# Champions Hockey League Arenas



## Commandant (Aug 25, 2009)

What happened to the Champions Hockey League?


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## koolio (Jan 5, 2008)

I guess Gazprom withdrew due to the financial crisis and no one else stepped in to fill the sponsorship void. 

Either way, I think a cross-continental tournament should be the ultimate goal. 4 teams from the NHL Western conference, 4 from the Eastern Conference and 4 from Europe. Currently they have the Victoria Cup in the NHL pre-season but no one takes that seriously. I wish the Kontinental Hockey League was more proactive about something like this.


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## Konig (Dec 7, 2010)

railcity said:


> As Red Army team, they were able to draft all the best players from the country. There was no internal competition. CSKA was more or less identical with the Soviet national team which was clearly the strongest for a long time.
> 
> CSKA is still a top team in Russia even though they didn't win any championship in the post-soviet era yet. Last year, they reached the 3rd place in regular season which is the best result since nearly 20 years. They are coached since 5 years by CSKA and Gottéron legend Slava Bykov who is at the same time also the coach of the Russian national team since 3 years (nearly like in the "old times" when the CSKA and national team coach were also mostly identical). Most of his family still lives in Switzerland. His son Andrej Bykov plays with Gottéron successfully in the National League A (and the Swiss U20-National Team).


As for the lack of competition, then you have incorrect information. During Soviet times, there were 4 top clubs from Moscow: CSKA, Spartak, Dinamo and Krylia Sovetov. The situation is similar to the submarine, recently the fight has been between Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, but most of all defeated Manchester United.
For example USSR Top League players of those times, not playing for CSKA:
Starshinov, Mayorov, Zimin, Yakushev, Shadrin, Maltsev, Myshkin, Kasparaitis, Zhamnov, Kovalev..
Three of the best Russian players in the first Summit Series(1972) vs Canada: Yakushev(Spartak), Shadrin(Spartak) and Kharlamov(CSKA).
And stats vs NHL clubs in the all Summit Series:
Spartak (3 0 2 14-12)
Krylia Sovetov (6 2 5 55-51)
Dinamo (10 4 6 75-62)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Series


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## AlekseyVT (Dec 21, 2009)

Konig said:


> As for the lack of competition, then you have incorrect information. During Soviet times, there were 4 top clubs from Moscow: CSKA, Spartak, Dinamo and Krylia Sovetov. The situation is similar to the submarine, recently the fight has been between Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, but most of all defeated Manchester United.
> For example USSR Top League players of those times, not playing for CSKA:
> Starshinov, Mayorov, Zimin, Yakushev, Shadrin, Maltsev, Myshkin, Kasparaitis, Zhamnov, Kovalev..
> Three of the best Russian players in the first Summit Series(1972) vs Canada: Yakushev(Spartak), Shadrin(Spartak) and Kharlamov(CSKA).
> ...


I'm agree. During Soviet times we had many strong clubs and one super strong.


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