Streaming Video of Last Week’s KHL Games

Sep 25

Avangard Omsk @  Amur Khabarovsk
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Severstal Cherepovets @  Atlant Mytischi
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Sep 26

Dinamo Moscow @  Spartak Moscow
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Another Moscow derby and another great game. Packed crowd, great atmosphere, intensity and the last few minutes full of drama.

Sep 28

Salavat Yulayev Ufa @  Metallurg Magnitogorsk
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Magnitka’s last KHL game before they take on the NHL’s New York Rangers in the Victoria Cup (live on NHL Network and MSG in North America) and they have to play last season’s Russian Superliga champs.

Dinamo Minsk @  Severstal Cherepovets
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Sep 29

HK MVD Balashikha @  Avangard Omsk
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Wayne Fleming, former Calgary Flames assistant makes his debut as the new head coach of Avangard Omsk.

Spartak Moscow @  SKA St. Petersburg
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Sibir Novosibirsk @  AK Bars Kazan
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New York Rangers Games vs. SC Bern and Metallurg Magnitogorsk Live on NHL Network!

We just found out, to our great excitement, that the New York Rangers games vs. the Swiss club SC Bern and the inaugural Victoria Cup final against current European Cup champions, Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the KHL will be shown live in North America not just on local New York based MSG, but also nationally on NHL Network!

The game vs. SC Bern will be shown at noon Eastern on Tuesday and the Victoria Cup vs. the Russian Magnitka Wed at 1:30 PM Eastern.

Update: If you’re unable to watch the game on the NHL Network look for a link to the Russian telecast of it on this site sometime on Thursday or Friday. Delayed coverage of it was just added. Yes, amazingly enough it won’t be shown live in Russia because of this week’s UEFA Champions League matches.

Update #2: You can watch the MSG telecast of the game almost in its entirety (unfortunately the first 5 minutes including a great first goal by Magnitka are missing) split into 10 parts here. We linked to part 1. We’re sure you can figure out the rest.

Wednesday’s KHL Game: Dinamo Moscow @ CSKA Moscow

Dinamo Moscow @  CSKA Moscow
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Past Week’s KHL Games

We totally slacked off this past week due to being busy with some other stuff, so to catch you up here’s the streaming video of all the available KHL games played since last Tuesday.

Sibir Novosibirsk @  SKA St. Petersburg
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Torpedo Nizhniy Novgorod @  Dinamo Moscow
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Ak Bars Kazan @  Metallurg Magnitogorsk
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Lada Togliatti @  Metallurg Magnitogorsk
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Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk @  Salavat Yulayev Ufa
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Dinamo Riga (Latvia) @  CSKA Moscow
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Ak Bars Kazan @  Salavat Yulayev Ufa
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SKA St. Petersburg @  Atlant Mytischi
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Avangard Omsk Head Coach Fired

It didn’t take long for the first coaching casualty in the KHL. Avangard’s head coach Sergei Gersonskiy and his assistant Igor Zhilinskiy were fired after just 6 games. Avangard, one of the best teams in the KHL on paper, got off to a 2-4 start on the ice despite making the biggest offseason signing in Jaromir Jagr.

The new coach will be announced in a matter of a couple of days and he won’t be Russian. According to Avangard’s board all the good Russian coaches are currently under contract so they’re looking to sign someone from abroad.

Dinamo Riga Goaltender Assaulted on the Street, Out for Three Months

Egdars Masalskis, Dinamo Riga’s starting goaltender who was just named KHL Goalie of the Week was assaulted by five or six individuals on his way home from a post game dinner yesterday in Old Riga (historic downtown). Masalskis sustained serious injuries (reportedly a broken leg among other things) that will keep him out of action for at least three months.

It’s very difficult to add much to this shocking bit of news. We wish Edgars a speedy recovery and hope that the human garbage that’s responsible for this random act of violence will be found as soon as possible. Based on some reports the Latvian police have apparently obtained a video of the incident (Old Riga is riddled with security cameras). Whatever is coming to them would be well deserved.

It is unfortunate that there is a certain type of people who would gang up on a random individual and beat them to a pulp for no other reason than their own inadequacy and boredom.

Monday’s KHL Game: HK MVD Balashikha @ Dinamo Moscow

HK MVD Balashikha (Moscow Region) @ Dinamo Moscow
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Dinamo Riga’s Second Home Game Highlights

Dinamo Riga’s second home game turned into a goaltending duel between Atlant Mytischi’s Ray Emery and Dinamo’s own Edgars Masalskis. Emery finally succumed to a couple of goals in the last 10 minutes while Masalskis came up with the shutout. Final score 2-0.

3rd period highlights with some analysis in Latvian. Woohoo, you get to hear what Latvian sounds like (and no, it’s not a Russian dialect… if you speak Russian you do not understand a thing in Latvian).

Highlights of the whole game recorded by a dedicated fan with a camcorder from the stands. Gives a really good idea of how good the crowd atmosphere is in Riga.

Introducing Nikita Filatov

No KHL games to post this weekend, but how about a sweet video compilation of a rising star, Nikita Filatov. Let’s hope he makes Columbus roster this year because with Nikolai Zherdev off to Big Bad Apple, Rick Nash is now the only show in town.

KHL Weekly Round-Up

Robert Petrovicky of Latvia's Dinamo Riga takes out his frustration of having to play the first 5 games in Bumblefuck, Russia on little Anisin of Sibir Novosibirsk.

In this week’s KHL round-up:

• Are Enforcers Really Necessary?
• Top 5 Goals of the Week as Determined by Putin.
  
• 16-year Old Boy Towering Over Men.
  
• Is Sarah Palin an Expert on Russian Hockey?
  
• Is It Time to Question Jaromir Jagr’s Leadership Qualities Yet?
  
• Has Barry Smith Been in Russia Too Long?

Every Friday there’s now a new show on Russian TV called “Hokkey Rossii” which can be translated as “Russian Hockey” or more accurately “Hockey of Russia” (even though it sounds weird to us for some reason).

This week’s show’s main theme was the discussion on whether the KHL needs enforcers. Tons of Russian league fights were shown while the two pundits in the studio debated the question. The debate got so heated that at one point the host of the show was close to losing control of the situation almost resulting in the commercial break not being shown! The horror.

Alas, order was restored, the commercials went ahead as planned (you can now move off the edge of your seat), no one in the studio was physically harmed, and the mobile fan poll produced the results slightly in favor of the skating pugilists (by about 5%). We figure that fan poll results were a bit skewed due to the fact that none of the old farts who would have surely voted against the imported bourgeoisie penchant for fisticuffs have learned how to use the texting feature on their mobile devices yet.

During the impromptu poll of KHL coaches only Andrei Nazarov of Traktor Chelyabinsk (predictably) was in favor of adding some Hanson brothers action to the KHL while Slava Bykov (note to the Canadian announcers – it is NOT pronounced Bye-kof), the head coach of CSKA Moscow, wondered out loud what the term “policeman” has to do with hockey.

- I know of the following positions in hockey. Center, left wing, right wing, defenseman and goaltender. Last I checked the position of policeman does not exist in hockey and is from another field called law enforcement.

Touche, Mr. Bee-kof, touche.

Now we’re not sure who won the studio brouhaha since the debaters did not resort to fisticuffs and we always have a difficult time determining the winner of a debate when violence isn’t used as an argument. What we’d like to see is Don Cherry invited to such a debate next time. We’d like to see someone put a fist to where Don’s big mouth is.

Oh yeah, they did show some actual hockey on the program, as well. Here are the Top 5 KHL Goals of the Week as determined by Vladimir Putin himself.

Okay, we’re not really sure if Putin picks the top 5 goals, but everyone in the West seems to think that he’s in charge of every single aspect of Russian life so we’ll just pretend that it’s true. Good work, Vladi! Who are we to disagree with Mr. Putin after all? We just blog.

If you’re a fan of seeing someone’s face smashed into the boards (and we know you are, you sick, sick bastards) here’s a video of Spartak Moscow’s Alexei Akifyev painting the boards with his blood during the Moscow derby against the Red Army club courtesy of CSKA’s defenseman, Denis Kulyash. Kulyash sounds almost like goulash to us and in Russia it is apparently a dish better served cold.

Last year’s RSL champions Salavat Yulayev of Ufa finished the first two weeks of their KHL adventure with a perfect record of 4-0 and seemingly have not broke a sweat yet, even in games against top level opposition (like Jaromir Jagr’s Avangard Omsk). 6-0 was the result of that “battle of the titans”. We have a question for Rangers fans. Is it time to question Jagr’s leadership qualities yet?

Do keep your eye on Metallurg Novokuznetsk’s 16-year old phenom Maxim Kitsyn who scored 3 goals in his first two KHL games. His team is off to a surprisingly good start and we’re very impressed with a high school age kid doing his thing at the KHL level. Not to mention the fact that at just 16 the boy towers over most men in the league.

Dinamo Riga finally returned home after a brutal 5-game road trip to the Far East to start the season (we think Sarah Palin might have even seen their two games vs. Amur Khabarovsk from Alaska, which no doubt now makes her an expert on Russian hockey) and played to a full crowd at Arena Riga. This marked a historic occasion as the famous Latvian club was resurrected as a KHL franchise after a decade of extinction (if only the dinosaurs were so lucky).

They celebrated with a 2-1 win over Hokkeynyi Klub Ministerstva Vnutrennikh Del Balashikha (Moskovskaya Oblast)… sheesh, we are fluent in Russian and that was a mouthful even for us. Okay, you can just call it HK MVD Moscow Region.

On the other hand, Barys Astana, another non-Russian KHL club are yet to win at home in Kazakhstan. And no, Borat is not on their team. Perhaps that’s the problem. We shall see.

Metallurg Magnitogorsk, lovably known as Magnitka, is off to a very slow start, even having suffered a 6-0 humiliation at the hands of Jagr’s Avangard. The reigning European Cup champions will face the NHL’s New York Rangers in the inaugural Victoria Cup come October 1st and on this form might not be the best representative of the KHL. If we were Putin we’d make an executive decision to replace them with Salavat Yulayev of Ufa.

SKA St. Petersburg is also having major issues and started the season far below expectations. After their last loss their head coach Barry Smith, in true Putin style, proclaimed, “I promise to the people of this great city we call St. Petersburg, that they will never see a 2nd period like this from us ever again!”

“And if they do”, he continued, “I will personally see to it that those responsible are held accountable!”

Wow, the chill has run down our spine. Russia is definitely rubbing off on Barry after just over a year. Must be the borscht.