Chelyabinsk saw the start of 2022 All-Star Week – on Dec 3-4 the 12th JHL Challenge Cup and the fifth WHL All-Star Game took place in the Traktor Arena named after the late V. Belousov. Discover what the participants and guests remembered of the first half of the main hockey show of the year.
Struggle between West and East, exciting shootouts, and the way to the KHL Fonbet All-Star Game
During the two days of play, 78 hockey players and eight referees hit the ice; 10 coaches worked with the teams on the benches.
The four best players of the JHL Challenge Cup earned the right to participate in the Master Show and the Fonbet KHL All-Star Game. Among them is the representative of Metallurg, Roman Kantserov, the best scorer of the JHL’s Eastern Conference and the author of the game-winning goal at the Challenge Cup. He was closely followed by Sergei Mozyakin, Magnitka’s director of youth development and the best scorer in KHL history.
- For me this is the first Challenge Cup, which I watched in its entirety, including selecting the best players. I liked the fact that the game was for real; the guys tried, fought hard, for, among other things, to win a spot in the KHL All-Star Game, it was evident. Honestly, I really liked the atmosphere and how many fans were in the stands. For me it was surprising in a good way, letìs put it that way. Roman Kantserov of Steel Foxes is a good guy both in life and in hockey. He does a lot for the team, the game, and the locker room. I’m very glad that our experts liked his game.
Another participant at the Fonbet KHL All-Star Game will be one of the main discoveries of the JHL season, 16-year-old SKA-1946 forward Ivan Demidov. He is his team’s top scorer and best passer in the entire league. In December he surpassed Nikita Kucherov for the second place in the list of the top scorers in the JHL history among players under 17 years old. Ivan’s birthday is on December 10, which means that he will celebrate his 17th birthday in Chelyabinsk at the KHL All-Star Game. Artyom Zhukov (Sibirskie Snipers) and Vladimir Konov (Loko-76) received the remaining two tickets to the senior All-Star Game.
The WHL All-Star Game was the most productive in history. The teams scored seven times, surpassing the 2019 record of six tallies, with the Western All-Stars celebrating a 4:3 win in Chelyabinsk.
17-year-old Tornado forward Alexandra Nesterova scored the first double in the history of the WHL All-Star Game, including tallying the game-winner. Elena Zaripova (Tornado) became the author of the most beautiful goal of the All-Star Game, pushing the puck into the crease while falling when going one-on-one with the goalie after an excellent pass by Angelina Goncharenko.
Smart pucks and advanced statistics
For the first time ever, the JHL Challenge Cup and the WHL All-Star Game were equipped with sports telematics: the STM system, which provides real-time, highly accurate, and visualized statistics in automatic mode.
During the games, three parameters were displayed on the scoreboard and during the broadcast: shooting power, maximum speed and distance on the ice for each team.
Artyom Zhukov became the author of the strongest shot as a member of the Eastern Conference team at the Challenge Cup (132.5 km/h). Three shots by Liana Ganeyeva (110.9, 108.3, 107.9 km/h) were among the top five most powerful shots of the WHL All-Star Game for Team West. Angelina Goncharenko (117.9 kph) recorded the most powerful shot of the event.
The players of the four teams covered 270 km (167 mi) on ice in the two days of competition. This is 20 kilometers more than the distance from Chelyabinsk to Magnitogorsk.
Prematch show: Youth Manifesto and Be a Girl
Both meetings were preceded by colorful pre-match shows with premiere promos. The slogan of the Challenge Cup video was Youth Manifesto: it’s dedicated to the emotions that the game gives to the players, as well as to the uncompromising struggle in which JHL matches take place.
The heroes of the promo for the WHL All-Star Game are girls who can achieve a lot in many different areas of life and, of course, in hockey. The commercial proves that the words Be a Girl have long since ceased to be something offensive. On the contrary, it means Be your best.
The film crew consisted of eight people and there were two shifts. We invited students from the Makarov hockey school (seven girls) and the Traktor school (seven boys). The main character of the WHL reel, Yelizaveta Rodnova, was replaced in the frame by two girls from the Makarov school. The street filming took place at -20 degrees. It took 50 hours to edit it.
The scene required 16 projectors, 12 lasers and more than 100 lighting devices working in the arena.
TV and broadcasts: a studio at the Challenge Cup, and players as correspondents
JHL and WHL fans across the country could enjoy the games live on KHL and KHL Prime TV channels, the regional TV channel OTV (Chelyabinsk Region) and on the Leagues’ YouTube channels. For the first time the JHL Challenge Cup and the WHL All-Star Game had a studio, where Dmitry Fyodorov and Anna Prugova (who serves as a goalie for Agidel Ufa) worked at the JHL game, Roman Skvortsov and Artyom Batrak provided commentary. Dmitry Fyodorov and Artyom Batrak worked in the studio during the WHL game, while Roman Skvortsov and Anna Prugova commentated. Yekaterina Ananyina (Torpedo) worked between the benches for the two events. For the first time, active female hockey players were engaged to work on the broadcasts of games, interviewing players and telling the nuances of women’s hockey.
Social responsibility: visiting Starry Rain and two million rubles from Fonbet
On the eve of the Challenge Cup, the JHL for Children campaign took place: Alexander Polushkin and Alexander Morozov, forwards for the Eastern team, came to visit the Starry Rain Foundation. They presented a certificate for the purchase of furniture for the classrooms, gifts to decorate the hockey corner, and tickets to the upcoming game. The Starry Rain Foundation was founded in 2006 by an initiative group of parents who raise mentally handicapped children. The foundation is dedicated to supporting families who have children with autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disabilities.
During an intermission of the JHL All-Star Game, Fonbet presented the Adaptive Hockey Federation with a certificate for 2,034,000 rubles as part of the Assist promotion. According to its rules, each goal scored in the Fonbet KHL Championship is given a monetary value of 1,000 rubles. At the end of the month, all the money received goes to charity. During first three months of games, 2,034 goals were scored in the Fonbet KHL Championship and the company allocated 2,034,000 rubles to the Adaptive Hockey Federation for the organization of training camps.
Volunteers
The organizers were assisted by 90 volunteers in all areas: protocol, statistics, greeting and seeing off the guests, spectators’ program, navigation, media team, match organization volunteers and team hosts. The oldest volunteer was 76 years old.
Attendance, election of captains and girls’ top performances in shootouts
Yuri Kuklachyov’s son Dmitry visited the WHL All-Star Game and was delighted with what he saw:
I remember when a girl was given a pot to make borscht and she said, ‘Borscht is not for me! Hockey is for me.’ That’s real desire to win, and that’s the epitome of women’s hockey.- The JHL Challenge Cup and the WHL All-Star Game are two different universes. I watched both games. Youth hockey is more forceful, girls’ hockey is more tactical a lot of movement
The attendance of the Challenge Cup was 5,132 spectators, for the WHL All-Star Game, 3,652 spectators. In total, almost 9,000 spectators attended the first All-Star Weekend.
During the breaks of the WHL All-Star Game the girls traditionally pleased the fans with bright and creative shootout performance.
Journalists chose the winner of the contest for the first time, and they gave preference to Viktoria Kulishova, who went over the stereotypes that hockey is not a woman’s business. She “washed” the ice with a mop, “cooked” borscht, and then masterfully executed the shootout, beating Valeriya Merkusheva.
On the eve of the Challenge Cup game, for the first time, a vote was held, where the teams chose captains and assistants in the presence of coaches. Pavel Leuka, Omsk’s forward, was elected captain of the East and Artyom Didkovsky, another forward, but lining up for Spartak, was elected Western Conference’s captain.
The first weekend is over, but there’s more to come: The Master Show and Fonbet KHL All-Star Game will take place on Dec 10-11. Tickets are on sale at allstarweek.com.
