# Zhenskaya Hockey League

The Zhenskaya Hockey League or ZhHL (Russian: Женская хоккейная лига, romanized: Zhenskaya khokkeynaya liga, lit. 'Women's Hockey League'), officially called the Women's Hockey League (WHL), is a professional ice hockey league in Russia, currently comprising eight teams. The league is also known as the PariMatch Women's Hockey League for sponsorship reasons.
The league was founded via a joint partnership of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia (FHR) on 19 June 2015. It replaced the Russian Women's Hockey League (RWHL), which had been founded in 1995 and was operated by the FHR alone.

## History

The creation of the Zhenskaya Hockey League was announced on 12 September 2014 at a meeting of Alexander Medvedev, president of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), and Vladislav Tretiak, president of the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia (FHR). The parties expressed their readiness to jointly establish the ZhHL and to achieve the dream of taking women's hockey in Russia to a new level of development. However, the FHR established the Zhenskaya Hockey League independently. There was a meeting with representatives of different Russian women's hockey teams on 2 July 2014. On the same day, the Honored Master of Sports, Alexei Yashin, was elected as president of the league while Yevgeny Chizhmin was appointed as the league's executive director.
However, the process of creating the league stalled because of a disagreement of the KHL with the fact that the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia established the league without reaching an agreement with the KHL, and on 22 December 2014, Alexei Yashin said in an interview with Championat.com: "While all this is a little suspended, what will happen next is hard for me to say. The management has made such a decision about changes in the KHL, which is what it is. I have a very good relationship with Alexander Ivanovich Medvedev. I think he did a lot for our hockey. I have not talked with Dmitry Chernyshenko yet. As for the women's league, when we talked, there was a certain situation that the KHL, FHR and Ruslan Gutnov would participate in the creation and development of this project. Now, while this process has slowed down, it's difficult for me to talk about terms."
The KHL, with the FHR, returned to the subject of the ZhHL in 2015. On 23 April 2015, the FHR Executive Committee voted to transfer the rights to host the women's ice hockey Russian Championship to the KHL. On 19 June 2015, the KHL established the Zhenskaya Hockey League, holding a presentation of a new league in the Ministry of Sport of Russia. On 8 September 2015, after the first matches of the championship of the ZhHL, the Board of Directors of the KHL approved the Rules of the League Championship.
Prior to the 2016–17 season, an eighth team, Dinamo Kursk, was supposed to be added to compete in the league. However, on 5 September 2016, despite the league taking all possible measures to ensure they would take part, Dinamo Kursk ultimately withdrew from the competition due to unresolved organizational and logistical issues. On 25 July 2019, the Shenzhen KRS Vanke Rays announced it was joining the ZhHL for the 2019–20 season.

## Teams
### 2024–25 season

In June 2023, the only China-based team in the Zhenskaya Hockey League, Shenzhen KRS, announced they would not participate in the 2023–24 ZhHL season "due to the participation of players of the Chinese national team in the domestic championship of the country." The withdrawal of Shenzhen KRS reduced the number of participating teams to eight, all of which are located in Russia.
The departure of Shenzhen KRS, which featured sixteen Chinese and four Canadian players during the 2022–23 season, and the transfer of Hungarian-American forward Hayley Williams from Dinamo-Neva to Hokiklub Budapest in the European Women's Hockey League, left Czech defenseman Pavlína Horálková of Biryusa as the only foreign import player active in the 2023–24 ZhHL season. In November 2023, Czech forward Alena Polenská signed with Agidel Ufa to bring the number of foreign nationals to two for the remainder of the season.
In the 2024–25 season, there are two players with foreign citizenship active in the ZhHL: Czech defenseman Pavlína Horálková of Dinamo-Neva, and Russian-Latvian forward Alexandra Stolyarova of Belye Medveditsy.
| Team name | Location | Home venue | Head coach | Captain |
| Agidel | Ufa | Ice Palace Salavat Yulaev | Valeri Davletshin [ru] | Mariya Pechnikova |
| Belye Medveditsy | Chelyabinsk | Traktor Ice Arena | Denis Afinogenov | |
| Biryusa | Krasnoyarsk | Platinum Arena [ru] | Alexander Vedernikov [ru] | |
| Dinamo-Neva | Saint Petersburg | Jubilee Sports Complex [ru] | Alexander Zybin [ru] | |
| MSMO 7.62 | Voskresensk | Podmoskovie Ice Palace | Alexander Syrtsov [ru] | |
| SKSO | Yekaterinburg | Ice Arena A. Kozitsyna | Sergei Chistyakov | |
| Tornado | Dmitrov | Dmitrov Sports Complex [ru] | Sergei Bondarenko | |
| Torpedo | Nizhny Novgorod | KRK Nagorny | Oleg Namestnikov [ru] | Angelina Goncharenko |
Sources:

## Russian Champions

* 1996 : Luzhniki Moscow (HC SKIF)
* 1997 : CSK VVS Moscow (HC SKIF)
* 1998 : CSK VVS Moscow (HC SKIF)
* 1999 : Viking Moscow (HC SKIF)
* 2000 : Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg
* 2001 : SKIF Moscow (HC SKIF)
* 2002 : SKIF Moscow (HC SKIF)
* 2003 : SKIF Moscow (HC SKIF)
* 2004 : SKIF Moscow (HC SKIF)
* 2005 : SKIF Moscow (HC SKIF)
* 2006 : HC Tornado
* 2007 : HC Tornado
* 2008 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (HC SKIF)
* 2009 : HC Tornado
* 2010 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (HC SKIF)
* 2011 : HC Tornado
* 2012 : HC Tornado
* 2013 : HC Tornado
* 2014 : SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (HC SKIF)
* 2015 : HC Tornado
* 2016 : HC Tornado
* 2017 : HC Tornado
* 2018 : Agidel Ufa
* 2019 : Agidel Ufa
* 2020 : KRS Vanke Rays
* 2021 : Agidel Ufa
* 2022 : KRS Vanke Rays
* 2023 : Agidel Ufa
* 2024 : Dinamo-Neva St. Petersburg

### Russian Champions by season

| Year | Champion | Runners-up | Third Place |
| Russian Women's Hockey League |
| 1995–96 | Luzhniki Moscow | Uralochka-Auto Yekaterinburg | Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk |
| 1996–97 | CSK VVS Moscow | Spartak Yekaterinburg | Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk |
| 1997–98 | CSK VVS Moscow | Spartak Yekaterinburg | Spartak Moscow |
| 1998–99 | Viking Moscow | Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg | Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk |
| 1999–2000 | Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg | Viking Moscow | Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk |
| 2000–01 | SKIF Moscow | Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg | Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk |
| 2001–02 | SKIF Moscow | Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg | Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk |
| 2002–03 | SKIF Moscow | Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg | Lokomotiv Krasnoyarsk |
| 2003–04 | SKIF Moscow | HC Tornado | Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg |
| 2004–05 | SKIF Moscow | HC Tornado | Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg |
| 2005–06 | HC Tornado | SKIF Moscow | Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg |
| 2006–07 | HC Tornado | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod | Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg |
| 2007–08 | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod | HC Tornado | Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg |
| 2008–09 | HC Tornado | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod | Lokomotiv-Energia Krasnoyarsk |
| 2009–10 | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod | HC Tornado | Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg |
| 2010–11 | HC Tornado | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod | Fakel Chelyabinsk |
| 2011–12 | HC Tornado | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod | Agidel Ufa |
| 2012–13 | HC Tornado | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod | Agidel Ufa |
| 2013–14 | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod | HC Tornado | Agidel Ufa |
| 2014–15 | HC Tornado | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod | Agidel Ufa |
| Zhenskaya Hockey League |
| 2015–16 | HC Tornado | Agidel Ufa | Biryusa Krasnoyarsk |
| 2016–17 | HC Tornado | Agidel Ufa | Dinamo Saint Petersburg |
| 2017–18 | Agidel Ufa | HC Tornado | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod |
| 2018–19 | Agidel Ufa | Dinamo Saint Petersburg | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod |
| 2019–20 | KRS Vanke Rays | Agidel Ufa | HC Tornado/Biryusa Krasnoyarsk |
| 2020–21 | Agidel Ufa | KRS Vanke Rays | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod/Biryusa Krasnoyarsk |
| 2021–22 | KRS Vanke Rays | SKIF Nizhny Novgorod | HC Tornado/Dinamo-Neva St. Petersburg |
| 2022–23 | Agidel Ufa | Dinamo-Neva St. Petersburg | Biryusa Krasnoyarsk/Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod |
| 2023–24 | Dinamo-Neva St. Petersburg | Biryusa Krasnoyarsk | Agidel Ufa/Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod |

### All-time Russian Championship titles

| Team | Titles | Years Won |
| HC SKIF | 12 | 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2014 |
| HC Tornado | 9 | 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 |
| Agidel Ufa | 4 | 2018, 2019, 2021, 2023 |
| KRS Shenzhen | 2 | 2020, 2022 |
| Spartak-Mercury Yekaterinburg | 1 | 2000 |
| Dinamo-Neva St. Petersburg | 1 | 2024 |