Opening Cup annually to the winner of the first game between the Gagarin Cup winner and the runner-up of the previous season. On September 10, 2011, three days after the 2011 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl air disaster, the KHL head office decided to honor the deceased in the 2011 Opening Cup.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Seasons overview

Template:Unreferenced section Template:Clear

*: In the first season, Salavat Yulaev Ufa was the winner of the regular season, but the Continental Cup was not yet awarded.

Statistics

Single season records

Template:Col-begin Template:Col-2 Regular season<ref name="KHL records">Template:Cite web</ref>

Template:Col-2 Playoffs<ref name="KHL records" />

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Career records

Template:Col-begin Template:Col-2 Regular season<ref name="KHL records" />

Template:Col-2 Playoffs<ref name="KHL records" />

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All-time team records

Since its foundation in 2008, 35 different clubs have played in the KHL, and 32 of them have at least once qualified for the playoffs. Of the current 29 teams, only Metallurg Novokuznetsk have never qualified for the playoffs yet. The table gives the final regular-season ranks for all teams, with the playoff performance encoded in colors. The teams are ordered by their best championship results.

Template:Col-begin Template:Col-break

Template:Col-break

Template:Col-end  ^[a]: Includes record of Dynamo Moscow before the merger with HC MVD in 2010

 ^[b]: Did not participate in the 2011–12 season due to the deadly air disaster on September 7, 2011, that killed the entire team

Attendance statistics

Total and average attendance in seasons.<ref>Attendance in Europe and health of the fan culture 10/11</ref><ref name="iihf.com">Regular-Season average attendance Europe & Asia 2011–2012</ref><ref>Regular-Season average league attendance Europe & Asia 2012–2013</ref><ref>Attendance KHL 2013/14</ref><ref>KHL attendance stats 2014–15</ref>

All-Star Game

Template:Main The Kontinental Hockey League All-Star Game is an exhibition game held annually in the midway point (usually January or February) of the season, with the league's star players playing against each other. Previously played Russian players versus the "rest of the world", now it is Eastern versus Western Conference.

See also

• Ice Hockey Federation of Russia
• Russian Elite Hockey Scoring Champion
• Russian Elite Hockey Goal Scoring Champion
• List of current KHL team rosters

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References

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External links

Official KHL

• Kontinental Hockey League official website
• Kontinental Hockey League official website Template:Ru icon
• Template:Facebook
• Template:Twitter
• Template:YouTube

Third party

• KHL vs NHL exhibition games official homepage
• KHL news and stats from Eurohockey
• Kontinental Hockey League Players' Trade Union Template:Ru icon

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