Russian hockey league KHL suspends indefinitely matches on schedule for Jan. 15-21

The Russian Kontinental League (KHL) has postponed indefinitely all of its ice hockey matches scheduled for January 15-21 due to the recent surge of positive COVID-19 cases among players and staff, the press service of the KHL said.

"As of January 12, there were 171 positive PCR tests in the League’s teams, 124 of them concerning players," the statement reads. "This translates as an increase of 60 cases in just one day (including 27 players)."

"Due to the rapid increase in the number of cases in the clubs and the high contagiousness of the virus, the League decided to postpone the game days on Jan 15, 17, 19 and 21, 2022, to later dates to be announced in a following official communication," according to KHL’s statement.

Commenting on the decision KHL President Alexei Morozov said: "I want to reiterate - our main goal in the pandemic is the health of players and fans. Nothing has changed in this aspect."

"The epidemiological situation is developing rapidly: in the last 24 hours, 60 people in the League got sick, and several clubs showed symptoms of the disease," he continued. "The KHL will hold games over the next three match days with the participation of clubs where there will be no worsening of the epidemiological situation."

"The speed of spread of the disease, as well as current information on the epidemiological situation in the country and the world indicate that in the next three days the number of registered cases of coronavirus will increase by many times," Morozov stated.

"That’s why the League decided to postpone four match days, where most games will not take place because of the quarantine in the teams," the KHL chief added.

COVID-19 positive cases were registered among many of the league’s clubs, namely in CSKA Moscow HC, Salavat-Yulaev HC, Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg HC, Dynamo Riga HC and Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod HC and others.

The league’s press service announced earlier in the week that a final decision regarding changes in the calendar would be made after January 23, when the KHL takes a break for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in China’s Beijing.

The 2022 Winter Olympic Games in the Chinese capital of Beijing are scheduled to be held between February 4 and 20.

The Kontinental Hockey League was founded in Russia in 2008 and lists 24 professional ice hockey clubs until this year, namely from Russia, Belarus, China, Finland, Kazakhstan and Latvia.