Women’s Hockey Update: October 9th, 2017

Russia’s Yevgeniya Dyupina scores against Nana Fujimoto of Japan during an exhibition game on Monday.  (Image Source)

Here we are at Monday, so it is time once again for a women’s hockey update, and there is a great deal to cover in this one!  Both the senior and under-18 Russian women’s national teams saw action this past week, and the last couple of days witnessed the celebrations of the IIHF’s World Girls’ Ice Hockey Weekend.  In addition, there was a very important player-signing in the Women’s Hockey League, and even bigger news than that.  Read on!

That big news in Russian women’s hockey arrived just today:  the Russian Hockey Federation and the KHL have announced that they have reached an agreement that will see the KHL continue to administer the Women’s Hockey League for another three seasons after the current one.  The KHL took over the Women’s Hockey League in 2015 (it had previously been operated by the Federation), and the 2017-18 campaign is the last of that initial three-season agreement.  Said KHL VP of Hockey Operations Georgy Kobylyansky: “For two years… we have been seeing qualitative growth in the development of professional women’s hockey, and increased interest in this sport.”

Kobylyansky was not kidding, either, and this is unquestionably good news for women’s hockey in Russia.  The KHL’s “takeover” gave the Women’s Hockey League a much-needed boost particularly in the area of marketing and promotion, as witness last season’s first-ever All-Star game for the league, but also in just about every other organizational aspect as well.  I might also mention, as someone who writes about Russian women’s hockey from afar, that the league has been much more convenient to follow since it came under the aegis of the KHL (the Women’s Hockey League website, which came online on opening day of the 2015-16 season, does an excellent job).  There have been some bumps in the road, to be sure, such as last season’s unfortunate situation with Dynamo Kursk, and there is much work still to be done, but nobody can claim realistically that the Women’s Hockey League is not better off today than it was two years ago.  Good news indeed.

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The news of the continued affiliation with the KHL arrived on the tail of a weekend that saw all seven Women’s Hockey League teams hosting events as part of the IIHF’s World Girls’ Ice Hockey Weekend.  The Russian teams held masterclasses, workshops, and friendly games for girls in their respective cities.  The video above shows clips from the event in St. Petersburg, and there are full write-ups, with pictures, for each of the teams’ weekends here:

• Agidel Ufa
• Arktik-Universitet Ukhta
• Biryusa Krasnoyarsk
• Dynamo St. Petersburg
• SK Sverdlovsk Oblast
• SKIF Nizhny Novgorod
• Tornado Moscow Oblast

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To some major signing news from the Women’s Hockey League: among those present at the World Girls’ Ice Hockey Weekend festivities in Ufa was Alexandra Vafina, and it subsequently transpired that the 27-year-old free-agent forward has in fact signed until the end of the season with Agidel.  Vafina, a native of Almaty, Kazakhstan, spent the past three seasons as a member of the University of Calgary women’s team in the CIS, and was most recently in the Women’s Hockey League as a member of now-defunct Fakel Chelyabinsk in 2013-14.

Alexandra Vafina (second from right) sporting her new team’s colours during this past weekend’s festivities in Ufa. (Image Source)

Vafina has been a regular on the Russian national team for a number of years; her resume includes the last eight World Championships (she has won bronze twice in those), the 2010 and 2014 Olympics, and the gold medal-winning Winter Universiade tournaments of 2015 and 2017.  While, lacking match-fitness, she is unlikely to accompany the national team on its upcoming trip to the U.S. (see below), it will be a shock if she is not on the 2018 Olympic roster.  Simply put, she is one of the best players in the Russian women’s hockey program.

For Agidel, her signing is obviously a tremendous boost as they go in search of that elusive first-ever national title (the prospect of having to deal with her and Olga Sosina on the ice at the same time should terrify any opponent).  And we now have our answer as to who will replace the scoring of veteran Yekaterina Smolentseva, who left the team this summer.  (h/t to Denis Osipchuk)

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A few weeks after going 1-2 in three games against Finland (both losses in extra time, mind you), the Russian Under-18 women’s team returned to action late last week in a tournament in Füssen, Germany.  Switzerland were the first opponents up, and Team Russia got off to a very quick start.  Two goals and an assist from Yelizaveta Shkalyova helped spot the team a 5-0 first-period advantage, and Russia cruised from their to a 7-0 victory.  The second game, also against the Swiss, was a tougher proposition; once again, Shkalyova struck twice in the early going, but this time Team Switzerland pulled one back to trail just 2-1 after 20 minutes.  Irina Tsatsina extended the Russian lead to 3-1 in the second period (another assist for Shkalyova on that one), and in fact that was how matters concluded in Game 2.

Oxana Bratishcheva. (Image Source)

The tournament’s final game, on Saturday, saw Russia up against hosts Germany.  This time, it was Oxana Bratishcheva, fresh off her previous week’s heroics in club hockey, who was the key figure.  Her two early goals gave Russia yet another first-period lead, and after the teams traded scores in the middle frame, she set up Yelena Mezentseva early in the third for a 4-1 advantage.  Team Russia added another very late for a 5-1 final score, and a perfect 3-0 record on the tournament.  Shkalyova’s four goals and six points led the team, and Milena Tretyak did almost all of the netminding (she was relieved by Anna Alpatova for the third period of the tournament-opener against Switzerland, but otherwise played every minute).

So, a successful tournament, even if Switzerland and Germany are not quite of the top rank of opponent.  The Russian U18s will return to action from November 9th to 11th, when they host a four-nation tournament that will also include Finland, Sweden, and Germany.

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The Russian senior women’s team was also at work this past week, preparing for their second annual trip to the United States to face clubs from the National Women’s Hockey League.  The final stage of that preparation was the visit of Team Japan to the Russian hockey base at Novogorsk for a pair of exhibition games yesterday and today.  The Japanese national team came into the series riding a 26-game winning streak in all competitions, so definitely a squad not to be taken too lightly, even as Team Russia looked ahead to the North American tour.

Team Japan served notice early in the first game, too, that they were to be reckoned with, as Akane Hosoyamada of the CWHL’s Calgary Inferno gave the visitors a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes.  Russian Head Coach Alexei Chistyakov’s players found the range thereafter, however; Yevgeniya Dyupina of Dynamo St. Petersburg tied the game seven minutes into the second period.  Then the big Tornado Moscow Oblast trio struck, as Yelena Dergachyova scored with assists to her club linemates Alevtina Shtaryova and Anna Shokhina, and Russia led 2-1 after two periods.  In the third, the Russians pulled away.  First it was another Tornado player, Lyudmila Belyakova, getting her name on the scoresheet, before Agidel Ufa defender Tatyana Shibanova rounded out the scoring in the final minute of what ended as a 4-1 Russian victory.  Shibanova’s Agidel team-mate, the formidable Olga Sosina, picked up assists on both the third-period goals, while Biryusa Krasnoyarsk’s Nadezhda Morozova earned the victory in goal.

Alevtina Shtaryova. (Image Source)

Chistyakov opted to go with Valeriya Tarakanova of SKIF Nizhny Novgorod in net for today’s second meeting between the two teams, but the game’s opening act followed the same script.  Once again, Japan held a 1-0 first-intermission lead, this time thanks to Miho Shishiuchi.  And once again, Tornado’s big line came to the fore in the second period, as Shtaryova leveled matters with assists from Dergachyova and Shokhina.  This game, however, would go down to the wire.  With less than three minutes on the clock, Dyupina pounced on a mistake at the Japanese blueline, skated in alone on Nana Fujimoto, and scored what would turn out to be the game winner (see photo at the top of this post).  Tornado’s Nina Pirogova added a third into the empty net with just a few ticks left, and Russia came away with their second victory in two days, by a score of 3-1.

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Team Russia sets off for the U.S. on Wednesday, and will open their series on Friday against the New York Riveters.  The full schedule is as follows:

• Friday, October 13th: New York Riveters
• Sunday, October 15th: Connecticut Whale
• Tuesday, October 17th: Connecticut Whale
• Wednesday, October 18th: Boston Pride
• Saturday, October 21st: Boston Pride
• Sunday, October 22nd: New York Riveters

We do not yet know the final roster that Chistyakov will select for the North American tour (you can see the training camp roster here), but I will post it here when it shows up in the next couple of days.  Last year’s series between Team Russia and the NWHL was great fun, and here’s hoping that this year’s goes likewise!

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That’s all for this week’s update!  Next Monday, we will recap the first couple of games of Team Russia’s U.S. tour, and — at long last, I promise — get around to looking at the teams that will take part in the amateur League of Women’s Hockey this season.  Thank you for reading!