Kontinental Hockey League

"KHL" redirects here. For other uses, see KHL (disambiguation).

Kontinental Hockey League
Current season, competition or edition:
Current sports event 2024–25 KHL season
FormerlyRussian Superleague (RSL)
SportIce hockey
Founded2008; 16 years ago (2008)
PresidentAlexei Morozov
MottoХоккей – наша игра! (Hockey is our game!)
Хакей – наша гульня!
Хоккей – біздің ойын!
冰球，就是我们的生活！[1]
No. of teams23
Country
Most recent
champion(s)		Metallurg Magnitogorsk
(3rd title)
Most titlesHC CSKA Moscow
Ak Bars Kazan
Metallurg Magnitogorsk
(3 titles each)
TV partner(s)

KHL TV, KHL TV Prime (Russia (as part of the NTV Plus package), Russia and international through KHL's website)
Match TV (Russia)
Belarus 5 (Belarus)
Qazsport (Kazakhstan)
CCTV-5+ (China)

Related
competitions
Official websiteKHL.ru

The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL; Russian: Континентальная хоккейная лига (КХЛ), romanized: Kontinental'naya khokkeynaya liga) is an international professional ice hockey league founded in 2008. It comprises member clubs based in Russia (20), Belarus (1), Kazakhstan (1), and China (1) for a total of 23 clubs.

It was considered in 2015 to be the strongest professional ice hockey league in Europe and Asia, and tied for the second-strongest in the world with the American Hockey League behind North America's National Hockey League.[2][3] The KHL had in 2017 the highest total attendance in Europe with 15.32 million spectators in the regular season[4] and third-highest average attendance in Europe with 26,121 spectators per game in the regular season.[5] The Gagarin Cup is awarded annually to the league's playoff champion at the end of each season. The title of Champion of Russia is given to the highest-ranked Russian team.[6]

  1. ^ Новый игровой ролик КХЛ "Пробка" (in Russian). khl.ru. Archived from the original on 9 August 2010. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
  2. ^ "World of difference for KHL?". iihf.com. 7 May 2012. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
  3. ^ "Ranking the Top Ten Hockey Leagues". The Hockey Writers. 10 January 2015.
  4. ^ "Хоккей. КХЛ. Регулярный чемпионат 2016/2017 – Факты". Championat.com. Archived from the original on 4 October 2018. Retrieved 28 June 2017.
  5. ^ "KHL is on the 3rd place by attendance". IIHF. Retrieved 4 June 2017.
  6. ^ "About the KHL". khl.ru. Archived from the original on 8 February 2012. Retrieved 30 January 2012.