The Changing Face of the Mysterious KHL

There's about 8,200 kilometres that separates the furthest teams in the Kontinental Hockey League. This distance—between Zagreb, Croatia, and Vladivostok, in Eastern Russia—stretches from Central Europe to the Sea of Japan. In between exists a historical-linguistic patchwork that belies easy description. It is the territorial home of cultures that predate recorded history and which are as distinct from one another as the swamplands of St. Petersburg are from the smog of Beijing. This fractured expanse of civilization now has a common thread in hockey.

But according to some reports, this thread is susceptible to breaking. Quoting from an interview given by KHL president Dmitry Chernyshenko to R-Sport last November, several North American publications speculated about the league contracting teams. The KHL vehemently denied this to VICE Sports, and said Chernyshenko's comments were taken out of context.

This disconnect—between its frequently negative representation in the Western media and the KHL's version of reality—destabilizes the idea of the league as a serious business with lasting power. Truth exists somewhere in the gulf separating these two camps, but it remains shrouded in cultural suspicions that go beyond the game.

The KHL's second season started last week. Its 16 playoff teams are marching toward a trophy named after astronaut Yuri Gagarin—the first human to venture into space and once a potent symbol in the USSR's ideological war with the United States. Declared a "hero of the Soviet Union" by Nikita Khrushchev, Gagarin was killed in a plane crash seven years after his triumph. His remains are entombed in the Kremlin.

The institution for which Gagarin is a badge of Russian virtue has a range only slightly less expansive than his cosmic flight. Twenty-nine KHL teams are spread across eight countries and two continents, and with the addition of Beijing's Kunlun Red Star, its member nations are home to over 1.5 billion people. It is regarded as the second-best hockey league in the world and features much of the finest skill outside of the NHL. This season, Pavel Datsyuk—a former Detroit Red Wings superstar and one of the most beloved NHLers in recent memory—returned to Russia, where he plays in St. Petersburg alongside Ilya Kovalchuk, who was a longtime star in North America, scoring 50-plus goals twice with the Atlanta Thrashers. The league also possesses a trove of talent most North Americans have never heard of.

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