World Team, World Games; the KHL goes global
The KHL’s international status was underlined as the New Year approaches. Last week saw the KHL World Team announce its roster ahead of this weekend’s Channel 1 Cup in St. Petersburg. And tickets went on sale for the latest edition of the KHL World Games, scheduled for Dec. 22 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
KHL represents the World
The KHL World Team roster was unveiled last week ahead of the Channel 1 Cup in St. Petersburg. It includes five Olympians – Jeremy Smith (China), Patrik Rybar, Michal Cajkovsky and Adam Ruzicka (all bronze medallists with Slovakia in 2022), plus Czech defenseman Libor Sulak, who played in 2018 and 2022. There’s also a Gagarin Cup winner on the team in the shape of Sweden’s Robin Press. They form part of a roster with 31 players from 11 clubs. Seven countries are represented: Canada, USA, Sweden, Slovakia, Czech Republic, China and Slovenia. The roster will be coached by Mike Keenan and his long-term assistant in the KHL Mike Pelino. They will be joined by current KHL head coaches Mikhail Kravets (Kunlun Red Star) and Leonids Tambijevs (Admiral).
The Channel 1 Cup is a four-team international tournament that has long been a fixture of the Russian hockey calendar each December. This year’s event features a KHL representative team for the first time, taking on Russia 25, Belarus and Kazakhstan in a round robin format. The competition runs Dec. 12-15.
Kuznetsov leads Russia’s roster
Ten KHL clubs are represented on the Russia 25 roster for the Channel 1 Cup. The team, which is intended to have an average age of 25 and give opportunities for rising stars to get a taste of international play, is coached by SKA’s Roman Rotenberg. Not surprisingly, he’s drawn heavily on players from his club, with the Petersburg organization supplying 17 of the roster. That includes star man Evgeny Kuznetsov, who last represented his country on home ice at 2016 World Championship in Moscow.
Belarusians name their line-up
Belarus also announced its roster for the tournament in December. Head coach Dmitry Kvartalnov has called on 13 players from his Dinamo Minsk team, with two others attached to the Bison but assigned elsewhere this season. The team also includes a trio of SKA players: Vladimir Alistrov, Stepan Falkovsky and Sergei Sapego will lock horns with their club head coach Roman Rotenberg during the course of next weekend’s tournament. Severstal’s Alexander Skorenov celebrated his call-up to the national team with his first KHL hat-trick during the week. Kazakhstan has yet to confirm its team for the competition.
World Games tickets on sale now
Right after the Channel 1 Cup, the KHL continues its effort to promote the international game. Dec. 22 sees the latest KHL World Games event, with Spartak playing a regular-season game against Dinamo Minsk in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The Central Asian nation will be the 16th to host a league game, and its capital will be the 49th host city. Tickets are available now from this site.
Another milestone for Shipachyov
It’s almost a weekly occurrence right now, but Vadim Shipachyov keeps hitting those landmarks. The KHL’s all-time scoring leader reached 650 assists this week with a helper on Brady Lyle’s game-winning power play goal at Amur. Shipachyov quickly moved to 651, helping Dinamo Minsk to a 5-2 win on the road. Sergei Mozyakin is second in assists with 509, while Alexander Radulov (461) has the most among currently active players.
Boucher joins exclusive club
Reid Boucher potted his 150th (and 151st) goal for Avangard in Saturday’s 4-2 win over Avtomobilist. He’s by no means the first player to reach that landmark in the KHL, but he is one of just two players to get there with a strike rate better than 0.5 goals per game. The American forward did it in 298 appearances, for a gpg of 0.507, putting him ahead of the likes of all-time goal leader Sergei Mozyakin and top-scoring import Nigel Dawes. However, he’s not quite at the top of the tree for goals per game, with that honor going to Ak Bars’ captain Dmtrij Jaskin. The Omsk-born Czech international has 155 goals from 286 games after scoring on Salavat Yulaev on Sunday, giving him a strike rate of 0.54.
Temporary changes at Avangard
Sergei Zvyagin, who began the season as head coach as Avangard and had been continuing in an interim role pending the imminent arrival of Guy Boucher, has left the Hawks. His departure on Dec. 3 ends an association with the Hawks’ coaching staff that dates back to 2018 when he was hired as a goalie coach in Omsk. Fellow coach Anton Kuryanov left at the same time, with Andrej Podkonicky taking over on a temporary basis until Boucher gets to Russia. Podkonicky, from Slovakia, was on the Avangard coaching staff last season. Under his guidance, Avangard won twice this week and moved into eighth place in the East.
Prince joins Admiral
Shane Prince has swapped Spartak for Admiral. The American-born Belarusian international forward had 7 (3+4) points from 13 games for the Red-and-Whites this season. His KHL career totals 301 appearances for Sibir, Dinamo Minsk, Avtomobilist and Spartak, with 88 goals and 105 assists.
First ever Junior Classic
It’s Winter Classic season and this year Russia’s Junior Hockey League is joining the party. For the first time, the competition staged an outdoor spectacle of its own, with Mikhailov Academy taking on SKA 1946 in Tula. An exciting game went to overtime before Danila Bulatov secured a 3-2 victory for the home team. In recent years Tula, a historic city 185 km south of Moscow, has established itself as a rising hockey center. AKM plays in the VHL and the city’s new arena has staged international exhibition games. The inaugural Junior Classic represents another step forward for the growth of the game in this region.
