KHL – Kontinental Hockey League
KHL Ancestors
KHL was formed in the year 2008. While KHL is strongly connected with Russia, we are going to look which leagues were in the Russia before KHL. We have to remind that ice hockey wasn’t popular sport in the Soviet Union in the first half of the 20th century. More popular sport in Soviet Union was bandy.
There was no own ice hockey championship until the season 1946/47 and the first time we have seen Soviets at the World Ice Hockey Championship was in the year 1954 where Soviet Union, surprisingly, won gold medal.
Soviet Championship League (Чемпионат СССР по хоккею с шайбой)
As mentioned before, the first season of the Soviet Championship League was 1946/47. 12 teams in three groups participated in the first season where all matches were played on the natural ice. The winner of the first season was Dynamo Moscow.
The last season of this league was 1991/92 and it was also won by the Dynamo Moscow. The most successful team in the Soviet Championship League was HC CSKA Moscow. In total 46 seasons, HC CSKA Moscow won 32 times!
Russian Superleague (Чемпионат России Суперлига)
After the Soviet Union’s collapse, the league was transformed into the International Hockey League (Межнациональная хоккейная лига). This league existed from the season 1992/93 to the season 1995/96. It was twice won by Dynamo Moscow and twice by Lada Togliatti.
The first season of the Russian Superleague was 1996/97. In the first three seasons, this league was known as Russian Hockey League and it consisted only from Russian teams. Since 1999, the league was opened for non-Russian teams and it was renamed to Russian Superleague. The last season, won by Salavat Yulaev Ufa, was 2007/2008.
Kontinental Hockey League (Континентальная хоккейная лига)
Obviously, the KHL is based on its predecessor Russian Superleague. In the first season (2008/2009), KHL consisted from 24 teams, 21 from Russia, Barys Astana from Kazakhstan, Dinamo Minsk from Belarus and Dinamo Riga from Latvia. The first winner of the Gagarin Cup, a trophy for the winner of the KHL playoff, was Ak Bars Kazan.
(Photo source: RIA Novosti archive, image #386859 / Maksim Bogodvid / CC-BY-SA 3.0).
In the season 2011/12, Lev Poprad from the Slovakia joined the KHL. This season was affected by the air crash of team Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. All members of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl died and Lokomotiv cancelled its participation in this season.
For the season 2012/13, Lev Poprad was moved to Prague, Czech Republic and formed a new team called Lev Praha. Next, Slovan Bratislava from Slovakia joined KHL as well as HC Donbass from Ukraine. Lokomotiv Yaroslavl returned to the KHL. During the NHL lockout, more than 40 NHL players played in the KHL. This number would be possibly higher, but according to the regulation, each team was allowed to add up to 3 NHL players.
For the season 2013/14, Vityaz Chekhov moved to Podolsk and became Vityaz Podolsk. Two more teams joined KHL, the first one was Medveščak Zagreb from Croatia and the second one was Admiral Vladivostok from Russia. KHL consisted from 28 teams in 8 countries (21 from Russia, 1 from Kazakhstan, 1 from Ukraine, 1 from Belarus, 1 from the Czech Republic, 1 from Slovakia, 1 from Latvia and 1 from Croatia).
Seasons 2014/15 and 2015/16 were played by 28 teams again but with some changes (e.g., HC Lev Praha did not played these seasons because of financial problems).
Gagarin Cup Winners
The Gagarin Cup is the trophy for the winner of the KHL playoff. In the five seasons of the KHL we have seen these winners:
- 2008/09: Ak Bars Kazan,
- 2009/10: Ak Bars Kazan,
- 2010/11: Salavat Yulaev Ufa,
- 2011/12: Dynamo Moscow,
- 2012/13: Dynamo Moscow,
- 2013/14: Metallurg Magnitogorst,
- 2014/15: SKA Saint Petersburg,
- 2015/16: Metallurg Magnitogorsk.