Where We Stand, as July Approaches
Russian hockey teams are beginning to return to the ice in preparation for the new season, with the KHL clubs starting their camps in mid-July. And while we still do not have official team lists for 2020-21, there has been some news over the past couple of months regarding which clubs are in, and which are out. Read on, as we take a preliminary look at how the various leagues in Russian hockey will look in the coming season, all being well.
The KHL looks set to begin on September 2nd, about the usual time, with teams going to training camp in mid-July. Admiral Vladivostok, we know, are out, at least for the coming campaign, but so far that seems to be the only change in the list of teams. There have been questions raised about Dinamo Riga, who have not yet begun the summer roster-building as they wait for clarity on budget (that clarity should arrive very soon). Currently, the Latvian club has no players under contract to the senior team, nor a head coach, (Pēteris Skudra, Valērijs Kuļibaba, and Boris Mironov are among the names being mentioned for the latter post). I don’t know that there’s too much cause for alarm about Dinamo just yet; we have seen them have late starts to the signing-season before, and the team did submit all necessary documentation for participation in 2020-21. However, it’s a situation worth keeping an eye on.
The other big question in the KHL right now involves Kunlun Red Star Beijing, and where they will play in 2020-21. The COVID-19 situation may well complicate border-crossing, and there has been a lot of talk of the Chinese club finding a temporary home in Russia as a result. Beijing remains Kunlun Red Star’s first choice, of course, but Krasnoyarsk and Vladivostok have also been mentioned. Both of those eastern Russian cities have KHL-ready arenas (Krasnoyarsk, you may recall, built a new rink to host the 2019 Winter Universiade, while in Vladivostok, Admiral’s Fetisov Hall arena is without a KHL tenant for the coming season).
Kunlun Red Star are preparing a new home rink in Beijing, at the 20,000-seat National Indoor Stadium which will be the hockey centrepiece at the 2022 Olympics. Renovations to the facility are scheduled to be completed this Fall, so if all goes well with the pandemic situation, KRS could move into their new home quite soon.
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In the Women’s Hockey League, most of the issues this spring and early summer have surrounded the situation at Agidel Ufa. The 2018 and 2019 champions, and runners-up in the most recent campaign, got caught up in some (apparently now resolved) financial issues at KHL parent club Salavat Yulaev Ufa, and there have been rumours that Agidel would fold as a result of those problems. Another possibility mentioned is that Agidel will move from Ufa to Neftekamsk, where Salavat Yulaev’s VHL farm team also plays. Neither of those possibilities, understandably enough, have been popular with the Agidel players and staff, who wrote an open letter to the Head of the Republic of Bashkortostan asking him to intervene. The Salavat Yulaev front office has denied that Agidel will fold, but demurred on the subject of the move to Neftekamsk. Since early May, there has been no news at all on the Agidel situation, so we wait; losing Agidel would be something of a nightmare for the Women’s Hockey League, so we hope that this situation can be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
Pending any news on the above, it looks like the ZhHL will enter 2020-21 with the same roster of teams that played last season, which is fine. Of course, the same questions about venue that Kunlun Red Star face in the KHL can also be applied to their women’s team, defending ZhHL champions KRS Vanke Rays Shenzhen. Vanke Rays’ new arena is under construction in Shenzhen (see tweet above), so any absence from the city will be temporary, but they may need to find a new home for next season. We will see.
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The VHL has announced the departures of two clubs for next season, due to the COVID-19 situation. One of those, very sadly, is Humo Tashkent, a project that we watched with great interest last season. The newly-founded Uzbek club, which has a stated intent to join the KHL in a few years, was a popular draw for fans in Tashkent, and not only made the playoffs but upset Toros Neftekamsk in seven games in the first round. The hope here is that we will see Humo again in 2021-22, and that the project’s interruption will just a “blip” in its long-term development. The other team departing is ORG Beijing, the independent team from the Chinese capital. The ORG team was created last summer as the result of a shuffle of the farm system at Kunlun Red Star (KRS got a new VHL farm team, KRS-BSU, while ORG, formerly KRS-ORG, became an independent team funded by the eponymous technology company). ORG Beijing finished 13th out of 18 teams in the West Conference in their first season as an independent club, and missed the playoffs.
We also have news of one team relocating: Dynamo Moscow’s farm team will move closer to the club’s home-base by shifting from Tver to Krasnogorsk, on the northwestern outskirts of Russia’s capital. The VHL team’s new home will be the Vladimir Petrov Ice Arena, and they will play as Dynamo Moscow Oblast.
This may not represent the final tally of team changes for the VHL — that league does tend to see some turnover every summer. We particularly keep an on Cheng Tou Jilin City and KRS-BSU Beijing, who like other Chinese teams in Russian leagues may face problems with the border. Where and even if those two teams will play next season is unconfirmed at the moment. Sport-Express announced in late April that Cheng Tou and KRS-BSU would withdraw from the league for next season; as far as I know, that has not been officially confirmed, but the omens are not good.
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In the MHL, Russia’s top men’s junior league, there may actually be some expansion news of the good variety. The Boris Mikhailov Hockey Academy, whose U20 team had been playing in the second-tier junior NMHL, has applied for membership in the MHL; if that application is accepted, they will move from their current home, in Novomoskovsk south of Moscow, to the nearby regional capital, Tula. Dynamo Moscow’s junior team, meanwhile, will join the the club’s VHL squad in moving from Tver to Krasnogorsk (see above), and will play as MHK Dynamo Moscow.
There will be at least one exit from the MHL as well, with the league’s lone Chinese team, ORG Junior Beijing withdrawing. ORG-Junior were based last season in Dmitrov, just north of Moscow, but the less said about their 2019-20 campaign, the better (they finished 1-63). The team’s struggles, but moreso the withdrawal from competition, have led to ORG-Junior’s demise. The question now is whether Kunlun Red Star will resurrect their U20 team in the MHL, to give Chinese juniors some regular high-level competition. There is also some considerable talk that Kazakh team Altay Ust-Kamenogorsk will withdraw for the coming season for financial reasons. Altay, junior affiliate of the VHL’s Torpedo Ust-Kamenogorsk, missed the playoffs last season, but did boast MHL-leading scorer Stas Petrosyan in the lineup.
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We wait, still for team-lineup news from the NMHL (second-tier men’s junior) and the Pervenstvo VHL (third-tier men’s professional). Next month should bring some clarity as to what will be happening with those leagues in the new season.
In the far-eastern Asia League, which includes one Russian team on the island of Sakhalin, there is some good news: that circuit will expand from seven teams to eight this coming season, with the introduction of Japanese club Yokohama Grits.
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As for the KHL, ZhHL, VHL, and MHL, as you can see the main questions have to do with the Chinese clubs; the two ORG teams are out, real questions remain about the participation of KRS-BSU and Cheng Tou, . Other questions concern that state of affairs as regards spectators for the games; Jokerit Helsinki, for example, will permit only half capacity at their Hartwall Arena until at least the start of October. Those issues remain unresolved for the moment, and of course, we have to be aware that the pandemic situation could change at any moment.
In the meantime, however, fingers crossed and roll on the new season — thank you for reading! Next up here, we’ll start to take a look at the KHL’s coaches for 2020-21.
Posted on June 29, 2020, in 2020-21, Asia League, Junior Hockey, KHL, MHL, NMHL, Pervenstvo VHL, RWHL, VHL. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.
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