The puck will drop at Beijing’s LeSports Center – formally known as the MasterCard Center – this September, as the Russia-backed Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) expands into China for the first time. The league's deputy chairman Roman Rotenberg has revealed that the yet unnamed team will be financed by Russian and Chinese firms, according to news agency Tass.
Plans are also underway for a hockey youth academy, which will be staffed by KHL's own “children’s coaches." The academy will be be part-funded by the Chinese Government, in the hope of growing hockey's profile ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
The KHL, which boasts 28 teams across seven countries, is shifting its expansion plans away from Europe and is instead is setting its sights on Asia, according to ESPN Go. Currently, the league is centered around Russia, which hosts 22 of the league’s teams. The remaining six KHL teams are located in Belarus, Croatia, Finland, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Slovakia. A team in South Korea may follow Beijing in the coming years, according to TSN’s Rick Westhead.
LeSports Center has a capacity of 18,000 people and is also the home of the Beijing Ducks basketball team. The stadium will presumably play a role in the 2022 Winter Olympics, as it did during the 2008 Summer Games.
[Cover image of KHL All-Star Game, accessed via UFA Sports.]
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