The Russian Superleague (russian: Чемпионат России Суперлига, ''Russian Championship Superleague''), commonly abbreviated as RSL, was the highest division of the main professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice ...

league in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

. It was considered the second best league in the world, after the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranke ...

(NHL) of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

. It was a part of the Russian Pro Hockey League which was composed of three divisions — the Superleague, Major League (''Vysshaya Liga''), and First League (''Pervaya Liga''). The league was rebranded after the 2007/2008 season as the

KHL The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL; russian: Континентальная хоккейная лига (КХЛ), Kontinental'naya khokkeynaya liga) is an international professional ice hockey league founded in 2008. It comprises member clubs b ...

. The KHL absorbed all 20 teams from the previous RSL season, for a total of 24 for its inaugural campaign.

History

The origins of the Superleague are in the old Soviet League, which was founded in 1946. The Soviet era was dominated by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

-affiliated

CSKA Moscow CSKA Moscow (russian: ЦСКА Москва) is a Russian sports club based in Moscow. It was created in 1911 in the Russian Empire on base of OLLS (Skiing Society, founded 1901). Later, during the Soviet era, it was a central piece of the big So ...

, who won 32 of the 46 championships. The league lasted until 1992 due to the Soviet Union's collapse. After its transformation into the International Hockey League, the league was rechristened the Russian Hockey League in 1996. From 1996 to 1999, league membership was Russian-only. In 1999, membership was open and the league went international, and was renamed the Russian Superleague. Journalist

Vsevolod Kukushkin Vsevolod Vladimirovich Kukushkin (russian: link=no, Всеволод Владимирович Кукушкин; born 3 May 1942) is a Russian journalist, writer and ice hockey administrator. He has written for ''Komsomolskaya Pravda'', TASS, RI ...

acted as a

press secretary A press secretary or press officer is a senior advisor who provides advice on how to deal with the news media and, using news management techniques, helps their employer to maintain a positive public image and avoid negative media coverage. Dut ...

for the league.

Teams (2007–08)

There were 20 teams in the Superleague in 2007–08. *

Amur Khabarovsk Hockey Club Amur (russian: Хоккейный клуб Амур), commonly referred to as the Amur Khabarovsk, is a Russian professional ice hockey team based in Khabarovsk. They are members of the Chernyshev Division of the Kontinental Hockey Le ...

Avangard Omsk Hockey Club Avangard (russian: ХК Авангард, links=no, Vanguard), also known as Avangard Omsk, is a Russian professional ice hockey team from Omsk. It is a member of the Chernyshev Division in the Eastern Conference of the Kontinental ...

Ak Bars Kazan Hockey Club Ak Bars (russian: Ак Барс, tt-Cyrl, Ак Барс, en, Snow Leopard), also known as Ak Bars Kazan, is a Russian professional ice hockey team based in Kazan. They are members of the Kharlamov Division of the Kontinental Hockey ...

* Dynamo Moscow * Khimik Moscow Oblast * Lada Togliatti * Lokomotiv Yaroslavl *

Metallurg Magnitogorsk Metallurg Magnitogorsk (russian: Металлург Магнитогорск) is a professional ice hockey team based in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. They are members of the Kharlamov Division of the Kontinental Hockey League. They ...

Metallurg Novokuznetsk Metallurg Novokuznetsk (russian: Металлург Новокузнецк) is a professional ice hockey team from Siberia based in Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo Oblast, Russia. They are currently members of the Supreme Hockey League (VHL). History The ...

* MVD Moscow Oblast * Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk *

Salavat Yulaev Ufa Hockey Club Salavat Yulaev (russian: Хоккейный клуб «Салават Юлаев», Hokkejnyj klub «Salavat Julajev»; ba, «Салауат Юлаев» хоккей клубы, «Salawat Yulayev» xokkey klubı), commonly referred ...

Severstal Cherepovets Hockey Club Severstal is a professional ice hockey team based in Cherepovets, Vologda Oblast, Russia. They are members of the Tarasov Division in the Kontinental Hockey League. History Founded in 1956, the club was originally known as Stroitel ( ...

* Sibir Novosibirsk *

SKA Saint Petersburg The Hockey Club SKA (russian: Спортивный клуб СКА), often referred to as SKA Saint Petersburg and literally as the Sports Club of the Army, is a Russian professional ice hockey club based in Saint Petersburg. They are members o ...

* Spartak Moscow *

Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod (russian: Торпедо Нижний Новгород) is a professional ice hockey club in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. It is a member of the Bobrov Division in the Kontinental Hockey League. The team's home arena is Trad ...

* Traktor Chelyabinsk *

Vityaz Chekhov Hockey Club Vityaz (, en, HC Knight) is a professional ice hockey team based in Podolsk, Moscow Oblast, Russia. They are members of the Bobrov Division of the Kontinental Hockey League. In the first few seasons of the KHL, the team was widely ...

Competition

The competition consisted of the regular season and the play-off. The games were played in accordance with the

International Ice Hockey Federation The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF; french: Fédération internationale de hockey sur glace; german: Internationale Eishockey-Föderation) is a worldwide governing body for ice hockey. It is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and has 83 ...

(IIHF) rules. During the regular season, each team faced each other team three times (twice at home/once away, or once at home/twice away). Each team played 57 games during the regular season. If a game was drawn, a five-minute sudden-death overtime was played, followed by a shootout. Three points were awarded for a win in regulation, two points for an overtime or shootout win, one point for an overtime or shootout loss, and no points for a loss in regulation. The 16 teams with the best regular-season records qualified for the playoffs. Each playoff round was a best-of-five series. In each round, the teams were paired according to the regular season performance. The top team was paired with the bottom team, the second-ranked team was paired with the team with the second worst regular-season performance, and so on. The higher-ranked team played Games One, Two, and Five on home ice.

Champions

Russian Super League champions

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

— Salavat Yulaev Ufa *

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple Inc., Apple's first iPhone (1st generation), iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakis ...

— Metallurg Magnitogorsk *

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro votes to declare independence from Serbia; The 2006 ...

— Ak Bars Kazan *

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; " Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discover ...

— Dynamo Moscow *

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight ...

— Avangard Omsk *

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A ...

— Lokomotiv Yaroslavl *

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

— Lokomotiv Yaroslavl *

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanist ...

— Metallurg Magnitogorsk *

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

— Dynamo Moscow *

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

— Metallurg Magnitogorsk *

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

— Ak Bars Kazan (Cup of Russia — Metallurg Magnitogorsk) *

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

— Torpedo Yaroslavl (since 2000 named as Lokomotiv Yaroslavl)

Players with most championships

:Four-time winners: * Igor Shadilov 2000, 2005, 2006, 2008 * Alexei Tereshchenko 2000, 2005, 2006, 2008 *

Vladimir Antipov Vladimir Borisovich Antipov (russian: Владимир Борисович Антипов; born January 14, 1978) is a Russian former professional ice hockey player who was last signed to play for CSKA Sofia in the Bulgarian Hockey League (BHL). ...

1997, 2002, 2003, 2008

Video games

Teams from the league are playable in ''

NHL 09 ''NHL 09'' is the 17th video game in the NHL series released by EA Sports in 2008. This was the final NHL game to be released on the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows. Online play Players have the ability to create a player to use in online ...

''.

References

Russian Super League
{{Ice Hockey Leagues Sports leagues established in 1999 Organizations disestablished in 2008 Defunct ice hockey leagues in Russia 1999 establishments in Russia 2008 disestablishments in Russia

History

Teams (2007–08)

Competition

Champions

Russian Super League champions

Players with most championships

Video games

See also

References