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Women's Hockey League
Женская хоккейная лига
Current season or competition:
2019–20 ZhHL season
Russian Womens Hockey League logo
Formerly Russian Women's Hockey League
Sport Ice hockey
Founded 1995 (reorganized as Women's Hockey League in 2015)
Motto Красивая Лига
“The Beautiful League”
Inaugural season [[as Russian Women's Hockey League 1995-96
as Women's Hockey League 2015-16 in sports|as Russian Women's Hockey League 1995-96
as Women's Hockey League 2015-16]]
No. of teams 8
Most recent champion(s) KRS Vanke Rays (1st title)
Most championships SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (12)
Official website whl.khl.ru
Related competitions Kontinental Hockey League (KHL)
Founder Ice Hockey Federation of Russia & Kontinental Hockey League

The Women's Hockey League (Russian: Женская хоккейная лига (ЖХЛ)) is the national women's ice hockey league in Russia.[1] The league originally began in 1995 as the Russian Women's Hockey League (RWHL).

History[]

For the first time, the creation of the Women's Hockey League was announced on September 12, 2014 at a working meeting of the presidents of the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia (FHR) and the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), Alexander Medvedev and Vladislav Tretiak. The parties expressed their readiness to jointly establish the WHL and to achieve the dream of taking women's hockey in Russia to a new level of development. However, the FHR established the Women's Hockey League independently. There was a meeting with representatives of different women's hockey teams of Russia on July 2, 2014. On the same day, the Honored Master of Sports Alexei Yashin was elected as president of the league while Yevgeny Chizhmin was appointed as the league's executive director.

However, the process of creating the league stalled because of a disagreement of the KHL with the fact that the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia established the league without reaching an agreement with the KHL, and on December 22, 2014, Alexei Yashin said in an interview with Championat.com: "While all this is a little suspended, what will happen next is hard for me to say. The management has made such a decision about changes in the KHL, which is - that is. I have very good relations with Alexander Ivanovich Medvedev. I think he did a lot for our hockey. I have not talked with Dmitry Chernyshenko yet. As for the women's league, when we talked, there was a certain situation that the KHL, FHR and Ruslan Gutnov would participate in the creation and development of this project. Now, while this process has slowed down, it's difficult for me to talk about terms".

The KHL, with the FHR, returned to the subject of the WHL in 2015. On April 23, 2015, the FHR Executive Committee voted to transfer the rights to host the Russian Championship among women's teams to the KHL. On June 19, 2015, the KHL established the Women's Hockey League, holding a presentation of a new league in the Ministry of Sport of Russia. On September 8, 2015, after the first matches of the championship of the WHL, the Board of Directors of the KHL approved the Rules of the League Championship.

Prior to the 2016-17 season, an eighth team, Dinamo Kursk, was supposed to added to compete in the league. However, on September 5, 2016, despite the league taking all possible measures to ensure they would take part, Dinamo Kursk ultimately withdrew from the competition due to unresolved organizational and logistical issues.[2] On July 25, 2019, the Shenzhen KRS Vanke Rays announced it was joining the WHL for the 2019–20 season.[3]

Participating teams for 2019–2020[]

Team City Arena Capacity Founded Joined league
Agidel Ufa Flag of Russia Ufa Ice Palace Salavat Yulaev 4,043 2010 2015
Dynamo Flag of Russia Saint Petersburg Sports Palace "SPBGBU CFMC and VO" 500 2013 2015
SK Gorny Ukhta Flag of Russia Saint Petersburg Yubileyny Sports Palace 7,000 2018 2019
Biryusa Krasnoyarsk Flag of Russia Krasnoyarsk LD Sokol 200 1987 2015
HC Tornado Flag of Russia Dmitrov Dmitrov Sports Complex 2,500 2003 2015
KRS Vanke Rays Flag of China Shenzhen Shenzhen Dayun Arena 18,000 2017 2019
SKIF Flag of Russia Nizhny Novgorod Trade Union Sport Palace 5,600 1995 2015
SKSO Flag of Russia Yekaterinburg Kurganovo Sports Complex/KRK Uralets 1,500/5,570 2015 2015

Champions[]

  • 1996 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (Luzhniki Moscow)
  • 1997 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (CSK VVS Moscow)
  • 1998 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (CSK VVS Moscow)
  • 1999 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (Viking Moscow)
  • 2000 : Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg
  • 2001 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (SKIF Moscow)
  • 2002 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (SKIF Moscow)
  • 2003 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (SKIF Moscow)
  • 2004 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (SKIF Moscow)
  • 2005 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (SKIF Moscow)
  • 2006 : HC Tornado
  • 2007 : HC Tornado
  • 2008 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod
  • 2009 : HC Tornado
  • 2010 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod
  • 2011 : HC Tornado
  • 2012 : HC Tornado
  • 2013 : HC Tornado
  • 2014 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod
  • 2015 : HC Tornado
  • 2016 : HC Tornado
  • 2017 : HC Tornado
  • 2018 : Agidel Ufa
  • 2019 : Agidel Ufa
  • 2020 : KRS Vanke Rays
Club Titles Won Winning Years
SKIF Nizhny Novgorod
12
1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2014
HC Tornado (Moscow Region)
9
2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017
Agidel Ufa
2
2018, 2019
Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg
1
2000
KRS Vanke Rays
1
2020

Seasons overview[]

Year Gold medal icon Champions Silver medal icon Runners-up Bronze medal icon 3rd place medalist
1995–96 Luzhniki Moscow Uralochka-Auto Yekaterinburg Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk
1996–97 CSK VVS Moscow Spartak Yekaterinburg Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk
1997–98 CSK VVS Moscow Spartak Yekaterinburg Spartak Moscow
1998–99 Viking Moscow Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk
1999–2000 Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg Viking Moscow Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk
2000–01 SKIF Moscow Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk
2001–02 SKIF Moscow Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk
2002–03 SKIF Moscow Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk
2003–04 SKIF Moscow HC Tornado Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg
2004–05 SKIF Moscow HC Tornado Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg
2005–06 HC Tornado SKIF Moscow Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg
2006–07 HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg
2007–08 SKIF Nizhny Novgorod HC Tornado Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg
2008–09 HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod Lokomotiv-Energia Krasnoyarsk
2009–10 SKIF Nizhny Novgorod HC Tornado Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg
2010–11 HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod Fakel Chelyabinsk
2011–12 HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod Agidel Ufa
2012–13 HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod Agidel Ufa
2013–14 SKIF Nizhny Novgorod HC Tornado Agidel Ufa
2014–15 HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod Agidel Ufa
2015–16 HC Tornado Agidel Ufa Biryusa Krasnoyarsk
2016–17 HC Tornado Agidel Ufa Dinamo Saint Petersburg
2017–18 Agidel Ufa HC Tornado SKIF Nizhny Novgorod
2018–19 Agidel Ufa Dinamo Saint Petersburg SKIF Nizhny Novgorod
2019–20 KRS Vanke Rays Agidel Ufa HC Tornado/Biryusa Krasnoyarsk

References[]

External links[]


This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Russian Women's Hockey League. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Ice Hockey Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA).


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