Hockey begins in summer

A regular Season of the first stage of the Continental Hockey League (CHL) begins on 24 August and will end on February 18, 2016. In the eighth season of the 2015-2016 CHL  28 hockey clubs perform, this are 22 teams from Russia and one from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Slovakia, Croatia and Finland. All participants are divided into two conferences of 14 teams, the East and the West, each of which in turn is divided into two divisions. Each club will hold 60 games, each will play  one match on his own ice and one on the opponent's court, plus there will be 6 additional games (three home and three away) that the team will hold within their conference.

The President of the Continental Hockey League, Dmitry Chernyshenko said ‘’we will have an unpredictable and exciting fight in the upcoming season, despite the fact that some of your colleagues have all put in places. Nevertheless, I think there will be interesting things. The recently revived Spartak, as you can see, has given a pleasant surprise to their fans by winning two events at once: the Chernyshev Cup and the Cup of the Mayor of Moscow. The Memorial of Romazan tournament in Magnitogorsk has gathered  strong participants, and as you know, Avangard won, and the debut of coach Andrei Razin has also been interesting. "

According to Chernyshenko, the fans have missed hockey: "The fans felt that they have missed hockey, they are talking about it, and the activity on social networks and attendances at the pre-tournament matches show this. In Nizhny Novgorod, all recorded attendance was one hundred percent of all matches of Torpedo. Hockey is our trend, it is interesting. By the way, the infrastructure of the league continues to develop. We have opened new arenas. "

The fact that the regular season begins in August Chernyshenko considers as an opportunity for fans to see their favorite teams and players earlier than usual. Let me remind you that all this was done in the interests of the Russian national team training for the home championship in 2016. Therefore, it is time that we identified together with the clubs, giving priority, of course, to our interest in preparing for the fact that we can perform well in the Championship."

‘’In the new season, several players of the CHL, to this also, I have to pay attention, are holding their thousandth matches in the domestic championships. They are Gorovikov and Gorohov and Zaripov and Atyushov. This milestone has been conquered by only five players. the league continues systematic work on the implementation of all the key objectives of the strategy that we adopted on the board of directors in February 2015. We understand very well how large ambitious projects are organized and we have committed to the projects’ management. I can say that we have 11 major programs of the strategy, which is designed for three years, more than 150 major reference points, of which 45% have already been achieved. That is, at the beginning of the previous season we made quite a strong start that allowed the league to achieve, above all, financial stability, and this happened in a difficult economic situation, I think it should be recognized; we are handling a hockey vertical. This is a famous pyramid, on top of which is the national team, the CHL, senior, junior clubs, sports schools, the whole pyramid should work as a single organism.

And all this is done, of course, taking into account, above all, the interests of clubs, hockey fans, and the largest part of them, the television audience. So I am sure that sport is even more popular, and we have to consolidate its status as the most successful, economically successful, including the Continental League.’’

And all this is done in the interests of hockey fans and the largest parts - television audience. I am sure that sport is even more popular, and we have to consolidate its status as the most successful, economically successful, including the League of the continent. "